“Al-Jazari … worked as the chief engineer at Artuklu Palace, headquarters of the Artuqid dynasty that ruled over parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq in the 11th and 12th centuries. During his time there, he invented a large number of devices that revolutionized mechanical engineering … Perhaps Al-Jazari’s most wondrous inventions were his clocks, because they were about so much more than just telling the time.”