Open Questions

Open Frankincense and Myrrh Blend

Why It Is Open The nativity account names the two resins together but does not describe them blended or burned as one compound, and a genuine combined incense recipe naming both resins together has not been located.

What Would Settle It A study of ancient or early Christian liturgical incense recipes identifying the earliest instance in which frankincense and myrrh are compounded into a single burned mixture, rather than named or given as a symbolic pair.

Expertise Needed Liturgical history, history of pharmacy

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Juniper

Why It Is Open Juniper is used in numerous ancient contexts, medicinal, embalming and ritual, but no single dated text or excavation has been confirmed as the earliest securely dated reference to its aromatic or incense use specifically.

What Would Settle It A study of ancient Egyptian or Near Eastern medical and ritual texts fixing the earliest securely dated mention of juniper's aromatic or fumigant use.

Expertise Needed Egyptology, archaeobotany

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Lavender

Why It Is Open Lavender's Latin name derives from washing, its best documented ancient use, and no specific dated source for lavender burned as incense, as opposed to used in bathing, has been confirmed.

What Would Settle It A study of ancient or medieval texts distinguishing lavender's earliest attestation as a burned aromatic from its far better documented use in bathing and laundry.

Expertise Needed Classical history, history of perfumery

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Nag Champa

Why It Is Open Nag Champa's origin is commonly attributed to a twentieth century Indian ashram or mission, but no specific, checkable, dated source for its first formulation has been located.

What Would Settle It A documented company or ashram history naming the specific date and maker of the first Nag Champa formulation, as opposed to a general or promotional claim.

Expertise Needed Modern religious and commercial history

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Palo Santo

Why It Is Open Palo santo's traditional use predates any documentation checked so far, and no specific dated colonial era or archaeological source naming it has been located.

What Would Settle It An ethnohistorical study of early colonial Spanish accounts of coastal Ecuadorian and Peruvian ritual practice, or an archaeobotanical identification of Bursera graveolens residue from a securely dated find.

Expertise Needed Ethnohistory, archaeobotany

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Pine

Why It Is Open Pine is native and ritually used across multiple, unrelated regions and periods, so no single earliest attestation can honestly be named without first specifying which tradition's use of pine as incense is being dated.

What Would Settle It A comparative study establishing the earliest securely dated attestation of pine resin or needles burned as incense in a specific named tradition.

Expertise Needed Comparative religion, archaeobotany

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Rose

Why It Is Open Rose's documented ancient uses are overwhelmingly as a garland, perfume or, later, a distilled water, and no specific dated source for rose burned as incense specifically has been confirmed.

What Would Settle It A study of ancient or medieval aromatic use texts distinguishing rose's earliest attestation as a burned incense from its far better documented uses as a garland and distilled perfume.

Expertise Needed Classical history, history of perfumery

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Saffron

Why It Is Open Saffron's cultivation and harvest are widely reported as depicted in Bronze Age Aegean wall painting, but a specific, checkable excavation report or scholarly publication establishing the secure date of that evidence, and confirming what it actually depicts, has not been confirmed.

What Would Settle It Citation of the excavation report or scholarly publication dating the Bronze Age Aegean saffron harvest imagery and confirming its subject.

Expertise Needed Aegean archaeology

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Sage

Why It Is Open Sage's ceremonial use among Indigenous peoples of western North America is a living tradition, and no specific, dated, non-intrusive documentary or archaeological source establishing its earliest attested use has been located.

What Would Settle It An archaeobotanical study identifying Salvia residue from a securely dated site, or a documented early written account naming the practice without describing closed ceremonial content.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany, ethnohistory

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Sandalwood

Why It Is Open Sandalwood appears in Sanskrit literature whose precise dating is disputed among scholars, and in early Chinese Buddhist sources, without it having been established which candidate reference is earliest on a securely datable basis.

What Would Settle It A philological study fixing the earliest securely datable Sanskrit or Chinese text naming sandalwood specifically, rather than aromatic wood generally.

Expertise Needed Philology, Indology

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Storax

Why It Is Open Genesis 37:25 and other passages mention tsori, translated balm, among trade goods, but scholarly identification of tsori is divided between storax, mastic gum and other resins, so it cannot honestly be cited as storax's own earliest attestation without settling that identification.

What Would Settle It A study settling the botanical identification of the Hebrew term tsori among its candidate resins.

Expertise Needed Biblical philology, archaeobotany

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Sweetgrass

Why It Is Open Sweetgrass's ceremonial use is a living Indigenous North American tradition, and no specific, dated, non-intrusive documentary or archaeological source establishing its earliest attested use has been located.

What Would Settle It An archaeobotanical study identifying Hierochloe residue from a securely dated site, or a documented early written account naming the practice without describing closed ceremonial content.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany, ethnohistory

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Tobacco

Why It Is Open Multiple archaeological finds across the Americas have been proposed as early evidence of tobacco use, but which specific, securely dated find or residue analysis is genuinely the earliest has not been confirmed here.

