quote:

Hipparchus's map of the stars may finally have been found

A trio of researchers from CNRS, UMR, Tyndale House and Sorbonne Université, respectively, have found what might be the famous Hipparchus's map of the stars. In their paper published in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Victor Gysembergh, Peter Williams and Emanuel Zingg describe a palimpsest manuscript that was found at the Greek Orthodox St Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, and what they believe it describes.

Historians have long believed that a catalog of the stars was created long ago by early Greek astronomer Hipparchus—his catalog was believed to represent the earliest map of the stars. But lack of physical evidence of such a map has left the record for creation of the earliest star map to Ptolemy. In this new effort, the researchers believe they have found part of the catalog that Hipparchus created sometime between 162 and 127 BCE.