Dunhuang Star Chart

<h2 id="history">History</h2>
Chinese Dunhuang Star Atlas—one of the oldest extant star charts, believed to be from the 7th century, showing each of the lunar months and the north polar region with a total of 1345 stars in 257 constellations clearly marked and named
<p>Early in 1900s (decade), a walled-up cave containing a cache of <a href="/facts/Manuscript/A6XNmrTd">manuscripts</a>  was discovered by Chinese <a href="/facts/Taoist/Bk79rd9J">Taoist</a> <a href="/facts/Wang_Yuan-lu/nqUVxLet">Wang Yuan-lu</a> in the <a href="/facts/Mogao_Caves/I6LPaYxv">Mogao Caves</a>. The scroll with the star chart was found amongst those documents by <a href="/facts/Aurel_Stein/yH1DT0lz">Aurel Stein</a> when he visited and examined the content of the cave in 1907.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a>  One of the first public mentionings of this script in Western studies was from <a href="/facts/Joseph_Needham/lC1qJAuI">Joseph Needham</a>'s 1959 version of the book <i>Science and Civilisation in China</i>.  Since that time, only a few publications have been devoted to the map, nearly all being Chinese publications.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a>
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<h2 id="colors">Colors</h2>
<p>The symbols for the stars are divided into three different groups.  The groups are presented in three colors representing the <i>"Three Schools of Astronomical tradition"</i>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a>
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<table><tbody><tr><th>Color</th><th>Chinese Astronomer</th><th>Comments</th></tr><tr><td>Black</td><td><a href="/facts/Gan_De/6n68Q7KL">Gan De</a> (甘德)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Red</td><td><a href="/facts/Shi_Shen/YweG8SI3">Shi Shen</a> (石申)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>White</td><td><a href="/facts/Wu_Xian_(astronomer)/pdhMPA1P">Wu Xian</a> (巫咸)</td><td>There have been inconsistencies in his works.  He is generally known as the astronomer who lived before Gan and Shi.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>Yellow</td><td>Others</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Chinese_star_maps/UmzSHXSl">Chinese star maps</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dunhuang Star Atlas.

<ul><li><a href="https://idp.bl.uk/education/astronomy_researchers/translation.html">"Star Atlas: Translation"</a>, by <a href="/facts/Imre_Galambos/AxCIsBLl">Imre Galambos</a>, 2010, International Dunhuang Project.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Whitfield, Susan. [2004] (2004). The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith.  British Library Staff. Serindia Publications.  ISBN 1-932476-12-1. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>"Chinese Astronomy Resource: Contents". idp.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-03-29. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190329214006/http://idp.bl.uk/education/astronomy/index.html" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20190329214006/http://idp.bl.uk/education/astronomy/index.html</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud, Dr Françoise Praderie and Dr Susan Whitfield (16 June 2009). "The Dunhuang Chinese Sky: A Comprehensive Study Of The Oldest Known Star Atlas". Archived from the original on 2 April 2014. The Dunhuang star atlas is one of the most spectacular documents of the history of astronomy. It is a complete representation of the Chinese sky including numerous stars and asterisms depicted in a succession of maps covering the full sky (Figure 1). Apart its aesthetic appeal, the document found on the Silk Road is remarkable as it is the oldest star atlas known today from any civilization. <a href="/wiki/Jean-Marc_Bonnet-Bidaud" target="_blank">/wiki/Jean-Marc_Bonnet-Bidaud</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>International Dunhuang Project.bl.uk Archived 2017-06-10 at the Wayback Machine <a href="https://idp.bl.uk/pages/collections_ch.a4d" target="_blank">https://idp.bl.uk/pages/collections_ch.a4d</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:5"><p>Whitfield, Susan. [2004] (2004). The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith.  British Library Staff. Serindia Publications.  ISBN 1-932476-12-1. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:6"><p>Whitfield, Susan. [2004] (2004). The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith.  British Library Staff. Serindia Publications.  ISBN 1-932476-12-1. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=9AUxnUNRekgC</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:7"><p>Peng, Yoke Ho (2000). Li, Qi and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilization in China. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-41445-0 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_P6C4JO4JCUC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=_P6C4JO4JCUC</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
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Dunhuang Star Chart open-in-new

Dunhuang Star Chart