Some Results on the Ancient Globes

The Stars in the Classical and Medieval Traditions, ed. by Alena Hadravová, Petr Hadrava, and Kristen Lippincott, 2019

The study of ancient astronomy calls to arms a number of disciplines: philology, codicology, algebra, geometry, illumination and art history, astrology, and of course astronomy itself. This book admirably succeeds in bringing together outstanding specialists from these different fields and in addressing several questions: How many are the fixed stars? How can astronomy help discover the geographical coordinates of a city? How do you construct an Aratean sphere? How is the representation of the sky rendered in illustrations ranging from medieval manuscripts to 18th-century sculpture gardens? How does the ancient mechanism of catasterism work? How are pagan constellations interpreted in Christian settings? This collection of essays provides new editions and new interpretations of astronomical texts from such diverse authors as Eratosthenes and Manilius, Aratus, Germanicus and al-Sūfī, Ptolemy and Carolingian scholars. Readers with diverse interests will benefit from this book.

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage

Contemporary Physics, 2013

Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science

This paper analyzes the agreement between pictures and text in the 20 extant manuscripts of Hyginus' Astronomy which are illuminated and marked with stars, the majority of which date from the second half of the 15th century. It focuses on the number and position of the stars on the constellation figures, and systematically inventories in each manuscript all discrepancies between picture and text. The existence of independent constellation albums and the disconnec-tion between the activities of pictor and scriptor could suggest a great mismatch of the two main features of illuminated manuscripts. The results of the investigation on these manuscripts are in fact more ambiguous. It actually appears that in some cases the positions of the stars precisely match the wording of a manuscript and lead to the conclusion that star-positioning might have sometimes been a secondary process adjusted to the very text of the illustrated manuscript.

In exploring the figures of the constellations on the celestial globe held by the so-called 'Farnese Atlas', this article reflects upon Ptolemy's comment that '…in many cases our descriptions [of the constellations] are different because they seem to be more natural and to give a better proportioned outline to the figures described'. 1 It suggests that, whereas most scholars writing on the history of constellation imagery tend to focus on two areas to support their findings-scientific data gleaned from early descriptions and depictions of the stars and iconographical details derived from Graeco-Roman mythology -more attention should be paid to the largely independent pictorial tradition that also helped to shape the heavens. By examining a wide range of visual sources, such as Greek vase painting, coins and sculptural reliefs, one can conclude that, in many cases, the role of the artist is neither as an inventor nor as a scientific draughtsman, but as a torch-bearer for the continuity of a specific set of widely accepted pictorial formulae. Working from this, I tentatively propose a new avenue of exploration for the mysterious grid-like figure on the Farnese Globe, often misidentified as the 'Throne of Caesar'.

ArXiv, 2020

This paper summarises briefly and in English some of the results of the book Hoffmann: Hipparchs Himmelsglobus, Springer, 2017 that had to be written in German. The globe of Hipparchus is not preserved. For that reason, it has been a source of much speculation and scientific inquiry during the last few centuries. This study presents a new analysis of the data given in the commentary on Aratus' poem by Hipparchus, in comparison with other contemporary Babylonian and Greek astronomical data, as well as their predecessors in the first millennium and their successors up to Ptolemy. The result of all these studies are the following: i) although the data of Ptolemy and Hipparchus are undoubtedly correlated, it is certainly also wrong to accuse Ptolemy having simply copied and transformed it without correct citation; ii) although Hipparchus presumably observed most of his star catalogue with his own instruments, we cannot neglect Babylonian influences. Hipparchus was educated in Greek ...

MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOMETRY, 2018

The globe of Hipparchus is not preserved. For that reason, it has been a source of much speculation and scientific inquiry during the last few centuries. This study presents a new analysis of the data given in the commentary on Aratus’ poem by Hipparchus, in comparison with other contemporary Babylonian and Greek astronomical data, as well as their predecessors in the first millennium and their successors up to Ptolemy. The result of all these studies are the following: i) although the data of Ptolemy and Hipparchus are undoubtedly correlated, it is certainly also wrong to accuse Ptolemy having simply copied and transformed it without correct citation; ii) although Hipparchus presumably observed most of his star catalogue with his own instruments, we cannot neglect Babylonian influences. Hipparchus was educated in Greek astronomy but, in his time, there are traces of Babylonian influences since at least two centuries. Since we are unable to definitely prove that Hipparchus used Babylonian data, we are not sure if there are direct Babylonian influences in his time or as a consequence of his education only. Finally, we present a virtual 3D–image showing what the globe of Hipparchus might have looked like.

