The hiker ascending the trails of Rupinpiccolo, a distinctive village in the Karst of Trieste, may come across an imposing wall of large stones: it is a castelliere, an ancient structure for defensive purposes. Used as a fortification from 1800 to 1650 B.C. until 400 B.C. Rupinpiccolo’s is one of the most important castellieri and the first to be unearthed.

Two large circular stones – two thick disks about 50 cm in diameter and 30 cm deep – were found near the entrance of the castelliere and caught the attention of archaeologists. One of the two, aside from the circular cut, shows no other signs of craftsmanship and is believed to represent the Sun. The other could be the oldest celestial map ever discovered.

It was an astronomer from Inaf Trieste, Paolo Molaro, and an archaeologist from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Ictp, Federico Bernardini, who realized this and reported the intriguing hypothesis in an article published in Astronomische Nachrichten, the oldest active astronomy journal in the world.

Modelo digital de elevación de la cara frontal del disco de piedra de Rupinpiccolo a partir de una adaptación de la fig. 1 de Bernardini et al. (2022). La orientación es arbitraria
Digital elevation model of the front face of the Rupinpiccolo stone disk from an adaptation of fig. 1 of Bernardini et al. (2022). The orientation is arbitrary | photo Paolo Molaro et al.

About two years ago, Federico Bernardini, whom I didn’t know, contacted me, saying he needed an astronomer, Molaro recalls to Media Inaf, because he thought he had identified the constellation Scorpius on a stone in the Karst. My first reaction was disbelief, as the southern part of Scorpius is just above the horizon at our latitudes. But then, discovering that the precession of the equinoxes raised it about 10-12 degrees and the surprising coincidence with the constellation, I began to investigate further… That’s how I identified Orion, the Pleiades, and, in the rear, Cassiopeia. All the points present except one.

The signs identified by Molaro and Bernardini total 29: 24 on one side of the stone and 5 on the other. They are irregularly distributed but all have a common orientation, as if they were engraved by the same person. A person armed with a hammer and a rudimentary metal chisel with a 6-7 mm tip, suggest the analyses of the two scientists. They point out that a “homicidal weapon” compatible with these 29 marks – a bronze tool – was found a few kilometers away, in the Castelliere di Elleri, and is now preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Muggia.

In summary, all the clues seem to align: these marks are not the work of nature nor are they there by chance. Someone carved them. And they carved them at least 2,400 years ago. When the Rupinpiccolo castle still served its fortification purpose. And when the stars of Scorpius still shone above the horizon, as reconstructed by Molaro. One star in particular: Sargas. Also called Theta Scorpii, today Sargas is no longer visible from the Castelliere, precisely because it is too low on the horizon, but it was in 1800 B.C., as calculated by Molaro simulating the night sky over Rupinpiccolo at that time with the Stellarium program. And it was also in 400 B.C.

Cara frontal del disco de piedra a partir de una adaptación de la fig. 1 de Bernardini et al. (2022). Mapa de curvatura del disco con la posición de las marcas de cincel indicadas con círculos negros y numeradas
Front face of the stone disk from an adaptation of fig. 1 of Bernardini et al. (2022). Curvature map of the disk with the position of the chisel marks indicated with black circles and numbered | photo Paolo Molaro et al.

But let’s move on to the 29 signs. All but one overlap with the stars of Scorpius, Orion, the Pleiades, and probably – also taking into account the five signs on the back of the stone – with Cassiopeia. And this is an overlap with a very high statistical significance, specify the authors: the p-value is well below 0.001. In other words, it is quite unlikely that the arrangement of these signs is purely random. Not only that: the deviations from the true positions are of the order of the size of the signs, demonstrating considerable care in execution.

All but one, we said. But sign 29 could also be there on purpose. The intruder could actually represent a supernova, propose the authors. Or one of the so-called “failed supernovae.”

That is, one of those objects that astronomers call transients: they appear at a given moment and then disappear again. If so, Molaro and Bernardini suggest, there could be a black hole in that part of the current sky. So it might be worth trying to detect its traces.

Portion of the stone superimposed onto the sky map of the Pleiades. The chisel marks on the stone are sketched with light blue circles of about twice the size of the real marks, that is, with a diameter of about 8 arcminutes, with the center of the marks highlighted with red dots to allow their visibility. Alcyone has been taken as initial reference, adjusting orientation and scale to obtain the best match with the other members of the Pleiades. The arrows show tentative associations of the chisel marks with the nine brightest stars of the Pleiades. The seven sisters are Alcyone with the chisel mark N. 17, Merope with N. 18, Electra with N. 19, Celaeno with N. 20, Taygeta with N. 21, Sterope with N. 22 and Maia with N. 23, along with their parents Atlas and Pleione with the chisel mark N16 and N. 24, respectively. | foto Paolo Molaro et al.

The study leaves many suggestive questions open. Who could have engraved that stone? Who were the inhabitants of the Castelliere at that time? It is known that they could not write, but much remains to be discovered about them. And finally: is this the oldest celestial map ever discovered?

The oldest known representation of the night sky to date is probably the Nebra disk, a bronze artifact with gold appliqués indicating the Sun, the Moon, and the Pleiades: originating from Germany, it is dated around 1600 B.C. But it is not a true map: it is more of a symbolic representation. For “faithful” maps, one has to wait until the 1st century B.C., the time of maps probably derived from the catalog of Hipparchus, which dates back to 135 B.C.

Accepting a protohistoric dating of the artifact, the relatively precise tracing of asterisms on the stone of Rupinpiccolo would be, therefore, at least a few centuries earlier, conclude the authors of the study. And it would demonstrate the existence of a surprising curiosity about astronomy already in protohistoric Europe.

Sources

Istituto Nazionale di Astronomia (INAF) | Paolo Molaro, Federico Bernardini, Possible stellar asterisms carved on a protohistoric stone. Astronomische Nachrichten, doi.org/10.1002/asna.20220108

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