# RTVault Elephant Clock — material study v2

This package continues the earlier RTVault story brief, whose generated download attachments were not accessible locally. It is a new Blender implementation, not an edit of the earlier web scene. This is a stylized, historically informed study, not a definitive engineering reconstruction or a manufacturing model.

## Open source register

Verified 11 September 2026:

- **MET_451402** — Farrukh ibn Abd al-Latif, *The Elephant Clock*, dated 715 AH / 1315 CE, accession 57.51.23. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451402 . The object page marks the image Public Domain. Both 1315 folio images are now included with museum metadata snapshots. The principal reference was visually inspected. Its elephant, howdah, dome, crown bird, driver, attendant, scribe, serpents and falcon inform the exterior. Reference image is included in `references/` with its source URL. The Met description supports a half-hour bird signal, ball delivery to a dragon and driver action.
- **MET_451300** — *Design for a Clock in the Form of an Elephant with an Indian Driver*, dated 715 AH / 1315 CE, accession 55.121.13. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451300 . Public Domain per the object page. Catalogue metadata corroborates the driver and implements; its image is included as a related visual witness, not traced geometry.
- **WIKI_MECHANISM** — *Elephant clock*, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_clock , accessed 11 September 2026. Open text under CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ . Secondary research lead for the perforated sinking bowl, cord transmission, ball-weighted serpent and bowl reset. No text or images copied into the model. These internal relationships remain provisional until checked against a fully read public-domain technical manuscript. Do not treat this source as independent primary mechanical verification.
- **THREE** — Three.js 0.180.0, https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/tree/r180 . MIT licensed, license included under `vendor/LICENSE.txt`. Local import paths adjusted for an embeddable package. No runtime CDN required.

No proprietary CAD, modern replica meshes, restricted manuscript scans, third-party textures or generated reference imagery are included. Original procedural PBR maps distinguish copper, brass, timber, iron, cloth and paint. These maps are authored from mathematical surface patterns and are not third-party photographs. Manuscript image rights do not imply that every modern publication or museum reproduction is open.

## Evidence and interpretation

The medieval folio is a visual anchor, not an orthographic measured drawing. Overall scale, depths, material assignments, proportions, front/back symmetry, detailed ornament and component placement are modern interpretations. The dimensional units in Blender are convenient scene units; they are not verified historical meters.

The open bowl and its central aperture are separate mesh geometry. Water is a static illustrative surface. Bowl descent, trigger, ball transit, dragon rotation, bowl lift/tilt, pointer movement, crown bird and driver are keyframed. No fluid dynamics, buoyancy, collision-based motion, torque balance, cord tension or calibrated fill time is solved. Thirty seconds of playback explains one nominal half-hour event; the relative phase durations are editorial.

The left dragon performs the demonstration. The right assembly is present but its alternating next-interval control is not simulated. The released ball follows the rotating dragon mouth then an illustrative route to a receiver. Balls are not automatically recirculated: restart in the viewer resets the presentation. The reserve supply does not decrement. Upper attendant arms, falcon release internals, whistle air path, hour-window indexing and complete escapement geometry are not reconstructed. The reset cords indicate a proposed connection and do not dynamically solve length or tension. Pulleys rotate illustratively; the diagram is not a closed kinematic system.

These are material limits to historical and mechanical completeness. A future scholarly pass should transcribe the relevant public-domain technical folios, map every labeled part, resolve differing manuscript witnesses, then revise the geometry and motion dependencies. Do not publish this study as an exact or mechanically validated reconstruction.

## Asset organization

Collections: exterior; hydraulic timer; transmission; ball release; automata; display; Blender-only studio. Every modeled component is a separate named object. Moving multipart bodies use parent pivots. GLB mesh nodes retain `part_id`, `label`, `assembly`, `description`, `evidence` and `source_ids` extras. `parts.json` is the corresponding inventory. IDs are stable as long as the generator names are preserved.

The export contains a synchronized `Half_hour_demonstration` animation. It retains separate selectable meshes, uses shared PBR material maps embedded in the GLB. No Draco decoder is required. Keeping meshes separate increases draw calls; benchmark target phones before deployment.


## Version 2: material evidence and publication record

The material revision deliberately does not claim to identify all original materials. Copper casing, copper/brass vessels, timber, iron pivots, natural-fiber cord and textile are assigned as an interpretive assembly. Coating recipes, alloys, pigment chemistry, timber species and fiber species remain unverified. The old names “Ivory”, “Lapis” and “Vermilion” have been removed because color does not establish those substances. The source page makes this uncertainty visible.

Added open sources:
- MET_450513: Ewer, ca. 1180–1210, accession 44.15. Brass with silver and black-compound inlay. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/450513 . Public-domain image and metadata are included. Period comparison, not part of the clock.
- MET_448964: Panel, 10th–12th century, accession 33.157.3. Carved ebony, attributed to Egypt. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/448964 . Public-domain image and metadata are included. Period comparison, not proof of ebony in this clock.
- METAL_STUDY_2025: Omid Oudbashi, Martina Rugiadi, Jean-François de Lapérouse and Federico Carò, “Different shades, various metals,” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 17, 237 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-025-02365-6 . CC BY 4.0. Primary analysis of comparison objects; not material analysis of the clock. Paraphrased, with attribution; no article figures reproduced.

The on-page source register uses public-domain museum imagery and openly licensed research. Preliminary modern commentary without a verified open reuse license was not included in the publication bibliography. No claim based solely on that commentary is promoted to a verified material specification.

Worked seams, studs, surface tool marks and additional figure details are new reconstruction choices. They improve the appearance of fabrication but are not copies of authenticated joints. The visible copper finish is one proposed state; it is not evidence that the original casing was left unpainted. No archaeological corrosion state is claimed.