“We hope this is the start of an exciting revelation” Tells “K” astrophysicist Fiori-Anastasia Metallinou.. “Imagine the analogy like this: under layers of paint, experts discover, for example, a work by Da Vinci that has been lost for centuries, a painting about which there was evidence, but no one saw. What would this mean for the history of painting?

Our conversation takes place in connection with the recent news about the discovery of a fragment of a star catalog by the famous Greek astronomer Hipparchus. A passage attributed to him was found on a parchment belonging to the monastery of St. Catherine of Sinai, but most of its 146 sheets are now in the possession of the Museum of the Bible in Washington.

On parchment is the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a collection of Syriac texts from the 10th or 11th century. However, the codex is a palimpsest, meaning an older text was written underneath. After careful scientific analysis, the researchers identified nine pages of astronomical content. One of them is probably an extract from the star catalog of the discoverer Hipparchus, who is believed to have made the earliest known map of the entire sky.

“We knew a lot about this particular work,” Ms. Metallenou comments, “but since the recent discovery—that single page “hidden” in medieval parchment—we will see Hipparchus’ letter itself for the first time.” . We will read the source, examine the accuracy of measurements, study the methodology and mathematical proofs. Therefore, we hope that in the future, with the help of technology, we will find the whole project.”

The science of astronomy owes much to this astronomer from Rhodes, who lived in the 2nd century. for example, in his methodical, observational nature, his perseverance during countless hours of studying the sky and trying to interpret the phenomena he observed using geometry and mathematics alone.

“For us Greeks,” Ms. Metallenou comments, “Hipparchus is considered the “father” of astronomy because, among other things, he introduced the scientific way of thinking and interpreting the world through his work.” Moreover, as she tells us, there are significant chances that she was, along with Archimedes and Poseidonius Rhodius, one of the creators of the Antikythera Mechanism. As for the impressive groundbreaking “map” of the sky he produced after endless hours of work, it was a text lost for ages. Now it becomes tangible, refuting those who claimed it was never written. To date, the only surviving star list of antiquity was compiled by the astronomer Ptolemy in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 2nd century AD. An analysis of the text found on the parchment led the researchers to the conclusion that, on the one hand, Ptolemy did not simply copy Hipparchus’ information, but, on the other hand, the Greek astronomer’s calculations about the positions of the stars (with a deviation of no more than one degree from the real ones) are much more accurate. than his successor.

Scientists hope that as imaging techniques improve, they will discover other stellar coordinates in the code, parts of which have yet to be read.