The 2nd century BC Greek Hipparchus is credited with being the greatest astronomer of antiquity. Among many other discoveries, he was the first to accurately model the motion of the sun and moon, to develop the knowledge to predict solar eclipses, and to notice the precession of stars across the sky over time. He also was the first to compile a catalogue of the stars he could see in the sky and their locations. This was an invaluable reference work for subsequent ancient astronomers, and serving as a source for Arab scholars in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, along with most of Hipparchus' writings, the work has not survived, and we only know of it from secondary sources.

However, a remarkable link back to the original document has been discovered through the study of an ancient Roman scuplture. The Farnese Atlas, on display in the National Archeological Museum in Naples, depicts Atlas holding a 2-foot wide globe, inscribed upon which are 41 constellations of stars.



Astronomer Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University decided to study the locations of the constellations on the globe, and found that their positioning was extremely accurate. Using the concept of precession he was able to work out when the stars would have beein in exactly these positions in the night sky.

It turned out that the dating of approximately 150BC tied in accurately with the date when Hipparchus would have made his observations for his star catalogue. It therefore seems that the lost catalogue has been accurately inscribed upon the globe, preserving the data from the original catalogue.