English: Illustration from a manuscript of Ibn Umayl’s Kitāb al-Māʾ al-Waraqī wa-'l-Arḍ al-Najmiyya (Book of the Silvery Water and the Starry Earth). In the introduction of which Ibn Umayl describes a statue of "the sage" (later revealed to be Hermes Trismegistus) holding a marble tablet of ancient alchemical knowledge. He writes that it stands in an Egyptian temple built by the sage, a pyramid (birbāʾ), painted with murals of people pointing and eagles carrying bows. And that the temple is Sidar Būṣīr, the gaol of the biblical/qur'anic Yūsuf/Joseph. This version of the tablet is very sparingly labeled and simplified (for artistic reasons) but other less artistic and more instructional manuscripts provide more context: The right side of the tablet illustrates the first half of the "operation of the people". It begins in the top-left showing the new moon, indicating the origin of matter ie moisture (most other manuscripts place it in the top-right). The top-right shows the full moon described as the source of copper and magnesium, the origin of the two birds, male and female and its origin is the new moon. This upper section is described as the origin of all figures (ashkāt). The lower right shows two birds top is male facing right, bottom female facing left, they signify "two in one". These are meant to be vapors, the light is dry, the heavy moist. The moist vapor is the spirit, the dry vapor the soul. The bottom left shows the perfect full moon discussed above, whose origin is the birds, it is the promised stone which is magnesium. The left side of the tablet illustrates the second part of the operation (though also called the second operation) in two parts. The top shows the higher world, the triple water. To its right is the are the two suns "two in one" shining down two rays, to its left is the single sun "one in one" shining down a single ray. The sun is water, air, and fire, the three are one. Three suns are one water from male and female. On the bottom is shown the lower world "two in one". This world figure consists of two parts: the top which is the Earth from two bodies which become three. Below it the crescent moon. Around the Tablet are (parts of) the commentary which other manuscripts place on the tablet itself.