The revealed text includes passages from the poem Phenomenawritten by Aratus of Solos around 275 BC Powerful x-ray beams helped.
Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California have managed to reveal previously unseen parts of an ancient star map, hidden for centuries in a reused manuscript.
This was made possible thanks to the use of powerful x-ray beamswhich made it possible to identify traces of erased writing in a palimpsest — an ancient document in which the original text was scraped to make room for a new one.
The manuscript in question is part of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus and contains fragmentary references to a ancient star catalog attributed to HipparchusGreek astronomer from the 2nd century BC, considered one of the founders of scientific astronomy.
The original star maps would have been created around 150 BC and copied several centuries later.
According to the researchers, the X-rays made orange fluorescent marks visible, corresponding to the old paint, which until now had remained imperceptible to the naked eye.
The revealed text includes passages from poem Phenomenawritten by Aratus of Solos per volta of 275 BC., accompanied by additional sections describing the position of stars in various constellations. These descriptions coincide with known works by Hipparchus.
The fragments were written on parchment made from animal skin and were preserved for centuries in the library of the Saint Catherine’s Monastery, in the Sinai desert, Egypt.
Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the manuscript was reused by monks, who erased the original text to record religious treatisesa common practice at the time due to the scarcity of writing materials, recalls .
To this day, very little of Hipparchus’s original work has survived, with his legacy being known mainly through secondary sources. It is known that he was responsible for one of the first stellar catalogs in history and for fundamental mathematical advances, such as the development of trigonometry.
More than the content
The importance of discovery goes beyond the content retrieved.
The method used demonstrates the potential of advanced imaging technologies to recover lost ancient knowledgeespecially in documents written on durable materials that have been reused over time.
Researchers believe that the chemical composition of the original ink subtly altered the way the material absorbs light, allowing the waste to bloom under X-rays.
The team now intends to analyze the remaining set of palimpsests from the codex, hoping to reveal more fragments of scientific knowledge from Antiquity, offering new clues about the development of science around two thousand years ago.
