Book of Curiosities: An early 11th-century Arabic cosmography

Project Description:

The website provides a digitized copy along with linked modern Arabic and English translations and searching functions of a hitherto unknown Arabic cosmographical treatise, the Kitāb Gharā'ib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-'uyūn, known as the Book of Curiosities acquired by the Bodleian Library in June 2002. The Book of Curiosities was compiled between 1020 and 1050 AD in Egypt and is important for the histories of science and cartography as it has diagrams of the sky and earth. The website contains an electronic high-quality reproduction of the original text and its illustrations, linked by mouse-overs to a modern Arabic edition and an English translation. This site also allows users to view all the images and pages in the Book of Curiosities in original size and colour, search for English and Arabic terms, and locate them in the manuscript, consult explanatory diagrams, and download a Teacher's Pack for Key Stage 3.