Multispectral imaging enables researchers to discover oldest star map in St. Catherine's Monastery

October 27, 2022

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Multispectral imaging enables researchers to discover oldest star map in St. Catherine's Monastery The star evidence of Hipparchus has been the stray of scientists for centuries, and recently the manuscript, which includes the first star evidence in history, was discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery in the Egyptian Sinai, which is believed to have been written by the astronomer Hipparchus. The findings will be published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy in November 2022. The evidence of "Hipparchus" was famous for a long time as the oldest attempt known in history to record the locations of stars and celestial bodies visible to the naked eye with exact coordinates, but the evidence for the existence of the evidence of "Hipparchus" remained very scarce, unlike the evidence of Ptolemy, which was preserved and documented in the book "Almagest" ". This led some scholars to claim that Hipparchus' evidence did not exist at all, and others said that Ptolemy copied Hipparchus' data and attributed it to himself. This is what the discovery of Ptolemy will deny. Text over text Biblical studies scholar Peter Williams became curious while examining an ancient Christian manuscript in 2012, after noticing what's behind the letters, and he assigned his students to work on the manuscript as a summer project, and they used a multispectral imaging sensor to examine one of these ancient Greek manuscripts, known as the Codex Klimassi", which is a pamphlet containing 11 manuscripts of Palestinian Aramaic texts of the Old and New Testaments. The paris is a sheet that has been erased and then written anew. One of the students (Jimmy Clare) found a Greek text containing star origin myths, most likely attributed to the mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes, chief librarian of Alexandria. Some of the manuscripts found in this parable date back to what was originally an ancient volume containing parts of the famous poem “The Phenomenon” of Aratus al-Silayi from the third century BC, which also describes asteroids. It is likely that these manuscripts were copied in the fifth or sixth century AD, according to radiocarbon dating and writing style. Jamie Claire, who was a student at the University of Cambridge at the time, noticed the astronomical tint of the traces of some texts below the written text. And this mystery remained puzzling until 2021. And when Williams examined the manuscripts more closely, he noticed something more strange, which prompted him to show the manuscripts to Victor Jamesberg, a researcher in the history of science at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, who confirmed that what they were looking at was a clear map of the stars. Is Hipparchus's Lost Stellar Evidence? What intrigued Williams and made him collaborate with researchers Jamesberg and Emmanuel Zing to decipher the manuscript whose observations would turn out to be the oldest star chart created by the godfather of astronomy Hipparchus; It is the presence of numbers and measurements that were later discovered to be astronomical measurements and precise coordinates for the locations of the bodies in the constellation "Northern Corona". According to the Nature report on the study on October 18, the manuscript, which Jamesberg and Zing contributed to interpreting, will be published with translations and interpretations of some of the texts found below the original text, which explain the calculation of the coordinates of the celestial bodies. And their exact locations in the constellation of the northern corona. The first section of the manuscript shows the length and breadth of the constellation, each expressed as a value in degrees. The second section names the stars in each boundary of the constellation, and gives their exact coordinates in the extreme north, south, east and west, and thus draws a map of the smallest spherical rectangle containing all the stars that are part of the constellation. It is likely that the numerical data in the first section was originally derived from the coordinates mentioned in the second section, but the boundaries of the constellations are simple rectangles instead of the complex shapes presented by the Belgian astronomer Eugene Delporte in his well-known star map. Coordinate accuracy Given the distinctive style that was evident in the description of the data, it indicates that Hipparchus was the one who composed this evidence, but the evidence worth mentioning is the accuracy of the ancient astronomer’s measurements that enabled the team to determine the date of those observations by referring to the map of the sky at that time through the phenomenon of proactive. The phenomenon of precession is the phenomenon of the Earth's rotation slowly on its axis by approximately one degree every 72 years, which means that the positions of the "fixed" bodies in the sky are also slowly changing. Using this phenomenon, the researchers were able to compare and verify the time when Hipparchus may have written down his astral evidence, and found that the coordinates correspond to those of 129 BC, which corresponds to the time Hipparchus made his observations. The stellar evidence, written by the astronomer Ptolemy in Alexandria during the second century AD, is the only stellar evidence that has survived from antiquity to the present day. His "Almagest" is one of the most influential scientific texts in history, and serves as a mathematical model of the universe that takes the Earth as a center. Ptolemy's model has been accepted for more than 1,200 years. However, it was mentioned several times in the ancient sources that Hipparchus was the one who measured the coordinates of the stars for the first time about 3 centuries ago, between 190 and 120 BC. From the recorded data, the team concluded that Ptolemy did not copy Hipparchus' notes, but may have based his observations on them. It is also noted that Hipparchus built his coordinate system based on the celestial equator, a system more common in modern star charts, unlike Ptolemy who built his coordinate system based on the path of the sun. New hope While not all sections of the Codex Climacii have yet been deciphered, the researchers hope to discover more star coordinates as imaging techniques improve, giving them a larger data set to study. Multispectral photography paves the way for the discovery of precious treasures buried beneath the Atlas texts preserved in archives around the world.

