Baghdad: Rock Crystal Carvers

Date: before 982

The anonymous text Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (Boundaries of the World), completed in 982, claims that one of the products of Baghdad was crystal (billawr) that had been ‘turned on a lathe.’ See also: Wood Turner; Mason; Goldsmith; Glass Cutter.

Citation: Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, trans. V. Minorsky (London: Gibb Memorial Series, 1937), p. 138. Quoted in R. B. Serjeant, ‘Material for a history of Islamic textiles up to the Mongol conquest,’ Ars Islamica 9 (1942), p. 81.

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