Researchers have deciphered an ancient manuscript they believe to be Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer of Greek descent, written in the first century AD. The text was written in Greek on parchment and was originally discovered in 1819 by Angelo Mai, a Roman Catholic cardinal and scholar of ancient texts who found it hidden in a library at the Abbey of Bobbio in northern Italy.
Now a team of researchers from the Sorbonne in Paris and New York University (NYU) has deciphered a large part of the mysterious text and revealed its contents. They detailed their work in a study published March 9 in the journal Archive for History of Exact Sciences.
Ancient astronomer Claudius Ptolemy
Before experts tried to decipher the manuscript and could only decode pieces of the copy. Because parchment or treated animal skin was considered very expensive, sometime during the sixth or seventh century AD, someone recycled the pages and printed another work on them in this case, the “Etymologiae” of the Spanish theologian Isidore of Seville. Ptolemy’s writing. Someone also “cleaned” the paper in an attempt to read it, causing parts of the pages to darken, according to the study.
Angelo Mai sprayed the pages with chemicals to erase the Latin script,” study co-author Alexander Jones a professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World told.
The researchers needed a way to get an optimized view of the text because “it was basically impossible to read more than a few isolated words on these particular pages,” Jones said. So they turned to a method called multispectral imaging.
“The basic idea is that different wavelengths of light have different illumination on a page that’s written with ink of any particular composition,” Jones said.
Notably, she uncovered a manual written by Ptolemy that explained how to build a meteoroscope, an armillary instrument used to track distances and study the stars. The device, composed of nine metal rings that rotate around each other, could be used to orient a person while performing astronomical calculations. In the text, Ptolemy recommended building an instrument that, according to the study, would not be less than about 1 foot (0.3 meters) in diameter.
So how did scholars know that Ptolemy was really the author of this work? “Unfortunately, we don’t have the first and last pages, so we don’t have the author’s name,” Jones said. “But things started to emerge that are very characteristic of Ptolemy’s Greek vocabulary. He has a distinctive style and uses certain phrases and words that either no one else in all of ancient Greek literature used, or few if not influenced by him.”
The subject itself also offered clues.” Then we found a specific passage where the author speaks in the first person and says, “I have introduced a new terminology for certain angles used in astronomy,” Jones said. “We also have another book by Ptolemy where he used the same terminology new names for these angles. That’s our strongest evidence that it’s from him.”
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