Pseudo-Archimedes is a name given to pseudo-anonymous authors writing under the name of 'Archimedes' as quoted by various sources of the

Islamic Golden Age The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...

such as

Al-Jazari Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī (1136–1206, ar, بديع الزمان أَبُ اَلْعِزِ إبْنُ إسْماعِيلِ إبْنُ الرِّزاز الجزري, ) was a polymath: a scholar, ...

for the construction of

water clock A water clock or clepsydra (; ; ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured. Water clocks are one of the oldest time-m ...

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...

himself is not known to have written any such manuscript as almost all the manuscripts have been lost. The only surviving manuscript from a Pseudo-Archimedes, the

Book of Lemmas The ''Book of Lemmas'' or ''Book of Assumptions'' (Arabic ''Maʾkhūdhāt Mansūba ilā Arshimīdis'') is a book attributed to Archimedes by Thābit ibn Qurra, though the authorship of the book is questionable. It consists of fifteen propositio ...

, is an

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

treatise not listed among Archimedes' works.

Donald Routledge Hill Donald Routledge Hill (6 August 1922 – 30 May 1994)D. A. King, “In Memoriam: Donald Routledge Hill (1922-1994)”, ''Arabic Sciences and Philosophy,'' Volume 5 / Issue 02 / September 1995, pp 297-302 was a British engineer and historian of sc ...

is of the opinion that the original manuscript may have been

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

but that most of the manuscript was written by later Arabic authors. The scholar A.G. Drachmann believes that the manuscript was assembled from Arabic translations of various Greek sources, including works by

Hero of Alexandria Hero of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, ''Heron ho Alexandreus'', also known as Heron of Alexandria ; 60 AD) was a Greece, Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egy ...

Ctesibius Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius ( grc-gre, Κτησίβιος; fl. 285–222 BC) was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps (a ...

, and

Philon Philon ( el, Φίλων), Athenian architect of the 4th century BC, is known as the planner of two important works: the portico of twelve Doric columns to the great Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis (work commissioned by Demetrius Phalereus ab ...

. The manuscript is referred to by the Arabic engineers Ridwan and Al-Jazari.

References

{{authority control Archimedes Water clocks Ancient Greek engineers Pseudepigraphy