Divinity Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
You can send evidence on some of these. A pilot is open on 55 questions in one field, Palaeography. Each says what would resolve it; send something that meets that bar, with a source anybody can check, and an editor will weigh it. Sending evidence does not guarantee the question will be resolved, and it does not have to be your field to read what is being asked. See what is open.
Grouped by the kind of thing the question is about, so you can go straight to the entity type you work on.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields
Showing 41 to 60 of 608 open questions, page 3 of 31.
Historical Figures 103
Matsyendranath
When was Matsyendranath born?
Open Matsyendranath
Why It Is Open Matsyendranath survives only in Nath and Kaula tradition and in Newar devotional practice, and different lineages and modern scholars place him across several centuries with no external, independently datable evidence to settle the question.
What Would Settle It An inscription, manuscript colophon or external record independently naming Matsyendranath and a date, distinct from the devotional and lineage traditions that presently supply the only accounts of his life.
Expertise Needed History of tantra and hatha yoga, Nath Sampradaya studies, Newar religious history
Question posed in
The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, David Gordon White.
Sunan Kalijaga
When was Sunan Kalijaga born, and when did he die?
Open Sunan Kalijaga
Why It Is Open Sunan Kalijaga is known only through Javanese chronicle and hagiographic tradition centuries removed from his life, and even the popularly repeated 1450 birth year and 1513 death year are not agreed, with some accounts giving a death year decades later.
What Would Settle It A contemporary Javanese court chronicle, inscription or other independently datable record naming Sunan Kalijaga's birth or death, distinct from the popular hagiographic tradition that presently supplies the only dates in circulation.
Expertise Needed Javanese history, history of Islam in Indonesia
Question posed in
Gamelan: Cultural Interaction and Musical Development in Central Java, Sumarsam.
Haji Bektash Veli
When was Haji Bektash Veli born, and when did he die?
Open Haji Bektash Veli
Why It Is Open Haji Bektash Veli's life is known only through Bektashi hagiography composed generations after him, and even the commonly repeated 1209 to 1271 dates compete with other traditional accounts that differ by decades on both ends.
What Would Settle It A thirteenth century Anatolian source, inscription or administrative record naming Haji Bektash Veli and a date, independent of the later Bektashi hagiographic tradition that presently supplies the only accounts of his life.
Expertise Needed History of Sufism, Ottoman and Anatolian history
Question posed in
The Sufi Orders in Islam, J. Spencer Trimingham.
Sultan Sahak
When was Sultan Sahak born?
Open Sultan Sahak
Why It Is Open Sultan Sahak's life is remembered through Yarsani devotional narrative rather than documented biography, and the Kalam-e Saranjam's own Perdiwari texts do not supply datable historical reference points; scholarship's own fifteenth century placement is explicitly provisional, and other readings diverge by centuries.
What Would Settle It An external historical or archaeological record from the Hawraman region independently datable and naming Sultan Sahak, distinct from the devotional Kalam-e Saranjam tradition that presently supplies the only accounts of his life.
Expertise Needed History of the Yarsan/Ahl-e Haqq tradition, Kurdish history
Question posed in
The Yaresan: A Sociological, Historical and Religio-Historical Study of a Kurdish Community, M. Reza Hamzeh'ee.
Svatmarama
Where was Svatmarama born?
Open Svatmarama
Why It Is Open The Hatha Yoga Pradipika names no birthplace for its compiler, and no manuscript tradition or later Natha lineage record fills the gap independently of the text itself.
What Would Settle It A datable manuscript colophon, inscription, or external reference naming Svatmarama's origin, none of which is currently known.
Expertise Needed History of yoga, manuscript studies
Question posed in
Roots of Yoga, James Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.).
Andrei Rublev
Where was Andrei Rublev born?
Open Andrei Rublev
Why It Is Open Rublev enters the documentary record as an adult monk already at work in 1405; no earlier source records his birthplace or exact birth year.
What Would Settle It A monastic or chronicle record from before 1405 naming his origin, none of which has been identified.
