paradigm, embracing as it does both By zan tine
game bird flies above The benedictory inscription
Greek and Türkmen visual traditions, but also
in minute letters on the horse’s harness under-
as a step towards asserting the identity of this
lines the rider’s elevated position The scene is
Artuqid ruler The choice of this particular motif
circumscribed by a band enclosing a procession
as emblem by a Türkmen leader is particularly
of symmetrically arranged real quadrupeds as
important since it gives weight to the hypothesis
well as mythical creatures, the latter including a
that the interlaced dragon figure was introduced
centaur-archer whose tail terminates in a dragon
into Islamic art from Central Asia via the Turkish
head The band is crowned at the top by a pair of
dynasties 102 The use of a symbol which must have
expressive dragons with small wings and forelegs
carried Iranian cultural associations may thereby
whose upper bodies cross (but do not loop) so that
represent a conscious effort to revive a visual heri-
the gaping mouth of each appears to snap at the
tage from the past which at the same time served
other dragon’s looped tail end (fig 33) 104 Their
as a means of self-identification
position at the apex, as Priscilla Soucek notes,
Dragon imagery on Central Asian objects of
brings to mind the use of architectural dragons
personal adornment was also found at the fron-
as guardians at gates 105
tier town of Ūtrār, located at the confluence of
Such a mirror would have belonged to the
the Aryss and the Syr Daryā rivers Excavations
requisites of the nobility and may well, as Oya
yielded a signet ring featuring a rider on horse-
Pancaroğlu proposes, have been used as instru-
back killing a dragon, an iconography that will be
ment “of allegorical reflection and divination ”
discussed in greater depth in chapter 7, together
This mirror thus “embodies a vision of kingship
with bracelets terminating in dragon heads 103
that extends beyond the horizons of temporal
The incident at Ūtrār where a Mongolian car-
human dominion while affirming the univer-
avan was massacred by Khwārazmian officials
sality of its royal centre ”106 Mirrors have a long
led to the invasion of Transoxania by Genghis
history of association with apotropaic properties
Khān’s troops in the autumn of 616/1219 and
in antiquity and the medieval period, for they
the city’s destruction shortly thereafter It sig-
have the power of turning evil back upon itself 107
nalled the beginning of the Mongol conquest of
They are often linked with magic and the Latin
Western Asia
version of the magical manual Ghāyat al-ḥakīm
Whereas the Central Asian world yields a wide
(“The Philosopher’s Goal”), attributed to Abū
range of objects of adornment decorated with the
Maslama Muḥammad al-Majrītī (who wrote
likeness of the dragon, comparable finds from
between 443/1052 and 448/1056),108 includes
Anatolia and the Jazīra from the eleventh to the
instructions on how to make a magic mirror,
thirteenth century are generally extremely rare
ascribed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, the semi-legendary
However, on the back of an early- to mid-thir-
teenth-century Saljuq gold-inlaid steel mirror,
eighth- or ninth-century author of a large body of
which would have been a prime accoutrement,
Hermetic alchemical literature The owner of this
now in the Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, the dragon
mirror was said to have power over the winds,
occurs three times with different connotations
humankind and demons 109 The amplified depic-
The central field is decorated with a mounted fal-
tion of the dragon on such a multi-layered object,
coner on a richly caparisoned horse with a hunt-
as pair at the apex, below the horse’s hooves and
ing dog attached by a leash to the saddle A small,
as the centaur’s tail, shows that it was considered
looped dragon with raised, gaping head appears
an extremely valued and compel ing iconography
just in front of the horse’s hooves, a quadruped,
that was deemed necessary to further increase
probably a fox, seeks cover at the back, and a
the potency of the mirror’s inherent properties
102
104
Azarpay, 1978, p 366, n 20
Cf Öney, 1969a, p 171, fig 21; Erginsoy, 1978,
103 Baipakov, 1992, p 110; the date of the pieces is not
pp 456–7, figs 225 a and b; Glory of Byzantium, 1997, p 424,
mentioned They could also date to the period after the
cat no 282; Turks, 2005, cat no 72
105
destruction by the Mongols in 617/1220, since the city
Glory of Byzantium, 1997, p 424 (catalogue entry no
regained some of its commercial prominence by the middle
282 by Priscilla Soucek)
106
of the thirteenth century, as attested by the travelling Arme-
Turks, 2005, p 395, cat no 72 Cf also Pellat, “Mirʾāt,”
nian king Hetʿum II of Cilicia (Lesser Armenia, Armenian
EI² VII, 105b
107
kingdom from 1198–1375) who in his Account of the Eastern
Ullmann, 1992, pp 55–61; Maguire, 1994, p 267
108
Kingdoms (p 128, as cited in Bretschneider, 1888, repr
On Abū Maslama Muḥammad al-Majrītī, see Sezgin,
1967, p 57) called Utrār (Otrar) “the greatest city of Turke-
1971, pp 294–8
109
stan ”
Cf Strohmaier, 1989, p 267
the dragon motif on portable objects
