De Ctésiphon à Bagdad : héritage technique perse à la cour abbasside ?

A variety of sources report that the Sasanian king Khusraw II (r. 590-628) commissioned the construction of an imposing throne designed to celebrate his prowess as a ruler and the grandeur of the Sasanian dynasty. These sources describe the throne as a complex machine capable of movement, recreating natural sounds, and computing time. Approximately a century after the fall of the Sasanian Empire, the Abbasid Caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 754-775) founded a new capital for his empire, Bagdad. Following the example of the Sasanians, whom the Abbasids considered as a model of political authority, the caliphal court maintained a collection of ingenious devices. A comparative study of these instruments in the Sasanian and Abbasid courts reveals their significant political function and question the possible Abbasids’ recovery and integration of Sasanian technical knowledge and motifs into the Islamic context.