2023-12-27 11:22:00
While carrying out excavations at Castelliere di Rupinpiccolo, an ancient hill located in the province of Trieste, Italy, archaeologists got their hands on two large circular stones – two thick discs approximately 50 cm in diameter and 30 cm depth – near the entrance to the site. The discovery was announced in a press release from the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), according to Archeonews.
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As we can read in the study, written by Paolo Molaro, astronomer at INAF, and by researchers from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and ICTP, one of the stones is a representation of the sun, while the other is a sculpted celestial map dating from the 4th century BC. The latter in fact reveals, according to experts, an image of the sky which was above Castelliere di Rupinpiccolo around 2,500 years ago, which makes this discovery the oldest known celestial map found in Italy .
29 engravings corresponding to famous constellations
In total, twenty-nine engravings were identified on the stone by the team of archaeologists. They were probably made by the same person using a hammer and a coarse metal chisel with a 6-7 mm tip, as the angle of the cut marks in the stone seems to indicate.
These figures are superimposable (and therefore correspond perfectly) to the constellations of Cassiopeia, Orion, Scorpius and the Pleiades. This is an overlap whose statistical significance is very high, according to the authors of the study: the p-value is significantly lower than 0.001. In other words, it is very unlikely that the arrangement of these engravings was a coincidence.
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29 engravings, corresponding to famous constellations, were discovered on the INAF stone
A star today invisible: Theta Scorpii
A star engraved on the stone, identified as Theta Scorpii, particularly attracted the attention of experts. And for good reason, it is today invisible from Castelliere di Rupinpiccolo, due to its position being too low compared to the horizon.
However, using the program Stellariummaking it possible to simulate the night sky, researchers discovered that this star was indeed observable from the ancient hill around 400 BC.
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The twenty-ninth engraving is also very interesting since it does not correspond to any celestial model. Experts believe it might be a depiction of a supernova, a transient phenomenon that in ancient times appeared suddenly in the night sky for days or months, before fading and disappearing.
If this is indeed the case, scientists suggest that spotting the focal point in the night sky, correlating with the twenty-ninth etching, might potentially reveal a black hole left behind by the supernova explosion.
On the same topic :
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