Scientists have analyzed the 2000-year-old manuscript of the astronomer
Experts from the Sorbonne University in Paris and New York University were able to reveal the contents of the 2000-year-old manuscript using the spectral imaging method, the Archive for History of Exact Sciences reports.
The author of the work, in their opinion, was the mathematician and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. The artifact dates back to the first century AD.
The text was written in Greek on a piece of parchment. It was discovered in 1819 by the Italian cardinal and philologist Angelo Mai. The document was kept in the library of the Abbey of Bobbio in northern Italy.
Experts for more than two centuries could not make out the original text. In the VI or VII centuries, someone decided to reuse expensive parchment and wrote fragments of the "Etiology" of the Spanish theologian Isidore of Seville on top of it.
Until now, scientists have managed to decipher only individual words.
During the study, experts took many photographs of the manuscript with different wavelengths of light. Then the images were combined. During the work, scientists were able to identify the necessary inscriptions.
This method made it possible to read more than half of what was written. It turned out that Ptolemy had laid out on parchment a guide to creating a meteoroscope – a device for astronomical calculations and studying stars. It consisted of nine metal rings rotating around each other.
Scientists noted that they could not decipher the first and last pages and find the author's signature. However, they managed to identify special words and phrases characteristic of Ptolemy.
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