Thankyou danyel. This is rather an old thread my opening remarks being made in June 2008 so a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then with
new information coming to light all of the time.
I have been aware for some time now of the source of the illustration being attached to a copy of the Kitab al- adwar in the Bodleian Library, Oxford
Marsh 521 and that the illustration is a later addition but thanks for the confirmation.
Like you I have not examined the original illustration but if you say it was drawn by hand with pen and ink then I am fine with that.
That Urmawi does not describe the geometry of an oud is not relevant and he otherwise obviously had no hand at all in the drawing. The drawing does
give the names of the strings etc and confirms that it is meant to represent an oud but it goes further than that. So for you to nickname my replica
of the oud as 'Urmawi' might be misleading to some. Perhaps it should be identified as 'Bod. Marsh 521 Urmawi' or some such name - or simply a 14th C
oud?
The profile of the sound board of the oud has been drawn with the aid of a compass to a specific geometry based upon a figure that is considered to
have sacred significance by many early societies - not some random shape imagined by the scribe (although he did screw up a bit with the manipulation
of his compass in the bottom left hand corner and unable to erase the error it survives to this day).
The geometry is known in Western culture as the 'Vesica Piscis' (fish bladder - sturgeon perhaps!!). It is formed by the intersection of two circles
of equal radius with their centres on each circumference - see attached diagram.
In two dimensions it is said to represent the first stage (or sometimes step zero) of creation, the organic egg or cell - a simple circle (or a sphere
in three dimensions). The second step represents the division of a fertilised cell/egg into two parts forming the 'vesica piscis'.
How the ancients were able to figure out organic cell division without the aid of a microscope is beyond me.
This procedure is then developed by the addition of more circles to eventually form the geometrical pattern of intersecting circles known as the
'Flower of Life' One of the earliest examples can be found engraved in stone at the temple of Osiris at Abydos, Egypt - dated to around 535 BC.
Interestingly it is also the design of the rosette found on the early 19th C Brussels M.I.M. Egyptian oud #0164.
As shown in the attached sketch if a circle of the same diameter as the original 'egg/cell' circle is placed in the centre of the 'vesica piscis' then
you have the form of the 'Urmawi' oud drawing (as well as the profile of the 15th C Arnault de Zwolle lute). This shape is later found in the 16th C
described by Albrecht Dürer as an 'egg line' which is very close geometrically to an ellipse and found in lute geometry of the late 16th C.
If the geometry is represented in 3 dimensions and then 'cut in half' along the longitudinal axis then you have the shape of the oud bowl with its
depth of half the width of the sound board.
More detailed discussion on this subject can be found here on pages 2 and 3.
I have also attached a couple of images of leather covers from 15th C Ottoman/Persian/Syrian manuscripts that carry designs similar to a 'vesica
piscis' for interest - although I have not tested the geometry to confirm if they are.
I am familiar with some of those nice miniature paintings that you have posted danyel. Could you also provide information about origin and date of
those posted?
Farmer was also convinced that the early ouds were fretted yet declared that he had never seen a fretted oud depicted in the iconography - not even
the 'Urmawi' drawing (he examined that manuscripts version among others). Perhaps he did not recognise any of these instruments as ouds? Strange?
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