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Re: VMs: Re: VMS: Chinese theory, pushed against the wall...
Hi, Jorge
This is great information. Thank you for tossing it
out onto the list for us (again)!
I have been looking on the internet for mentions of
catalogues of "300 stars"; there is information on
several sites stating that approximately 300 stars
were named by the ancients (Western astrology).
Interestingly, the Mauri of New Zealand were also said
to know the names of 300 stars, but their contact with
Europeans was very late: the earliest known contact
was 16th century, and regular contact began with the
explorations of Cook.
There was also mention of Celcius, the scientist who
invented the increments we use for measuring
temperature, who devised a catalogue of 300 stars
using a telescope. But according to the dating of the
document, eighteenth century is too late for the VMs.
Warmly,
Pam
--- Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > [Pam:] ... if we assume the nymphs to correspond
> to degrees rather
> > than days, do we agree that we don't have a
> reason for Pisces to
> > contain only 29 degrees/nymphs/stars? And we
> indeed have 300
> > parading naked ladies (nymphs) extant in the
> VMs? I mean just the
> > ones we can see, not including the ones we
> presume are missing.
>
> The following are the counts that I got a couple of
> years ago, from
> the images that were available back then. I haven't
> checked against
> the new SID images yet. (The table must be read
> with fixed-pitch font,
> and without line-folding.)
>
> | The numbers of nymphs, stars, and labels in each
> diagram are given
> | below, first for the central figure (C), then
> for each band, (1-3,
> | innner to outer) and then the totals for the
> whole diagram (T).
> | The "overflow" nymphs are shown as band 3.
> |
> | page 70v2 70v1 71r 71v 72r1 72r2 72r3 72v3
> 72v2 72v1 73r 73v
> | name Pisc Ari1 Ari2 Tau1 Tau2 Gemn Canc Leo
> Virg Libr Scrp Sagt
> | ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
> ---- ---- ---- ----
> | C stars 2 - - - - - - -
> 1 - 1 -
> |
> | 1 stars 10 5 5 5 5 9 7 12
> 11*a 10 10 10
> | 1 nmphs 10 5 5 5 5 9 7 12
> 12 10 10 10
> |
> | 2 stars 19 10 10 10 10 16 11 18
> 18 20 16 15*b
> | 2 nmphs 19 10 10 10 10 16 11 18
> 18 20 16 16
> |
> | 3 stars - - - - - 5 12 -
> - - 4 4
> | 3 nmphs - - - - - 5 12 -
> - - 4 4
> | ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
> ---- ---- ---- ----
> | T stars 31 15 15 15 15 30 30 30
> 30 30 31 29
> | T nmphs 29 15 15 15 15 30 30 30
> 30 30 30 30
> |
> | ----------------------------------------
> | *a: one star seems to have been erased.
> | *b: one star reduced to a dot.
> |
> | Some of the star counts could not be confirmed
> because of poor
> | copy quality. Folio 74 (the other half of the
> bifolio bL1 =
> | f73+f74) is missing in the VMS.
>
> So while Pisces has only 29 nymphs, it has 31 stars.
> Also Scorpio has
> one extra star at the center, but in neighboring
> Sagittarius one of
> the stars is erased (?) leaving only 29 whole ones.
> Virgo has one
> extra star at the center, and one erased star,
> keeping the total at
> 30.
>
> All these "compensations" among the "errors", if
> confirmed,
> cannot be coincidental...
>
> On the other hand, the partition of each 30-star
> chunk among the three
> bands seems to be arbitrary. I would say that, up to
> the last page,
> the author was experimenting with various layouts
> for these diagrams.
>
> All the best,
>
> --stolfi
>
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=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
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