What Would Settle It A residue analysis study identifying nicotine biomarkers from a securely dated, named excavation, compared against other candidate early pipe finds.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany, archaeochemistry

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Onycha

Why It Is Open The Hebrew shecheleth of Exodus 30:34 is rendered onycha, fingernail, in the Septuagint. The leading identification is the operculum of a marine gastropod, which fits the sense, a nail-like hard plate, and the ancient aromatics trade. Benzoin, labdanum and rockrose are proposed plant alternatives but fit neither the sense nor the trade as well. A non-kosher animal product in the sacred incense is a live halakhic difficulty, which is the main reason the operculum identification is resisted by some commentators rather than for philological reasons. No reconstruction of the ketoret can be made without settling this, and it has not been settled.

What Would Settle It A residue analysis of an incense deposit from a securely dated Second Temple period altar or vessel, compared chemically against operculum keratin and against the candidate plant resins, would settle which substance was actually burned.

Expertise Needed Archaeochemistry, biblical studies

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open The Pearce-Pratt Distance Series

Why It Is Open C. E. M. Hansel examined the buildings in the 1960s and argued that a route existed by which the subject, unobserved in the library, could have reached a position from which the cards were visible. Rhine and Pratt disputed the sightlines, the timing, and whether such an absence would have gone unnoticed. Neither side conceded, and the buildings have since been altered, so the question can no longer be settled by inspection.

What Would Settle It Original architectural plans of the Social Sciences building and the campus library as they stood in 1933 and 1934, together with any contemporaneous record of Pearce's whereabouts during the sessions.

Expertise Needed History of science; architectural history; archival research at Duke University

Question posed in ESP: A Scientific Evaluation, C. E. M. Hansel.

Open The Autoganzfeld Series

Why It Is Open Hyman and Honorton wrote down, jointly and in advance, what a decisive ganzfeld study would look like. No series run since has been accepted by both sides as meeting it. Two later meta-analyses, Milton and Wiseman in 1999 and Storm, Tressoldi and Di Risio in 2010, reach opposite conclusions on differently defined study pools, so the accumulated literature cannot settle it either.

What Would Settle It A pre-registered adversarial collaboration with laboratories on both sides of the dispute, an analysis plan agreed and lodged before data collection, and a commitment from all parties to publish whatever results.

Expertise Needed Experimental psychology; meta-analysis; pre-registration methodology

Question posed in A Joint Communique: The Psi Ganzfeld Controversy, Ray Hyman, Charles Honorton.

Open The Identity of the Breastplate Leshem

Why It Is Open This investigation set out to identify the ninth breastplate stone and stopped without a conclusion, because every avenue it examined turned out to be inferential. The ancient versions disagree and none of them is independent of the others; comparison with neighbouring stone lists establishes what was available rather than what was meant; and etymology alone has not narrowed the four candidates. Nobody holds a defended position that a specialist could go and read against a rival one, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement.

What Would Settle It A securely dated use of leshem outside the two Exodus lists, in a Hebrew or closely related Northwest Semitic text, in a context that identifies a physical object. Failing that, a labelled or securely provenanced stone from a Second Temple period priestly context, or a decisive argument from Semitic cognates. Absent one of those, the honest answer is that the question may not be decidable on present evidence, and establishing that would itself be a result.

Expertise Needed Northwest Semitic philology, biblical archaeology and historical gemology

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open The Huei Tzompantli Excavation

Why It Is Open The structure runs under standing colonial buildings on Calle Guatemala in the Centro Historico of Mexico City, and only the portion reachable around them has been exposed. Every published count is a count of that partial exposure and has risen with each season of work. No scholar has proposed a total, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement. The sixteenth-century figures are narrative rather than counts and cannot stand in for one.

What Would Settle It Full exposure of the structure, which would require access beneath the buildings above it, together with a minimum-number-of-individuals count taken across the complete assemblage rather than across the reachable part. Short of that, a defensible estimate would need the geometry of the excavated portion projected onto the full plan of the rack, published with its assumptions.

Expertise Needed Archaeology and bioarchaeology, with urban heritage engineering for access beneath protected colonial buildings.

Question posed in Programa de Arqueologia Urbana: the Huei Tzompantli excavations at the Templo Mayor, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

Open The Bengal Presidency Sati Returns

Why It Is Open The only numerical record is the East India Company series of 1815 to 1828, which covers one presidency, was compiled while prohibition was being argued for, and is concentrated around the seat of the administration that compiled it. The positions in circulation, that the practice was rare and inflated by reformers or that it was widespread and understated, are competing readings of that single series rather than independent measurements. Nobody has produced a count for any earlier period.

What Would Settle It A regional demographic study built from evidence the Company never touched: memorial stones for immolated women, which survive in numbers across western and southern India and can in principle be dated, located and counted; vernacular temple, land and family records for periods and districts outside Company reach; and inscriptional corpora already published but never assembled for this question. Both bodies of material have been used locally and never aggregated.

Expertise Needed Epigraphy and inscriptional history, historical demography, and regional social history working in the relevant vernaculars.

Question posed in Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India, Lata Mani.

Open The Global Consciousness Project

Why It Is Open The network and its archive are not in dispute, but three analytic decisions are made by people with access to the data: which events count as globally attended, where each analysis window begins and ends, and which statistic to compute. The central criticism is that this freedom is sufficient to generate the reported result from structureless data, and it cannot be tested from the published analyses alone.

What Would Settle It An outside party defining a list of events and window boundaries in advance, lodging it, and the project running the analysis once against that list without modification.

Expertise Needed Statistics; pre-registration methodology

Question posed in The Global Consciousness Project, Roger D. Nelson (Global Consciousness Project).