Contribution to Book
Alloys and Architecture: Periodic and Quasiperiodic Patterns in Sinan's Selimiye
Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology: A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslhan Yener
(2017)
Abstract
The marble minbar of the Selimiye mosque in Edirne that was designed by the Ottoman architect, Sinan, and completed in 1575, bears a circular medallion of carved and pierced openwork in each of its triangular framing walls. The carved circular patterns are unusual in having radial symmetry with local five-fold and ten-fold rotations, but no periodic repeat. This contribution explores the relationship of this late 16th-century design to a similar array generated by X-ray diffraction of aluminum alloys, identified as a quasiperiodic pattern, which garnered the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The 16th-century appearance of this pattern in an architectural context is attributed to the deliberate and conscientious attention to elements of geometry in the training of Ottoman architects, which drew upon a long tradition of geometric patterns in Islamic art.
Keywords
- Sinan,
- Selimiye,
- Edirne,
- minbar,
- mimber,
- quasiperiodic,
- periodicity,
- Islamic geometric pattern,
- 10-fold,
- 5-fold,
- symmetry
Disciplines
Publication Date
2017
Editor
Çiğdem Maner, Mara T. Horowitz, Allan S. Gilbert
Publisher
Brill
Series
Culture and History of the Ancient Near East
ISBN
978-90-04-35356-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004353572
Citation Information
Bier, Carol (2017) "Alloys and Architecture: Periodic and Quasiperiodic Patterns in Sinan's Selimiye," in Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology, eds.Çiğdem Maner, Mara T. Horowitz, Allan S. Gilbert, pp. 82-100 (Brill)