@article{article_334987, title={AN INTERPRETATION OF SOME SELJUK, ATABEG AND AYYŪBID MINA’I, LUSTRE AND UNDER-GLAZE PAINTED DEPICTIONS AS PROVIDING A RECORD OF TYPES OF 12TH AND 13TH CENTURY CYPHER MACHINES EMPLOYED FOR CODED COMMUNICATIONS}, journal={Selçuklu Medeniyeti Araştırmaları Dergisi}, pages={257–297}, year={2017}, author={Duggan, Terrance Michael}, keywords={Selçuk şifre makinesi, barīd-istibarat, haberleşme}, abstract={<p> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Helvetica Neue’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb">Repeatedly described in modern art historical
and other literature and in museum catalogues as the representation of a ‘sun’,
a ‘solar design’, ‘sunburst’, a ‘star’, or as a ‘rosette with rays’, this
article suggests that some examples of this type of depiction - whilst having
the form of a ‘sun’ or of a ‘sunburst’ or ‘star’ – rather, and in some cases
with considerable accuracy, record the types of cypher device/machine that was
employed to make and to read secure encrypted communications in the 12 <sup>th </sup> to
13 <sup>th </sup> centuries within the Seljuk, Atabeg and Ayyūbid
territories of the Abbasid Caliphate. The primary distinguishing features
between the representation of what has been termed a ‘sun’, ‘solar device’
etc., and the depiction of this type of encryption device, consists in the
depiction of three disks - an inner disk, often carrying the depiction of a
face, human or feline, sometimes with a noteworthy vertical marker, and often with
a series of circles around its rim – a wider disk that separate the
rays/pointers of this device into two separate layered groups, an inner/upper
and an outer/lower group - within an </span> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb">outer disk-like frame,
across the edge of which the pointed ends of some of these rays/pointers pass,
with the setting of the machine’s pointers-rays determining the sequence of the
letters-numbers to be read off the outer disk. Furthermore, the context within
which these depictions occur can be associated with the depiction of high
level  </span> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">state  </span> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb">communications,
with at times the depiction in an encircling band of coded messages in boxes,
the depiction of signalling devices and of members of the ruler’s  <i>barīd-istibarat. </i> It
is therefore suggested that this type of representation having the form of
three-disks with pointers-rays, while having the form of a ‘ <i>sun </i>’ or ‘ <i>a solar device </i>’, can rather to be understood as depicting examples
of the types of cypher machine that was employed by the ruler’s  <i>barīd-istibarat </i> to
encrypt and decrypt some of the messages sent by means of couriers- </span> <i> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">k </span> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb">asıd </span> </i> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;color:#000000;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb">,
by messenger pigeons- <i>haman, </i> and most rapidly, through sequences of
signals of reflected light/coloured light during the course of the 12 <sup>th </sup> and
into the 13 <sup>th </sup> centuries until the pagan Mongol interventions. </span> <span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:’Times New Roman’, serif;" lang="en-gb" xml:lang="en-gb"> </span> </p>}, number={2}, publisher={Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi}