[STAR ATLAS FOR THE OTTOMAN NAVIGATORS] Seyr-i sefâinde müstamel kevâkib atlasi: Kevâkib ne sûretle bulunur ve pusula tashihi ile mevkii-yi sefine tayininde nasil istimâl olunur? [i.e. The celestial atlas used in the navigation at sea:

  • $0.00
    Unit price per 
Tax included. Shipping calculated at checkout.


ANONYMOUS., Matbaa-i Bahriye [i.e. The Printing House of the Naval Forces]., Istanbul, [AH 1335] = 1919.

COMPLETE TITLE: [STAR ATLAS FOR THE OTTOMAN NAVIGATORS] Seyr-i sefâinde müstamel kevâkib atlasi: Kevâkib ne sûretle bulunur ve pusula tashihi ile mevkii-yi sefine tayininde nasil istimâl olunur? [i.e. The celestial atlas used in the navigation at sea: Guide to stars and how to determine the coordinates of the ship with the compass]. Translated by Sıdki (Deck captain) into Ottoman Turkish.

Original burgundy cloth bdg. lettered gilt on the front board, title, date of printing, printing house, and decoration. Oblong folio. (26 x 34 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 61 p.; 6 p. text including muqaddima [i.e. introduction], methods for using maps, a monthly celestial chart of the North Pole, a table containing annual changes and distances among stars according to the year 1918, a list of degrees of the fixed stars and names of the constellations in bilingual Greek and Arabic, observations of the stars, descriptions, calculations, tables of the constellations like "Davis", other European diagrams, a method of determining meridians and equator by means of a compass, a dictionary of the stars and the constellations bilingual in Arabic and Latin, and twenty-five star charts, numbered. Fading and stains on boards and gilt lettering, otherwise a very good copy with original free endpapers.

First and only Ottoman edition of this extremely rare chromolithographed anonymous star atlas for navigators and scientists prepared based on the Arabic star charts and catalogues, translated into Ottoman Turkish in 1919 by the Ottoman warrant officer [güverte yüzbasisi] Sidki.

In his introduction, the author states that, for sailors, there is not any star atlas in the Ottoman naval literature, except for some separated maps that are cryptic and very difficult to read, and therefore he translated this atlas into Turkish from a book that he did not name.

This rare atlas includes twenty-five star and constellation charts and each chart shows the current position of stars in the night sky in a dark blueish chromolithographed printing and their negatives with Arabic names on the opposite pages. Selected charts: Stars near the North Pole.; Dübb'ül-Ekber [i.e. Ursa Major] and Dübb-ü Asgar [i.e. Ursa Minor].; Cebbâr [i.e. Orion], the sky and stars near the Orion.;  Mizârs [i.e. The Apron].; Fers-ü Azâm, or Kitaatü'l-Feres [i.e. Pegasus]., etc.

Very old star names originated among people who lived in the Arabian Peninsula more than a thousand years ago, before the rise of Islam. However, many Arabic language star names sprang up later in history, as translations of ancient Greek language descriptions. The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his Almagest (2nd century) tabulated the celestial position and brightness (visual magnitude) of 1,025 stars. Ptolemy's book translated into Arabic in the 8th and 9th centuries became famous in Europe as a 12th-century Latin translation. Many of the Arabic-language star descriptions in the Almagest came to be widely used as names for stars. Ptolemy used a strategy of "figure reference" to identify stars according to their position within a familiar constellation or asterism (e.g., "in the right shoulder of The Hunter"). Muslim astronomers adopted some of these as proper names for stars and added names from traditional Arabic star lore, which they recorded in various Zij treatises. The most notable of these is the Book of Fixed Stars written by the Muslim astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (known as Azophi in the West), who thoroughly illustrated all the stars known to him along with their observations, descriptions, positions, magnitudes, brightness, and color.

Medieval Islamic (The Golden Age) astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century. Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy. A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran, Altair, and Deneb, and astronomical terms such as “alidade”, “azimuth”, and “nadir”, are still referred to by their Arabic names.

It can be thought that this atlas of stars, whose original author is unknown, was translated from an Islamic source since it stayed true to the Arabic names of the star clusters.

Not in Özege.; Not in the National Library of Turkey.; Not in OCLC.