Expertise Needed Byzantine and Russian art history, medieval Russian monastic records
Question posed in
The Rublev Trinity: The Icon of the Trinity by the Monk-painter Andrei Rublev (Gabriel Bunge), Gabriel Bunge.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II
Where was Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II born?
Open Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II
Why It Is Open Rabbinic sources remember Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II as a youth who escaped the massacre at Betar in 135 CE and later as Nasi at Usha, but no source names where he was born.
What Would Settle It A datable document naming his birthplace, independent of the Betar and Usha narratives that establish only his later life.
Expertise Needed Rabbinics, history of the Mishnaic period
Question posed in
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).
Imran ibn Hittan
Where was Imran ibn Hittan born?
Open Imran ibn Hittan
Why It Is Open The medieval biographical dictionaries and modern studies of his verse record his poetry and his Kharijite allegiance but consistently locate his activity rather than his birth.
What Would Settle It A biographical dictionary entry or manuscript colophon naming his birthplace specifically rather than his milieu of activity.
Expertise Needed Early Islamic history, Arabic literature
Question posed in
Kharijites (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors.
Salomone Rossi
When and How Did Salomone Rossi Die?
Open Salomone Rossi
Why It Is Open Rossi is last documented in Mantuan court records around 1628. No source names a date or cause of death; he disappears from the record along with his sister Europa during the 1630 Austrian sack of Mantua and the plague that followed it, either of which could plausibly have killed him, and neither of which is confirmed to have.
What Would Settle It A burial record, a parish or ghetto register entry, a will, or a documented later sighting of Rossi in Venice, where some Mantuan Jewish refugees are known to have fled, any of which would fix either a date and place of death or evidence that he survived the sack.
Expertise Needed Archival research, Italian Jewish history of the War of the Mantuan Succession
Question posed in
Wikipedia, "Salamone Rossi", Wikipedia contributors.
Mata Khivi
What were Mata Khivi's actual birth and death years?
Open Mata Khivi
Why It Is Open The Guru Granth Sahib, her strongest attestation, records no dates for her at all. The secondary Sikh reference literature that does venture birth and death years disagrees with itself, and no independent Mughal-era or Sikh documentary record has settled the question either way. The sixteenth-century placement usually given rests on her documented contemporaneity with Guru Angad's tenure as Guru from 1539 to 1552, not on a dated record of her own life.
What Would Settle It An independent contemporary or near-contemporary Sikh or Mughal-era record naming a specific year for her birth or her death would settle this. Absent that, a scholarly reconciliation of the secondary sources' disagreement, explaining which figures are more reliable and why, would at least narrow the range presently offered.
Expertise Needed Sikh history and textual studies
Question posed in
The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors, vol. 1, Max Arthur Macauliffe.
Spurinna
Where in Etruria was the haruspex Spurinna from?
Open Spurinna
Why It Is Open Suetonius and Cicero record Spurinna's warning to Caesar in detail down to the exact exchange on the Ides of March, but neither names his home city or region; "Etruscan-trained" is a profession and an ethnicity, not a place of origin, and nothing else of his life survives to supply one.
What Would Settle It An inscription, a further ancient text, or a modern prosopographical study of Etruscan haruspices that ties Spurinna to a specific Etruscan city, comparable to how other named haruspices of the period have been localized.
Expertise Needed Roman and Etruscan prosopography
Question posed in
Suetonius, The Deified Julius (Divus Iulius), Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Tutankhamun
Where was Tutankhamun born?
Open Tutankhamun
Why It Is Open He is usually assumed to have been born at Akhetaten (Amarna), his father's court city, but this follows from an inference about his contested parentage rather than from a direct record; no inscription or administrative document names his birthplace.
What Would Settle It Resolution of his parentage (whether his father was Akhenaten or Smenkhkare) together with an inscription or administrative record placing his birth directly; neither currently exists.
Expertise Needed Egyptology; Amarna period studies; ancient DNA and mummy studies
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Seti I
Where was Seti I born?
