Societas Via Romana - Discussion Archives

Submitted by Jerry Monaco
Below you will find the first paragraph and a link to the whole article. At the end of the article itself you will find more links to the research reported in the article.

An ancient mystery may have been solved by LSU Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Bradley E. Schaefer.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/ ... 38860.html

Schaefer has discovered that the long-lost star catalog of Hipparchus, which dates back to 129 B.C., appears on a Roman statue called the Farnese Atlas. Hipparchus was one of the greatest astronomers of antiquity and his star catalog was the first in the world, as well as the most influential. The catalog was lost early in the Christian era, perhaps in the fire at the great library in Alexandria.

A fascinating discovery, Gracche !

Here's a picture of the so called Farnese Atlas, for those who'd want to know what he looks like :



Valete,

Q. Pomponius Atticus

That is a wonderful picture! Where did you find it on the internet?

If you notice from the article the person who made the discovery is a working scientist who is interested in historical matters. I often find that some of the best "historians" in these matters are people who actually come from the particular scientific field and look at history itself as a side line. In fact they remind me of the ancient antiquarians, some of whom went around simply copying down inscriptions on monuments... Of course M. Terrentius Varo was the most famous of these but what always amazes me is how many of these antiquarians there were and how many were lost to history. Schaefer the scientist in this case seems to me a modern analog to such ancient antiquarians.

Salve Gracche,

I just searched on Google image search for 'Farnese atlas' and found the picture above at http://www.cosmopolis.com/art/atlas.jpg.

Vale,

Q. Pomponius Atticus