PAL

Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus

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Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, Ar. 5018

[Colour scanned images of the textblock and covers.]
Collection of two works: Arabic.  Date:

undated, 8th/14th c. (Kahle, Arberry, Charette).

Or.:

probably Egypt (Charette); unknown scribe.

Prov.:

two illegible statements (1r). Two brief cryptographic statements (1r, 34v). Old numbering used for the collection purchased from Aslan Sarkissian between 1934 and 1949: ‘AS 855’ (inside cover).

Cod.: paper, I+35+Ia ff. (foliated with Arabic-European numerals in pencil; catchwords, sometimes missing). A large and elegant black naskh hand; mostly dotted ductus with occasional vowels. Red ink for titles, chapter beginnings, and textual dividers. A table by a more recent hand (35v). Codex in good condition; moisture stains, binding detached and reinforced with paper slips; first folio heavily damaged with transparent paper slips pasted on the body text. Dimensions: 17×12.5 cm, written area: c. 8½ cm wide; 15 lines per page. Brown leather cover. Type III binding.

Cont.: astrology. — Index: title page mentioning the two main works (1r); Ptolemaica (1v–13v); Hermes, Kitāb Aḥkām al-shiʿrā l-yamāniyya (14r–34v, beginning lost); a fāʾida giving the Coptic dates corresponding to Syrian month beginnings (35r); a chapter on predicting the level of the Nile based on the nature of the sign of the Moon on 24 Barmūdah (35r); a table of planetary hours (35v). Blank: I, Ia.

Bibl.: Paul Kahle, Arabic Mss in the Chester Beatty Library, 5 vols, unpublished typescript, Dublin: Chester Beatty Library, c. 1940, vol. V, pp. 83–85 (no. 955); Arthur J. Arberry, The Chester Beatty Library. A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, Volume VII: MSS. 5001–5500, Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1964, p. 7; François Charette, Descriptions of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (unpublished draft version), Dublin: Chester Beatty Library, c. 2010, pp. 565–568.

1v–⁠13v

\1v\ ذكر طلوع الشعرى الثمانيّة ليطلميوس (كذا) الحكيم. قال إذا طلعت الشعرى الثمانية (كذا) والقمر عند طلوع{ه}ا نازلًا في برج الحمل قال ذلك يدلّ على أن الهوى معتدلًا نقيًا — \13v\ ويقعد الملك رجل كبير من أهل دولته وتفرح الناس وتنصلح أحوالهم وأرزاقهم والله أعلم. فصل إذا أردت أن تعلم طلوع الشعرى في الخامس والعشرين من أبيب فانظر في أيّ برج طلعت فيه السنة التي أنت فيها فاسقط خمسة أبراج والسادس يكون مطلع الشعرى ذلك السنة المستقبلة والله أعلم. تمّ كتاب طالع الشعرى بحمد الله وعونه.

= Pseudo-Ptolemy, Aḥkām al-shiʿrā l-yamāniyya (B.4.1)

. — Title: Aḥkām al-shiʿrā l-yamāniyya li-Baṭlamyūs al-ḥakīm (1r). — Additional titles: Dhikr ṭulūʿ al-shiʿrā l-ʿabūr al-thamāniya li-Yaṭlamyūs (sic) al-ḥakīm (1v); Kitāb Ṭāliʿ al-shiʿrā (13v). — Undated scribal colophon. No marginalia. The text includes the appended chapter transcribed above.