"The catalogue of stars was created more than 2,100 years ago by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus. Known only by mentions from other scientists of antiquity such as Pliny the Elder in the first century, scholars say it described more than 800 celestial bodies by brightness and their positions in the sky, and included illustrations of constellations. The original document has never been found."
"The copied star map is believed to have been erased around the 10th Century, and the goat- or sheep-skin parchment pages - a valuable commodity in the medieval world - ended up at St. Catherine's Monastery at the base of Mount Sinai, where monks overwrote them with Christian teachings. In 2012, an undergraduate student working on a summer project at the University of Cambridge found among the 200 or so pages of the Christian manuscript - called the Codex Climaci Rescriptus - a faint pas"
Researchers used a powerful SLAC X-ray beam to image parchment pages from a medieval Sinai monastery to reveal hidden astronomical writing. The original star catalogue, compiled by Hipparchus more than 2,100 years ago, listed over 800 celestial bodies by brightness and position and included constellation illustrations, but the original has not been found. A high-quality copy thought to date from the sixth century was later erased and overwritten with Christian texts; the goat- or sheep-skin parchments ended up at St. Catherine's Monastery. Imaging of the pages aims to recover obscured ancient Greek astronomical content and coordinates.
Read at The Mercury News
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