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Illustration from

'Book of Fixed Stars' (Kitāb suwar al-kawākib al-ṯābita)
by ‛Abd al-Rahman ibn ‛Umar al-Ṣūfī,
dated 1009-10 (Bodleian Library, Oxford, manuscript Marsh 144)
Page 224 - Virgo



click to see the Virgo constellation from the opposite direction



The oppossite view is referenced in CLOTHING viii. In Persia from the Arab conquest to the Mongol invasion - The early ʿAbbasid period by Elsie H. Peck
In the Ṣūfī manuscript already mentioned most of the female figures representing constellations are rendered as dancing girls. Two distinct types of costume are illustrated. One is a long, soft tunic with a diagonal closing; it is belted with a jeweled girdle over full trousers. Like the male tunics represented in the same manuscript, it has features in common with slightly earlier caftans but is of soft material and is worn with an undergarment with long sleeves and possibly a decorated skirt (Wellesz, pls. 3/6, 7/13): it lacks the lapels that usually appear on the male version, however.

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Back to Bodleian al-Sufi manuscript Marsh 144








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