Journal or Publication Title:
Date of publication:
Volume:
Number:
ISSN:
Title:
Creator:
Subject:
Uncontrolled Keywords:
astrolabe ; Ghukas Vanandetsi ; Amirdovlat Amasiatsi ; Armenian diasporarolabe
Coverage:
Abstract:
Despite their presence in museum collections and specialist footnotes, astrolabes bearing Armenian inscriptions or commissioned by Armenian patrons have never been the subject of a systematic, interdisciplinary study. This article addresses that gap through the first integrated analysis of six instruments—held in Oxford, Fez, Doha, Yerevan, and Byurakan—dating from the late ninth to the early eighteenth century. Drawing on object biography, material epistemology, and visual semiotics, the study examines epigraphic layers, rete typologies, and patronage contexts as primary evidence. The instruments are shown to exist on a spectrum: from Islamic devices reinscribed with Armenian alphanumerical notation and vernacular star names to European-type astrolabes produced entirely in Armenian script. In each case, the physical artifact records a deliberate act of adaptation or autonomous commissioning, embedded within trans-Eurasian mercantile and courtly networks. The article thereby reconceptualises these objects not as peripheral curiosities but as material witnesses to a sustained, cross-cultural Armenian practice of astronomical knowledge production and proposes a new, object-centered agenda for their further interdisciplinary study.