This is the fifth session of the Visualizations of the Heavens Lecture Series.

This talk will present a new and innovative approach to interpreting, visualizing, and engaging with Islamic celestial globes. Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, the talk will introduce an experimental project aimed at recreating in 3D the instruments of the Lahore workshop, with a particular focus on the seventeenth century, and Diya al-Din Muhammad’s celestial globes in particular.

Offering first an overview on Islamic celestial globes and their iconography from their classical prototypes to Islamic times, the talk will then concentrate on the Lahore scientific instrument makers and their celestial globes, focusing on the seventeenth century. It will present a reconstruction of the workshop, their tools, and offer an analysis of their iconographic motifs. It will show, in particular, how such globes can be placed in a virtual reality environment and “used” under a virtual starry sky. This cutting-edge technology, the talk will demonstrate, will make the manipulation and use of such objects more widely available for studying and teaching alike.