47
d The dragon motif on vessels
dragons topped here by projecting lion-headed
knobs (fig 57) 113
The depiction of the dragon is frequently found
The dragon’s close connection with water
sculpted as part of vessels, for instance on the
has been manifested since ancient times and its
arched handles of two celebrated buckets both of
ensuing depiction on vessels containing liquid is
which are now preserved in the State Hermitage,
known at least from the early medieval period
St Petersburg One of these is the richly silver-
Often this is expressed in dragon-headed spouts
and copper-inlaid copper alloy bucket, named
This feature appears on an automaton depicted
after its collector, Count Alexei Bobrinsky, the
in the treatise written by the court engineer
famous “Bobrinski bucket,” which was purchased
Abu ’l-ʿIzz Ismāʿīl ibn al-Razzāẓ al-Jazarī (fl
in Bukhara in 1885 by N N Shavrov, the adjun-
second half of sixth/twelfth century) which
tant of General Chernyayev, governor general
details the various automata commissioned by
of Turkestan (fig 34) It was probably made in
the Artuqid ruler Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn
Herat, one of the main cultural centres of the
Muḥammad al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ (r 597/1201–
province of Khurasan which flourished espe-
619/1222) for the court’s amusement The result-
cially under the Ghurid dynasty, during whose
ing work, Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-ḥiyāl al-handasiyya
rule the vessel was produced as indicated by the
(“Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical
date muḥarram 559/December 1163 inscribed in
Devices”), dates to c 1200 114 Al-Jazarī’s “Hand-
Kufic at the top band of the handle of the bucket 110
washing machine,” which was designed for ritual
The loops of the handle are in the form of a leap-
ablutions, is depicted with a dragon-spouted ewer
ing lion and on the inside a dragon protome,
on a leaf from the earliest extant manuscript of
from whose gaping mouth issues the four-sided
this work dated to the end of Shaʿbān 602/about
arched section inscribed on two sides in naskhī
10 April 1206, copied by Muḥammad ibn yūsuf
with benedictory inscriptions (fig 56)
ibn ʿUthmān al-Ḥaṣkafī (“of Ḥiṣn Kayfā”) at
The second bucket, which in the mid-nine-
Diyārbakr, and now preserved in the Topkapı
teenth century was in the Parisian collection of
Sarayı Library, Istanbul When the machine was
Louis Fould before coming into the possession
turned on, water flowed from the cistern in the
of the St Petersburg jeweller, A K Fabergé, is
servant’s chest into the ewer, the bird on the
signed by its maker, Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir ibn
lid of the vessel whistled and the liquid poured
Muḥammad al-Harawī The toponymic (nisba)
out of the gaping mouth of the dragon-headed
al-Harawī (“from Herat”) perhaps indicates the
spout (fig 35) 115 Such a spout is also portrayed
origin of the maker, and indeed the bucket is
on a Jazīra-type copper alloy ewer (with recently
thought to have been made in late twelfth- or
replaced silver inlay), the so-called “Homberg
early thirteenth-century Khurasan, probably
Ewer,” now preserved in the Keir Collection in
in Herat 111 yet nothing is known of the maker
London, which has an overall decagonal out-
who could also have migrated from Khurasan
line The lower part of the neck is inscribed with
westwards; moreover, on the basis of its faceted
the signature of the artist, Aḥmad al-Dhakī, the
body and gilt ground as well as several decorative
engraver, al-Mawṣilī and the date 640/1242 116
elements, it has recently been attributed to the
The dragon motif in manifold variations is
early thirteenth-century Jazīra, northern Syria, or
frequently found as part of the decorative pro-
possibly Anatolia 112 Its handle is closely related
gramme of vessels, as for instance on a rectangular
to that of the Bobrinski bucket and is similarly
brass tray inlaid with silver and with a central cru-
held in place by loops in the form of curved
ciform depression in which four pairs of dragons
110
112
Cf Loukonine and Ivanov, eds , 2003, pp 114–5, cat
Ivanov, 2004, p 174; see also idem, n 19 with refer-
no 116 Cf Pope and Ackerman, eds , 1938–9, repr 1964–
ence to Oktay Aslapana (1971, p 284), who came to the same
81, vol 13, pl 1308; Rice, 1955, pls XIX–XX; Mayer, 1959,
conclusion many years ago
113
p 61; Ettinghausen, 1943, pp 193–208; Hartner, 1973–4,
Another thirteenth-century bucket of Anatolian prov-
p 122, fig 18
enance with handles terminating in dragon heads was sold at
111 See however Eva Baer’s (1983, pp 301–2) caveat with
Sotheby’s, London, 1990; cf Ivanov, 2004, p 175, fig 2
114
regard to the assumption that the nisba carried a geographic
For al-Jazarī’s sources, see Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-ḥiyāl
association that indicates the place of the artist’s work-
al-handasiyya, tr Hill, 1974, p 74
115
shop Not only could the artist have left his native town but
Cf Rogers, tr , exp and ed , 1986, p 30, cat no 10
116
it could also have indicated a special product or specialised
Fehérvári, 1976, p 105, cat no 131, pl I
technique
48