ON INTERLOCKING SIMILAR OR CORRESPONDING FIGURES AND ORNAMENTAL PATTERNS OF CUBIC EQUATIONS

Abstract

designs on stucco plates and fragments and sheets or scrolls of paper, unaccompanied by any explanatory text. One source, however, has both: entitled Fi taddkhul alashkal al-mutashdbiha aw al-mutawdfiqa (On interlocking similar and corresponding figures; referred to hereafter as Interlocking Figures), it is a compilation of drawings of ornamental geometry accompanied by anonymous explanatory texts in Persian. It is of particular significance because it provides a link between written and drawn material on the subject.1 The only copy so far known is preserved in MS Persan 169 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, a compilation of twenty-five works on mathematical subjects, mainly practical geometry.2 The fact that InterlockingFigures (fols. 180r-199v) follows one of the Persian translations of a treatise by Abu'l Wafa' alBuzajani (940-998), Fima yahtaju ilayhi al-sani' min acmal al-handasa (On what the artisan requires of geometrical constructions; hereafter referred to as Geometrical Constructions) in the same manuscript (fols. 141v-179v) has led several scholars to assume that it was meant to be an