A group of international scientists has unveiled one of the oldest star maps in the world, created over 1500 years ago by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who is considered the “father of astronomy.” This unique discovery was made possible through modern scanning technologies.
This is reported by Finway
Discovery Shedding Light on the History of Astronomy
For a long time, Hipparchus’s contributions were known only through fragmented mentions and symbols, including a few on ancient statues like the Farnese Atlas. His detailed star map was thought to have been lost for centuries, and the exact coordinates of celestial bodies remained a mystery to researchers.
With the participation of Viktor Hiseberg from Sorbonne University, scientists discovered traces of ancient Greek writing on a palimpsest—a parchment manuscript that had been erased and reused. They employed X-rays from a particle accelerator at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which allowed them to visualize the erased text beneath layers of later religious writings.
“Researchers shared that the original ink used by Hipparchus had a different chemical composition than the later religious texts, which made it possible to distinguish them with proper scanning.”
Technologies Reviving Forgotten Knowledge
The manuscript, currently housed in the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., is so fragile that it was transported to the laboratory in special containers with a controlled microclimate. Scientists scanned eleven pages of the manuscript using extremely short X-ray pulses lasting only ten milliseconds. The beam was focused on an area smaller than a human hair, allowing them to gradually restore the erased symbols of the Greek language.
Detailed analysis showed that Hipparchus’s star map was compiled based on ten ancient texts in Greek and Aramaic, and later rewritten in Syriac with the addition of religious writings by Saint John Climacus. This layer-by-layer rewriting could have destroyed the astronomer’s legacy, but modern scientific tools and the meticulous work of researchers have allowed the world to rediscover one of the oldest maps of the night sky.