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Bradwarden0047 t1_iswekg5 wrote

Reply to comment by fredandlunchbox in First known map of night sky found hidden in Medieval parchment by TechnologicalDarkage

Yeah but they were not Europeans, so it doesn't matter

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dontevercallmeabully t1_iswnipr wrote

Read the article. Mapping is one thing (as in laying out where stars are respective to each other), registering coordinates for each of them is another. And even in that case, the coordinates are augmented with magnitude. This is what makes the finding remarkable, this is science not politics.

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Bradwarden0047 t1_iswps9p wrote

Perhaps you should look into what ancient Egyptian astronomy actually consisted of. The tomb of Ramses for example not only maps out the stars, but also the trajectory the relevant stars take for an observer on Earth. Supposedly something similar is so "surprising" about this discovery. But again - they're not Europeans. Also, they are just attributing this to Hipparchus based on the position of the fixed stars at the time, and as it roughly aligns with his lifetime, it must be him and can be noone else!

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dontevercallmeabully t1_iswttp9 wrote

Nobody serious is disregarding one civilisation against another. Highlighting this is the earliest coordinates-rich mapping we know of doesn’t cast shadows on what pre-Colombian or ancient Egyptian folks achieved. There is absolutely no need to polarise this. They are all fascinating.

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JohnnyUtah_QB1 t1_isx2qzs wrote

> A medieval parchment from a monastery in Egypt has yielded a surprising treasure. Hidden beneath Christian texts, scholars have discovered what seems to be part of the long-lost star catalogue of the astronomer Hipparchus — believed to be the earliest known attempt to map the entire sky.

If you actually read the article you would see this is what makes it unique. The article does mention prior depictions of the night sky occurring throughout history, but these are always just a handful of celestial bodies that were important for those cultures. This text in contrast was intended to be a rigourous mapping of every object that could be seen.

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Bradwarden0047 t1_isy4oyl wrote

Actually you should read the article first before preaching it. This finding details only the Corona Borealis constellation. Not the entire sky. Maybe try reading beyond the first paragraph next time.

Hipparchus is thought to have charted the entire night sky and click baity articles like this create the impression that this discovery is it. They bank on the fact that people like you just read the headline or first paragraph and become experts on the subject.

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JohnnyUtah_QB1 t1_isy7ol1 wrote

I read it. Try again.

This catalog has been alluded to over the centuries by ancient texts but no one had any surviving proof. Ancient texts make vague allusions to Hipparchus' catalog but no one had ever actually dug up the catalog itself. While the deciphered piece is only partial, it's compelling proof that Hipparchus did produce a catalog of stars, and given testimony from other ancient astronomers who saw it in whole there's good reason to believe it was exhaustive.

Ancient peoples were citing this work for centuries. It was lost at some point and scholars have been trying to find a copy for centuries. It's pretty incredible to find pieces of it written over and hidden in documents we've been sitting on the whole time

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