Silver tree of Karakorum (automaton fountain)
Árbol de plata de Karakórum (fuente automática)
- Date
- 1254 · confidence high
- Place
- Karakorum, Övörkhangai, Mongolia
- Credited to
- Guillaume Boucher, a Parisian goldsmith serving Möngke Khan
- Field
- Tools
What it is
An automaton fountain before Möngke Khan's palace: a silver tree with serpents pouring wine, mare's milk, mead and rice wine, with four lions and an angel with a trumpet driven by a hidden mechanism. The Franciscan William of Rubruck described it.
The details come from Rubruck's account (1254) and Persian and Chinese sources; no remains survive. Boucher was captured at Belgrade (1242) and taken to Mongolia.
What it led to
- an example of engineer exchange between Europe and Asia under the Mongol Empire
- evidence of the hydraulic and pneumatic automata tradition between Byzantium, Islam and the Mongol court
- Rubruck's account as a source on Karakorum