Sir Isaac Newton has the following remarks in regard to the origin of Astrology:--"After the study of Astronomy was set on foot for the use of navigation, and the Ægyptians, by the heliacal risings and settings of the stars, had determined the length of the solar year of 365 days, and by other observations had fixed the solstices, and formed the fixed stars into asterisms, all which was done in the reigns of Ammon, Sesac, Orus, and Memnon," (about 1000 years before Christ), "it may be presumed that they continued to observe the motions of the planets, for they called them after the names of their gods; and Nechepsos, or Nicepsos, King of Sais," [772 B.C.], "by the assistance of Petosiris, a priest of Ægypt, invented astrology, grounding it upon the aspects of the planets, and the qualities of the men and women to whom they were dedicated *1; and in the beginning of the reign of Nabonassar, King of Babylon, about which time the Æthiopians, under Sabacon, invaded Ægypt" [751 B.C.], "those Ægyptians who fled from him to Babylon, carried thither the Ægyptian year of 365 days, and the study of astronomy and astrology, and founded the a era of Nabonassar, dating it from the first year of that king's reign" [747 B.C.], "and beginning the year on the same day with the Ægyptians for the sake of their calculations. So Diodorus: 'they say that the Chaldæan in Babylon, being colonies of the Ægyptians, became famous for astrology, having learned it from the priests of Ægypt.'"--Newton's Chronology, pp. 251, 252. The arcana of Astrology constituted a main feature in the doctrines of the Persian Magi; and it further appears, by Newton's Chronology, p. 347, that Zoroaster (although the æra of his life has been erroneously assigned to various remoter periods) lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, about 520 B.C., and assisted Hystaspes, the father of Darius, in reforming the Magi, of whom the said Hystaspes was Master. Newton adds, p. 352, that "about the same time with Hystaspes and Zoroaster, lived also Ostanes, another eminent Magus: Pliny places him under Darius Hystaspis, and Suidas makes him the follower of Zoroaster: he came into Greece with Xerxes about 480 B.C., and seems to be the Otanes of Herodotus. In his book, called the Octateuchus, he taught the same doctrine of the Deity as Zoroaster." The world is divided into two parts, the elemental region and the æthereal. The elemental region is constantly subject to alteration, and comprises the four elements; earth, water, air and fire. The æthereal region, which philosophers call the fifth essence, encompasses, by its concavity, the elemental; its substance remains always unvaried, and consists of ten spheres; of which the greater one always spherically environs the next smaller, and so on in consecutive order. First, therefore, around the sphere of fire, GOD, the creator of the world, placed the sphere of the Moon, then that of Mercury, then that of Venus, then that of the Sun, and afterwards those of Mars, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. Each of these spheres, however, contains but one star: and these stars, in passing through the zodiac, always struggle against the primum mobile, or the motion of the tenth sphere; they are also entirely luminous. In the next place follows the firmament, which is the eighth or starry sphere, and which trembles or vibrates (trepidat) in two small circles at the beginning of Aries and Libra (as placed in the ninth sphere); this motion is called by astronomers the motion of the access and recess of the fixed stars." (Probably in order to account for the procession of the equinoxes.) "This is surrounded by the ninth sphere, called the chrystalline or watery heaven, because no star is discovered in it. Lastly, the primum mobile, styled also the tenth sphere, encompasses all the before-mentioned æthereal spheres, and is continually turned upon the poles of the world, by one revolution in twenty-four hours, from the east through the meridian to the west, again coming round to the east. At the same time, it rolls all the inferior spheres round with it, by its own force; and there is no star in it. Against this primum mobile, the motion of the other spheres, running from the west through the meridian to the east, p. 3 contends. Whatever is beyond this, is fixed and immovable, and the professors of our orthodox faith affirm it to be the empyrean heaven which GOD inhabits with the elect."--Cosmographia of Peter Apianus (named Benewitz), dedicated to the Archbishop of Saltzburg, edited by Gemma Frisius, and printed at Antwerp 1574. The practice of observing the stars began in Ægypt in the days of Ammon, as above, and was propagated from thence, in the reign of his son Sesac, into Afric, Europe, and Asia, by conquest; and then Atlas formed the sphere of the Libyans" [956 B.C.], "and Chiron that of the Greeks [939 B.C.]; and the Chaldæans also made a sphere of their own. But astrology p. xii was invented in Ægypt by Nichepsos, or Necepsos, one of the Kings of the Lower Ægypt, and Petosiris his priest, a little before the days of Sabacon, and propagated thence into Chaldæa, where Zoroaster, the legislator of the Magi, met with it: so Paulinus;

2020

Since the time of their appearance on the Earth, humans have been interested in the cosmos and the discovery of the secrets of the sky. The emergence of Islam and the tendency of the Islamic Khalifas towards the science of astronomy and astrology led to the growth and development of this branch of natural sciences, especially between the 3rd and 9th centuries AH. In the present study, astronomical concepts and beliefs in the Islamic era have been identified and extracted in order to compare them with the astronomical motifs of the two illustrated versions of Book of Fixed Stars (820 AH) by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, the original version of which belongs to the 4th century AH and Nativities (700 AH) by Abu Ma'shar Balkhi. The present research aimed to find out how the components of astrology and constellations are depicted in the two illustrated versions of Nativities (700 AH) and Book of Fixed Stars (9th century AH) and whether the images of the Nativities were influenced by the ref...