Seamless metal celestial globe
Globo celeste metálico sin costuras
- Date
- 1589 · confidence high
- Place
- Srinagar, Kashmir, India
- Credited to
- Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
Hollow brass globe cast in a single piece by the lost-wax process, with the constellations engraved, without visible seams. European metallurgists considered this piece impossible, and the workshops of Kashmir and Lahore produced about twenty of them up to the 19th century.
The oldest known example, from 1589, was made during the reign of Akbar; the exact techniques were rediscovered through analysis in the 20th century (Savage-Smith, Sarma).
What it led to
- Mughal astronomical instruments
- modern studies of precision hollow casting