inventions: introduction 571 In Muslim homes such lamps were placed in niches in the wall, not only for convenient lighting but also as a subtly symbolic act in which the lamp in its niche reminded one to seek God’s light Lamps were sometimes placed on stands It is likely that lamps were also from ceilings in a manner reminiscent of Indian customs Such lamp holders could have several branching arms, each holding a small lamp In palaces and mosques lamps were often ornate and could be singly or in groups over hallways and prayer rooms The palaces of caliphs and sultans were dazzling sights at night, aglow with thousands of lamps cared for by dozens of servants Candles may have seen more use in the eastern reaches of the Islamic world, as is evidenced by the many fine examples of candlesticks that survive from Afghanistan and Iran They often gave metalsmiths the opportunity to display their skills From Afghanistan came candlesticks of hammered brass in the shape of a drum with a candleholder on top The record of candlesticks from Iran is more complete, with specimens including sticks of bronze with gold and silver inlay Such ornate candlesticks could be afforded only by the wealthy and may have been intended either for their homes or as gifts to mosques See also architecture; art; astronomy; building techniques and materials; calendars and clocks; climate and geography; cities; crafts; festivals; forests and forestry; household goods; inventions; religion and cosmology; sacred sites; trade and exchange further reading Noam Adler, A Comprehensive Catalog of Oil Lamps of the Holy Land from the Adler Collection (Jerusalem, Israel: Old City Press, 2004) Charles Benn, China’s Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) Bryan Bowers, Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1998) John Caspall, Making Fire & Light in the Home pre-1820 (Woodbridge, U.K.: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1987) Maureen Dillon, Artificial Sunshine: A Social History of Domestic Lighting (London: National Trust, 2002) Hema Guha, “Stunning Variety of Indian Lamps,” India Perspectives 16 (November 2003): 22–23 ▶ inventions introduction Many inventions of medieval times have no known inventors Much of the technology and economic and spiritual life of the medieval era were created by people working without notice or credit, improving their tasks in many small ways and oc- casionally large ones The rope bridges of the Andes may have been group creations, inventions developed by communities rather than individual people Many other inventions may have developed out of earlier practices in a manner that from the hindsight of hundreds of years of history seems logical, almost inevitable, although the inventors may not have found the developments either logical or inevitable Indeed, they may not even have noticed that they had invented anything new For example, was the North American tepee the inspiration of one person, who contemplated the mobile society’s need for portable shelter and came up with the idea of a frame of wood around which animal skins were wrapped? As simple as the tepee may look at first glance, it was the composite of many technologies as well as improvements that may have come with use The choosing and cutting of poles may have evolved out of techniques for building huts The skins came from skills in skinning animals and tanning their skins These skills, in turn, required skills at making the knives used in the skinning as well as for identifying and applying the tannins for the tanning process Was the hole at the peak of the tepee obviously required from the first, or did people suffer from smoky tepees until they hit on the idea of allowing the smoke from a hearth inside to escape upward? Perhaps people originally made fires only outside, and the making of hearths and holes in the roof occurred simultaneously Looking at all that it took for people to figure out how to secure a tepee and make it portable must inspire awe at the inventiveness of its creators, or at least admiration for how they solved many problems to make their technologies succeed at the tasks they set Looking at invention for the thousand years of the medieval era, we see the wonderful ability of ordinary people as well as geniuses to invent what they needed to make their lives better That last may be crucial to understanding medieval inventiveness Pure scientific inquiry as it is known today was rare in medieval cultures It is possible to see times and places where people pursued knowledge just out of the desire to know, as in the case of many Islamic astronomers in the first 500 years of the Islamic world, but even during those centuries of invention, most astronomers were motivated by religious faith—the belief that they were pursuing the wishes of God, who created a universe for people to know In general, invention had a purpose In the medieval Islamic world, though, inventors faced a problem There were people who object to their inventions on religious grounds, arguing that the world of Muhammad was the ideal world and that change was therefore bad Even though invention seems to be a fundamental part of human nature, so is a desire to keep the world familiar, to discourage changes that make one feel uncomfortable or out of place In China the magnificent