The Dunhuang chinese sky: a comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas

http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.3034v1


25 Jun 2009

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 12.1:39-59 (March 2009)

Self-description:
"The Dunhuang chinese sky: a comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas.
Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud (1), Francoise Praderie (2), Susan Whitfield (3),
((1) Service d'Astrophysique, CEA Saclay, F, (2) Observatoire de Paris, F, (3) The British Library, UK)
(Submitted on 16 Jun 2009)
This paper presents an analysis of the star atlas included in the medieval Chinese manuscript (Or.8210/S.3326), discovered in 1907 by the archaeologist Aurel Stein at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang and now held in the British Library. Although partially studied by a few Chinese scholars, it has never been fully displayed and discussed in the Western world. This set of sky maps (12 hour angle maps in quasi-cylindrical projection and a circumpolar map in azimuthal projection), displaying the full sky visible from the Northern hemisphere, is up to now the oldest complete preserved star atlas from any civilisation. It is also the first known pictorial representation of the quasi-totality of the Chinese constellations. This paper describes the history of the physical object - a roll of thin paper drawn with ink. We analyse the stellar content of each map (1339 stars, 257 asterisms) and the texts associated with the maps. We establish the precision with which the maps are drawn (1.5 to 4 degrees for the brightest stars) and examine the type of projections used. We conclude that precise mathematical methods were used to produce the atlas. We also discuss the dating of the manuscript and its possible author and confirm the dates 649-684 (early Tang dynasty) as most probable based on available evidence. This is at variance with a prior estimate around +940. Finally we present a brief comparison with later sky maps, both in China and in Europe.
Comments: 19 pages, 5 Tables, 8 Figures. Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR). Journal reference: J.Astron.Hist.Herit.12:39-59,2009."

[The paper, in PDF format, over 2 MB strong can be dowloaded from http://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.3034v1 - ed.]

Site contents:
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The "Discovery" of the star atlas
2. THE CHINESE CONTEXT
2.1. Chinese astronomical background
2.2. Review of the Chinese sources on S.3326
3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF S.3326
3.1. Physical characteristics of the manuscript
3.2. The astronomical content
3.2.1. The star maps
3.2.2. The calendar texts (Jupiter stations)
3.2.3. The culmination texts
3.3. The polar star
4. SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF S.3326
4.1. Accuracy and projection study
1.2. Analysis of the culmination texts : an attempt at dating
2. STATUS OF S.3326
2.1. Dating the document
2.2. A comparison with other sources
2.3. Purpose of S.3326
3. CONCLUSION
4. APPENDIX
7.1 The Orion stellar region (map 5)
7.2 The circumpolar map (map 13)
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
6. NOTES
9. REFERENCES
11. TABLES
12. FIGURES

URL http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.3034v1

Internet Archive (web.archive.org) [the paper was not archived at the time of this abstract]

Link reported by: Moo-Young Han (myhan--at--phy.duke.edu)

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* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000
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