Open Seti I
Why It Is Open Like nearly every pharaoh of the New Kingdom, Seti I's birth was not the subject of any surviving record; his father's military family had roots near Avaris in the north eastern Nile Delta, but that is the origin of the Ramesside line rather than a record of Seti's own birthplace specifically.
What Would Settle It An inscription or administrative record naming his birthplace directly, which no source recovered to date supplies.
Expertise Needed Egyptology; New Kingdom administrative history
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Euclid
Where was Euclid born?
Open Euclid
Why It Is Open Euclid is known almost entirely through his mathematical works and a handful of later, largely legendary anecdotes; no ancient source states where he was born, and even his activity at Alexandria is inferred from the school he founded there rather than from a personal record.
What Would Settle It A Hellenistic record naming his origin, which no papyrus or inscription recovered so far supplies.
Expertise Needed History of Hellenistic mathematics; classical scholarship; papyrology
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Ptolemy
Where was Ptolemy born?
Open Ptolemy
Why It Is Open Ptolemy's entire attested career was at Alexandria, where he made his astronomical observations, but no ancient source records where he was born; a medieval Arabic tradition names Ptolemais Hermiou in Upper Egypt, unsupported by any earlier source and generally doubted by modern historians of science.
What Would Settle It A Hellenistic or early Roman record naming his birthplace directly, independent of the later Arabic tradition.
Expertise Needed History of ancient astronomy; classical scholarship
Question posed in
A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion.
Eusebius of Caesarea
Where was Eusebius of Caesarea born?
Open Eusebius of Caesarea
Why It Is Open Eusebius spent nearly all of his career at Caesarea Maritima, and scholars generally assume this was also his birthplace, but no ancient source states it directly; the assumption rests on where he later lived and worked rather than on a record of his birth.
What Would Settle It A contemporary or near contemporary source naming his birthplace independent of his adult career.
Expertise Needed Patristics; early church history
Question posed in
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.).
Brenda J. Dunne
Where was Brenda Dunne born?
Open Brenda J. Dunne
Why It Is Open Dunne's education and long career at Mundelein College, the University of Chicago and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory are well documented, but no obituary or profile located names her birthplace.
What Would Settle It An obituary, biographical profile or public record naming her birthplace; she died in 2022, so a fuller obituary or family record may yet surface.
Expertise Needed Biographical research; parapsychology history
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Moses Cordovero
Where was Moses Cordovero born?
Open Moses Cordovero
Why It Is Open His surname reflects his family's presumed origin among the Jews expelled from Cordoba in 1492, but that is an inference from the family name, not a birth record; his entire documented life took place in Safed, where he led the kabbalistic academy that counted Isaac Luria among its students.
What Would Settle It A contemporary document or family record naming his actual birthplace, which no source recovered to date supplies.
Expertise Needed Jewish studies; history of Kabbalah; Sephardic genealogy
Question posed in
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).
Nehunya ben HaKanah
Where was Nehunya ben HaKanah born?
Open Nehunya ben HaKanah
Why It Is Open He is known only from Mishnaic sayings, the Talmudic frame story of the four who entered the orchard, and later mystical works pseudonymously attributed to him; no ancient source records a hometown or birthplace for him.
What Would Settle It A Tannaitic era record naming his origin, which the Mishnah, the Talmud and modern scholarship alike do not supply.
Expertise Needed Rabbinic studies; history of Jewish mysticism
Question posed in
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem.
Shimon bar Yochai
Where was Shimon bar Yochai born?
Open Shimon bar Yochai
Why It Is Open He is documented studying under Akiva in Judea and later teaching in the Galilee, including at Tekoa, Tiberias and Meron, but no source, including Encyclopaedia Judaica's own detailed account, records the specific place of his birth.
What Would Settle It A Tannaitic era record naming his birthplace directly, distinct from the places he later studied and taught.
Expertise Needed Rabbinic studies; history of the Zohar and Jewish mysticism
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.