{"id":1978,"date":"2004-11-06T12:07:35","date_gmt":"2004-11-06T17:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2022-10-09T14:46:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T18:46:48","slug":"ulugh-beg-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1978","title":{"rendered":"Ulugh Beg Tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m no expert, but Ulugh Beg came up here yesterday. Please dont’ ask how. Ulugh Beg was an astronomer and mathematician, grandson of warrior Tamerlane. Ulugh Beg lived in what is now Uzbekistan in the 15th century.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I know:<\/p>\n

Apparently, when Tamerlane died, his empire was fought over by his sons. Ulugh Beg had been very close to his grandfather, and Beg (only 16 years old at the time) was put in charge of Samarqand following the death of Tamerlane (I believe Ulugh Beg was at his side when he died. I could be making that up, though). Ulugh Beg was only 16 years old when he became the leader of the great medieval oasis town – but instead of focusing on world conquest, or tribal slaughter, or trying to fill the shoes of his despotic grandfather, Ulugh Beg set out to transform Samarqand into a scientific and cultural center. He sounds like an extraordinary man. He believed in sharing information – and so he built observatories – one major one in paritcular (the ruins of which still stand today).<\/p>\n

The Ulugh Beg Observatory was enormous – and cylindrical in shape. There was a massive marble sextant (discovered centuries later during an archaeological dig, I think) – that somehow was too large to fit and had to be dug into the ground or something. Sorry – not sure about that. The observatory was tall enough to be seen from miles away, and the sight of it would let the camel-trains on the Silk Road know that they were close to Samarqand. The “observatory” was as famous, in its day, as the Eiffel Tower is now. Like, even if you have never seen the Eiffel Tower in actuality, you know the shape of it – you would recognize it if you saw it. The Ulugh Beg Observatory was like that.<\/p>\n

Scientists from all over the world would travel to Samarqand to meet with Ulugh Beg, to use the observatory, etc. Ulugh Beg was ahead of his time. He is one of the cultural heroes of Uzbekistan – and there are many madrassahs named after him today (the largest one in Bukhara is named after him).<\/p>\n

Ulugh Beg was assassinated by a group of revolutionaries (led by his own son).<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in what Ulugh Beg contributed to the scientific world (he was way ahead of his time, again), here is a great article about him<\/a>. It talks about all of the instruments he had in the Ulugh Beg Observatory (quadrants, sextants). It also talks about his mathematics.<\/p>\n

Ulugh Beg catalogued over a thousand stars (this was in the 15th century, by the way) – He was the first person to put together such a comprehensive map of the heavens since Ptolemy.<\/p>\n

So while Ulugh Beg was an enlightened man, an educated and curious man – he might have been rather naive about being a leader of such a turbulent area. Whatever it was – he was killed by a group led by his own son.<\/p>\n

Here’s a picture of the remains of the famous observatory (archaeologists believe that it was built in the 1420s):<\/p>\n

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I’m no expert, but Ulugh Beg came up here yesterday. Please dont’ ask how. Ulugh Beg was an astronomer and mathematician, grandson of warrior Tamerlane. Ulugh Beg lived in what is now Uzbekistan in the 15th century. Here’s what I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[142,181],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178136,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/178136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}