A decorative late Iranian compass bearing a maker's name Aqâhâ (?) Kâshânî and the date 1295(?) H [= 1878/79?]

in good overall condition, patination and pitting particularly to the interior of the cover, areas of foxing to the paper interior, areas of rusting to the dial, as viewed
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This is a late and comparatively crude compass bearing the names of 60 localities in Greater Iran. The inscriptions at the centre of the top and bottom promises the qiblas and quarters of the horizon for each locality (al-bilâd - inhirâf - jiha). What is given for each locality is a number between two and five digits, in Arabic numerals. In addition the general direction of the qibla is given in abbreviated form. The numbers are meaningless. Thus we find for Meshed 6140 and gh-j for gharbî-janûbî, south-west. For Ahwaz we find 304 and south-west. It is unlikely that the maker's name and the date are to be taken seriously. This is a trivialized example of a highly sophisticated geographical tradition from 15th-century Central Asia, in which for some 274 localities, the longitudes, latitudes, qiblas and Mecca-distances were given with astounding accuracy. Extracts from this corpus feature on many later Iranian and Indian astrolabes and compasses.