Baylatan of Toledo

بيلتا طليطلة

Toledo's twin marvels — two basins al-Zarqallu built in a vaulted chamber in the Great River at Bab al-Dabbaghin after hearing of the spinning talisman of India; they filled and ebbed with the waxing and waning moon by half a seventh each day, full on the fifteenth and dry by the twenty-ninth, and swelled back instantly if emptied. They worked until the Christians took Toledo and Alfonso had one lifted in 528 to learn its mechanism, killing both; another report blames the Jewish astrologer Hatim b. Rabuwa ¹.

Overview

Two basins (baylatan) in Toledo, which al-Maqqari counted among the marvels of al-Andalus. They were made by Abd al-Rahman, Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rahman al-Zarqal in the Rabat copy. ²

Making

News reached him of a talisman in the city of Aryn in the land of India, which turns with its finger from dawn to sunset. So he made them in a hollow house inside the great river, at the Tanners' Gate. ²

Their operation

They fill and drain with the waxing and waning of the moon, by about half a seventh of the day and night. They fill on the fifteenth night, and nothing remains in them on the twenty-ninth. Whoever draws water from them, they swallow it; whoever empties them, they fill again at once. ²

Their end

They lasted until the Christian king took Toledo. Alfonso ordered one of them uprooted to learn where the water came from. It was uprooted in 528 AH, and their motion stopped. ²

Another account says that their decline was caused by the Jewish astrologer Hatin ibn Rabwa, who promised to make them fill by day and drain by night; when one was uprooted, he could not restore it. ²

Baylatan of Toledo

At a glance

Overview

Making

Their operation

Their end

Sources

Objects