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Is Atlas Holding Hipparchus' Lost Star Map?
cr0kin0le writes "The Farnese Atlas at the Naples National Archaeological Museum may be holding a celestial globe which accurately depicts the long-lost star catalog of Hipparchus, according to a physics professor at Louisiana State University."
The leaf seems to be real. It's probably the doing of the (very European) Pope Pius the IX in 1857, who thought that naked statues should be covered up. In recent years they have been restored, and the NY Times probably used an old picture - whether or not that was on purpose we don't know.
From the FA: picture without leaf
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Uh, i just did a quick google for "Farnese Atlas statue" (as noted under the picture), and the results were without the leaf !! :)
see here: picture (but beware, it contains nudity, oh the horror !)
A sculpture probably isn't going to show enough detail, but old charts are interesting as they can show stars as being brighter or dimmer than they are today. For example, in the mid 19th century Eta Carinae was the second brightest star in the sky (after Sirius), now it's almost invisible to the naked eye (around 5th magnitude IIRC). The bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini were around the same magnitude, now Castor is dimmer (the brighter Pollux is still 'beta Geminorum'). I wonder what Hipparchos might have seen that we dont see now?
David, for example, suffered this fate.
Actually, this is a European thing. Many old sculptures and statues were modified by the catholic church during past centuries in the name of 'decency'. Fig leaves were typically added, made of alabaster or a similar stone to the original statue, and affixed using concrete. This is also why many statues you will now see in this part of the world lack genitalia, as when the leaves were removed by a more enlightened age of society, the genitals fairly often came with.
The NYTimes photo is most likely an accurate picture, however is probably a lot older than the picture on the other site, and the fig leaf was removed sometime after the photo was taken.
It's a real leaf, that was placed on it in the Victorian era by Papal decree, and was recently removed as part of a restoration project, but most news outlets frankly don't want to spend $20 for an updated photo when their old stock still works.
I hope you married a surgeon.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Are you kidding? They're probably over at the local nudie bar hiding from their wives. Some parts of the bible belt have more interesting strip clubs than Vegas.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The linked photo is from the Naples Archeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli). The NYTimes photo is from the Griffith Observatory in LA. Hence they're not necessarily the same piece of stone, and the latter may be a copy of the original in Naples. On another porn-related note, the Naples Museum is well known across the world for its beloved "Secret Room," full of sexually explicit artifacts dug up from Pompeii and other Roman sites. That, along with the awesome mosaics, are well worth the trip to Naples. Naples has a bad rap for a being unsafe (and parts of it are) but anyone going to Italy should surely go.