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Re: VMs: Pleiades Occultation Further Date Refinement
Let me tackle a few of the points made in this discussion...
First Robert Teague wrote:
On the folios with planets, they are drawn as
circles.
No such circles are present. If you observe the star
field, it is clear the large star near the
Pleiades is Aldebaran.
I'm unsure where there are any drawings of planets? Besides, at the
time of the VMS's authorship planets were considered "stars" and so were
not depicted as circles.
Also, I'd agree with Rene that it is not "clear" that the large star is
Aldebaran. My hunch is that it is a depiction of a conjunction with the
bright star being a planet (or possibly - though unlikely - a comet).
I've begun doing pretty much what Robert has done - looking for
astronomical events roughly matching the "Pleiades" segment of f68r3.
Also, I'll try to run a check of other significant conjunction events
which may match the 2, 3 and 4 "star" events on 68r3.
On to Robert Hicks who wrote:
Whilst these dates are interesting, I don't feel they are particularly useful. The 'identification' of the Pleiades has not resulted in a reading of the label next to them, and the dates only go to show that an occultation is so common as to place the event within any 50 years you happen to like.
A translation of the labels (or any of the text for that matter) would
be wonderful but at this point the most "concrete" determination of any
content of the MS is the spurious f33v as Sunflower. When it comes to
the basic questions - who, where, when, why and what - we have no
answers. I believe it would be a breakthrough to have any, even
fragmentary, answer to any of those questions. That's why I think
plugging away at a possible identification of a combination of
astronomical events could offer much to the understanding of the MS.
Robert Hicks wrote:
I tend to think that, like the botanical drawings, the cosmo drawings are, if not totally a work of the imagination, at least grossly inaccurate. The drawings are crude - the circles rough, the 'straight' lines crooked. Angles between the 'spokes' in the diagrams seem to have been guesstimated rather than carefully measured. Drawings of the moon are invariably cosmetic rather than informative. If there was any serious astronomy going on, more care would have been taken. There are plenty of examples of 'astronomers' filling out the gaps on their works with random stars, imaginary constellations or superabundant moons, and there's no reason to assume the VMS authors did not do so too.
Representational, yet seemingly sloppy, astronomical drawings are very
common from even the best of sources. Take a look at the notebooks of
Galileo or Kepler where they sketched out observations. Simplicity or
flourish does not necessarily equate to inaccuracy and symbolic
representations of celestial objects do not diminish their
significance. I would agree that the four star filled sections of 68r3
are probably decorative, but my guess is that the four other sections
are quite possibly a reference to specific events. We'll see, I hope.
Finally, Jan wrote:
Why would the author - knowing enough about astronomy -
draw the instantaneous position of the planet near the constellation,
knowing it will not be there all the time anyway?
Especially if he was concerned with constellation only?
Recording the "instantaneous" position of the planets was pretty much
what the entire science of astronomy consisted of until the 1600's.
Brahe made a very good life for himself doing exactly that. Ptolemy's
'atlas' was one of the most important astronomical texts for centuries,
though it consisted primarily of simple lists of star positions. Well,
you get the idea. My question is: can we use f68r3 as a calendar which
depicts four celestial dates? Worth a look, I'd say.
Ken W
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