The star evidence of Hipparchus has been the stray of scientists for centuries, and recently the manuscript, which includes the first star evidence in history, was discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery in the Egyptian Sinai, which is believed to have been written by the astronomer Hipparchus. The findings will be published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy in November 2022.

The evidence of "Hipparchus" was famous for a long time as the oldest attempt known in history to record the locations of stars and celestial bodies visible to the naked eye with exact coordinates, but the evidence for the existence of the evidence of "Hipparchus" remained very scarce, unlike the evidence of Ptolemy, which was preserved and documented in the book "Almagest" ".

This led some scholars to claim that Hipparchus' evidence did not exist at all, and others said that Ptolemy copied Hipparchus' data and attributed it to himself. This is what the discovery of Ptolemy will deny.

Text over text

Biblical studies scholar Peter Williams became curious while examining an ancient Christian manuscript in 2012, after noticing what's behind the letters, and he assigned his students to work on the manuscript as a summer project, and they used a multispectral imaging sensor to examine one of these ancient Greek manuscripts, known as the Codex Klimassi", which is a pamphlet containing 11 manuscripts of Palestinian Aramaic texts of the Old and New Testaments. The paris is a sheet that has been erased and then written anew.

One of the students (Jimmy Clare) found a Greek text containing star origin myths, most likely attributed to the mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes, chief librarian of Alexandria. Some of the manuscripts found in this parable date back to what was originally an ancient volume containing parts of the famous poem “The Phenomenon” of Aratus al-Silayi from the third century BC, which also describes asteroids.

It is likely that these manuscripts were copied in the fifth or sixth century AD, according to radiocarbon dating and writing style. Jamie Claire, who was a student at the University of Cambridge at the time, noticed the astronomical tint of the traces of some texts below the written text. And this mystery remained puzzling until 2021.

And when Williams examined the manuscripts more closely, he noticed something more strange, which prompted him to show the manuscripts to Victor Jamesberg, a researcher in the history of science at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, who confirmed that what they were looking at was a clear map of the stars.

Is Hipparchus's Lost Stellar Evidence?

What intrigued Williams and made him collaborate with researchers Jamesberg and Emmanuel Zing to decipher the manuscript whose observations would turn out to be the oldest star chart created by the godfather of astronomy Hipparchus; It is the presence of numbers and measurements that were later discovered to be astronomical measurements and precise coordinates for the locations of the bodies in the constellation "Northern Corona".

According to the Nature report on the study on October 18, the manuscript, which Jamesberg and Zing contributed to interpreting, will be published with translations and interpretations of some of the texts found below the original text, which explain the calculation of the coordinates of the celestial bodies. And their exact locations in the constellation of the northern corona.

The first section of the manuscript shows the length and breadth of the constellation, each expressed as a value in degrees. The second section names the stars in each boundary of the constellation, and gives their exact coordinates in the extreme north, south, east and west, and thus draws a map of the smallest spherical rectangle containing all the stars that are part of the constellation.

It is likely that the numerical data in the first section was originally derived from the coordinates mentioned in the second section, but the boundaries of the constellations are simple rectangles instead of the complex shapes presented by the Belgian astronomer Eugene Delporte in his well-known star map.

Coordinate accuracy

Given the distinctive style that was evident in the description of the data, it indicates that Hipparchus was the one who composed this evidence, but the evidence worth mentioning is the accuracy of the ancient astronomer’s measurements that enabled the team to determine the date of those observations by referring to the map of the sky at that time through the phenomenon of proactive.

The phenomenon of precession is the phenomenon of the Earth's rotation slowly on its axis by approximately one degree every 72 years, which means that the positions of the "fixed" bodies in the sky are also slowly changing. Using this phenomenon, the researchers were able to compare and verify the time when Hipparchus may have written down his astral evidence, and found that the coordinates correspond to those of 129 BC, which corresponds to the time Hipparchus made his observations.

The stellar evidence, written by the astronomer Ptolemy in Alexandria during the second century AD, is the only stellar evidence that has survived from antiquity to the present day. His "Almagest" is one of the most influential scientific texts in history, and serves as a mathematical model of the universe that takes the Earth as a center.

Ptolemy's model has been accepted for more than 1,200 years. However, it was mentioned several times in the ancient sources that Hipparchus was the one who measured the coordinates of the stars for the first time about 3 centuries ago, between 190 and 120 BC.

From the recorded data, the team concluded that Ptolemy did not copy Hipparchus' notes, but may have based his observations on them. It is also noted that Hipparchus built his coordinate system based on the celestial equator, a system more common in modern star charts, unlike Ptolemy who built his coordinate system based on the path of the sun.

New hope

While not all sections of the Codex Climacii have yet been deciphered, the researchers hope to discover more star coordinates as imaging techniques improve, giving them a larger data set to study.

Multispectral photography paves the way for the discovery of precious treasures buried beneath the Atlas texts preserved in archives around the world.