by An 11th-century astrolabe – a device used to accurately calculate the date and time based on the positions of the stars – found in a museum in Verona, Italy, is clear evidence of scientific exchange and cooperation between Muslim, Jewish and Christians, according to a new study. .
The IS an asterisk It stands out because, after being built by Muslim craftsmen, it passed through the hands of later Jewish and Christian users, who moved and modified the device over the centuries. An asterisk that was widely shared almost a thousand years ago is an extremely rare find.
The bronze star remained in the archives of Verona’s Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo for years, its true value undiscovered, until the curator of the museum, Giovanna Residori, became curious and drew the attention of Federica Gigante, a historian in Cambridge University which specializes in. material and intellectual exchanges between Islamic peoples and Europe.
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“The current curator thought it was interesting and wanted to know more about it,” Gigante said. space.com. “Just by chance I saw it on the museum’s website, so it was a happy coincidence.”
When he explored the constellation, Gigante was surprised to learn how complicated the history of this particular device was.
Astrolabes were invented by the ancient Greeks, but no astrolabes survive from that time. Rather, the earliest examples date from the late 8th century Arab astrologerswho was leading the world at the time in terms of his scientific skills.
Astrolabes are constructed from a disk, with the time or degrees of angular division marked around its edge. Pinned to this disk is one or more circular plates, each plate for a particular latitude, and on top of that is another plate called a rete (pronounced “ree-tee”), on which is a chart showing the a brighter one. stars in the sky. The idea is to rotate the rete so that the position of the star matches what is in the sky, and then use the hour scale around the rim to determine the time.
Muslim craftsmen designed astrolabes specifically with religious use in mind.
“Every mosque would have one,” Gigante said. “That makes perfect sense, because the main function of an astrologer is to tell the time, and that’s one thing a muezzin does from a minaret, which is to sing the hour of prayer.”
There are a dozen or so examples of astrolabes of Arab construction in museum collections around the world, but what stands out about the Verona astrolabe is that it has inscriptions in Hebrew and a western language used in Christian countries at the time, in this case probably. Italy.
Gigante says the astrolabe was probably built in Spain, in the late 11th century. She can’t be sure exactly when, though. “The positions of the stars are not so accurate that I could get a date from them,” she said.
World wobbles on his back, motion called press which sees the position of the stars relative to the north pole change in a cycle lasting 26,000 years. Over the thousands of years since the astrolabe was built, the stars have moved about 14 degrees relative to a fixed background. But Gigante found that trying to retrace the sky to match the positions on the constellation to determine when the constellation was formed did not work, because the positions of the stars on the constellation are not as accurate as modern measurements.
Instead, Gigante scoured ancient tables of star coordinates from which the astrolabes of this era would be found. She focused on those from Al-Andalus, a Muslim-ruled area of what is now Spain. Both Muslims and Jews lived side by side in Al-Andalus, and they all spoke Arabic. The Verona star bears an Arabic inscription, reading “for Isḥāq […]/ the work of Yūnus.” In English, those names are Isaac and Jonah, and they are probably Jewish monikers written in Arabic — so Gigante points to Al-Andalus.
“If we think about what Spain looked like in the 11th century, there were many different observatories where they tried to draw up charts of star coordinates and planetary positions, and these were working groups of scientists that always included Jews and Muslims at work side by side. other,” says Gigante.
Although she was unable to identify a specific table of star coordinates that indicated the Verona constellation, she found one from Al-Andalus in 1068 that was close. This is further supported by inscriptions on one of the reversible plates, which indicate that they are at the latitude of Cordoba and Toledo, both of which are cities in the region.
However, at some point the asterisk seems to have changed hands. Another plate was added with an Arabic inscription stating that it was to be used in North Africa, somewhere in present day Egypt or Morocco.
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After this, the astrolabe received further modifications. Arabic markings were crossed out and translated into Hebrew, the language of the Jews in the rest of the world. After that, faint numbers written in a western language were also scratched onto the disc, before astronomy finally ended up in the hands of Ludovico Moscardo, a 17th-century nobleman in Verona. Part of the collection became the Moscardo Museum, absorbed into the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo in 1964, before finally coming to Gigante’s attention.
Astrolabes were the smartphones of their time. “Every educated person would have someone, especially those who work in astronomy or astronomy,” Gigante said.
Half of these users, like the muezzins in their minarets, used them to make astrological readings for religious regions. The other half would be employed by them for astrological purposes. Back in the 11th century, when our understanding of the heavens was limited, astronomy and astronomy was considered the same.
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“When the astrolabe passed into Jewish and Christian hands, I expect it was used for more astrological purposes than religious ones, although monks also used astrolabes for times of prayer,” Gigante said.
Astrolabes with Hebrew inscriptions are extremely rare; Gigante knows of one in the British Museum in London but no one else, although many have probably been lost to the ravages of time. However, their rarity highlights how most astrolabes from this era are of Muslim origin and are exclusively Muslim. The constellation of Verona is therefore of historical importance because its origins are both Islamic, Jewish and Christian.
It is a timely reminder, given the current tragic events in the Middle East, that different people can exist in the past and share knowledge.
Gigante discusses her findings in a paper published March 1 in the journal Nuncius.
