The Comets of 1264 and 1299: A Comparative Look at the Near Eastern Sources

This chapter investigates the descriptions and interpretations of two thirteenth-century comets in several Near Eastern sources. The Great Comet of 1264 was recorded by the Templar of Tyre (b. 1254 CE), a Frank living in the Latin Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus; Nikephorus Gregoras (b. circa 1295), a Byzantine astronomer and historian writing in Greek; Kirakos Gandzakets’i (b. circa 1200) and Grigor Aknertz’i (b. 1250), who wrote in Armenian; and Rashid al-Din (b. 1247) and Khwandamir (b. 1475/6), who wrote in Persian and worked under Mongol or post-Mongol rulers. The Comet of 1264 was also recorded by the Arabic chroniclers al-Yunini (b. 1242) and al-Maqrizi (b. 1364), each of whom worked under the Mamluks. The Comet of 1299 was recorded by the Templar of Tyre as well as by the Arabic chroniclers al-’Ayni (b. 1361), al-Maqrizi, and Ibn Taghribirdi (b. 1411). The chapter argues that in linking the appearance of comets to historical, political, or dynastic changes which they or their patrons deemed important, the authors examined here seem to have understood the comets of 1264 and 1299 in local and regional terms, rather than universalizing ones. Yet at the same time, the relatively limited range of kinds of meaning that the authors assigned to the comets reveals analogous mentalities and common dispositions rooted in the doubleinheritance of classical antiquity and Abrahamic eschatology shared across various confessions, cultures, and languages in the Near East.