131

THE TAESCHNER COLLECTION (Or. 12.369, cont., 12.370)

Literature: see Schmidt, Pure Water, pp. 49-50, where other references are found.

Cod.Or. 12.370 Dürr-i meknün . . <• (J^ < 1 0 jJ A mid 17th-century, incomplete copy of a cosmography by Yaziciogh Ahmed Bican (d. in or after 870/1465-6). The title is found (in pencil) on the first flyleaf, recto, and in the margin of f. la. Many manuscripts have survived. The work is preceded by an introduction and consists of 18 chapters (for a survey of their titles, see Kaptein’s monograph, pp. 147-9). In our copy, the introduction and the first few folios of the first chapter are missing; the second chapter begins on f. 9a. There is also a small gap in the text at the end of the seventh chapter (from f. 42a) and die early part of the eighth chapter between ff. 50b and 52a; the ninth chapter begins in f. 57b; f. 51 is blank. Apart from the more conventional sub jects such as cosmographical and geographical descriptions, we also find chapters on mythology and (legendary) history such as the story of Sulayman and BilkTs (10), the story of the bird Sïmürg (15), and the Apocalypse (16-8). A drawing in black and red of the eight orbits of the planets and stars encircling the earth is found on f. 6a (see plate). A few marginal corrections and additions. (For other copies, see Codices Or. 1301 and 12.371(1), below.) A breakfeast prayer for the night of the 15th of Ramazan is written in the margin off. 11 la; a recipe for a pain-killer with a list of ingredients and besmele as well as a kurban du'asi occur in the margins of f. 111b. Rebound in soft brown leather; glazed white paper; parts of the lower side of ff. 52-57 are missing and have been replaced by slips of blank paper; the title is written on the bottom edge; (1)+111 +(1) folios; 197x143 mm and 160x99 mm- 17 lines; catchwords; vowelled nesih; headings, rubrics, Arabic quotations and dots in red; double red borders; completed by Mehmed b. Ahmed ZarTf Edimevi on 24 Zi l-kad‘e 1073 (30 June 1663); an inscription stating that the manuscript had been entrusted as a vakf to the tekke of e§-§eyb es-Seyyid Mehmed §emsr in the quarter of Ak Semsüddïh near Yenibag ? e in Istanbul, with seal', occurs in the margin of f. la; it is followed by the title and the year 96 in a different hand as well as seals of es-Seyyid Mehmed Sadruddm and San [?] Halil; the inscription ‘Franz Taeschner Ms. Nr. 47’, in his own handwriting, is found in the same