Open Questions

Open Imperial Regalia of Japan

Why It Is Open Shinto religious practice keeps all three objects permanently unshown. Atsuta Shrine, Ise Grand Shrine and the Imperial Household Agency have never permitted an outside examination, so nobody outside the shrines and the Agency has verified the objects present or their condition in the modern era.

What Would Settle It A supervised non-invasive examination, such as imaging conducted by the custodial shrines or the Imperial Household Agency themselves, since no outside access has ever been permitted.

Expertise Needed Shinto studies, archaeometry

Question posed in The Imperial Regalia: Japan's Three Sacred Treasures (Nippon.com), Nippon.com.

Open Tooth Relic of Lingguang Temple

Why It Is Open Attribution rests on transmitted tradition. The relic has not been independently examined.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis of the relic, if the custodial temple ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Buddha Tooth Relic Stupa, Lingguang Temple (Visit Beijing official), Visit Beijing.

Open The Sampo

Why It Is Open The runes are not consistent about what the object is, and the Kalevala is a compilation that Elias Lonnrot arranged heavily, with the Sampo cycle among the parts he shaped most. Readings offered include a mill of plenty, the world pillar with the many-coloured lid as the sky vault, a coin die or treasury reflecting Byzantine trade contact, and a shamanic drum. None has been established and the singers may not have agreed either.

What Would Settle It Systematic analysis of the unedited rune collections in the Finnish Literature Society archive against Lonnrot's editorial drafts, to establish what the singers themselves said before the compilation; comparative work with Karelian, Ingrian and Sami material; and lexical study of the word sampo and its cognates.

Expertise Needed Finnish and Karelian folkloristics; historical linguistics; archival study of the Lonnrot papers

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open The Great Table of the Watchtowers

Why It Is Open Governor sigils are documented as letter-by-letter traces of each governor's name through the Great Table Watchtowers, revealed to Dee and Kelley. Reproducing one accurately needs the Watchtower grid content plus each governor's starting square and reading direction, or a faithful trace of the published sigil image. Neither has been obtained: the standard reference article on the governors and their sigils could not be reached, and no digitized coordinate table has surfaced elsewhere. Recreating the Watchtower grid from memory and presenting it as verified would be fabrication.

What Would Settle It Either a clean digitized source giving Watchtower grid coordinates per governor name, or visual access good enough to trace the published sigil images faithfully, checked against at least one other published rendering for agreement.

Expertise Needed Enochian Magic

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Sudarium of Oviedo

Why It Is Open Radiocarbon testing of the cloth returned an approximate seventh century date, but the testing laboratory itself cautioned that oil contamination absorbed by the cloth could distort the result, so the date obtained has never been treated as reliable.

What Would Settle It A repeat radiocarbon dating using a sample cleaned of contaminant oils, of the kind used elsewhere to correct for similar contamination in aged relics.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, radiocarbon dating

Question posed in The Oviedo Cloth, Mark Guscin.

Open Ark of the Covenant

Why It Is Open The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church restricts access to a single guardian monk and has never permitted independent examination of the chapel contents, so the claim rests on church tradition alone.

What Would Settle It An examination conducted by the church itself, or release of any documentary or photographic record it holds, since outside access is not permitted.

Expertise Needed Biblical archaeology, Ethiopian studies

Question posed in Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, Aksum (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church).

Open Saffron

Why It Is Open Recent genetic and iconographic evidence (Kazemi-Shahandashti et al. 2022) points to Bronze Age Greece, Crete and Santorini around 1700 BCE, anchored on Minoan fresco depictions and Crocus cartwrightianus genetics. Older scholarship long assumed an Iranian or Asia Minor origin instead, given saffron's overwhelming later importance in Persian culture and its trade-route common names; this atlas's own origin-region fact already records the question as debated among authorities, and the 2022 genetic study does not by itself settle a century-old debate.

What Would Settle It Further ancient-DNA or archaeobotanical sampling of Crocus material from Aegean, Anatolian and Iranian Bronze Age sites, and confirmation of whether Crocus cartwrightianus populations outside Attica also carry the ancestral genome the 2022 study used to anchor the Greek-origin claim.

Question posed in Ancient Artworks and Crocus Genetics Both Support Saffron's Origin in Early Greece, Seyyedeh-Sanam Kazemi-Shahandashti et al., Frontiers in Plant Science, 25 Feb 2022, doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.834416.

Open Hyssop

Why It Is Open The Hebrew ezov is rendered hyssop by long translation convention, but Hyssopus officinalis is not native to the southern Levant and does not match the plant's described uses. Origanum syriacum, Syrian oregano, fits the ecology and the ritual use better and is the leading candidate, but the identification rests on inference rather than on any ancient description precise enough to settle it.

What Would Settle It A botanical description in an ancient source specific enough to exclude the alternatives, or archaeobotanical remains from a ritual context that can be identified to species.

Expertise Needed Botany and Biblical Hebrew philology together. Neither field settles it alone, which is why it has stayed open.

Question posed in Identification of Biblical Hyssop and Origin of the Traditional Use of Oregano-Group Herbs in the Mediterranean Region, Alexander Fleisher and Zhenia Fleisher, Volume 42, pages 232 to 241.

Open Lily

Why It Is Open The Greek krinon is a general word for a showy flower rather than a botanical name. Anemone coronaria is the most commonly proposed candidate on grounds of what actually grows abundantly and conspicuously in Galilean fields, but Lilium candidum and several others remain in the running and the text gives no distinguishing detail.

What Would Settle It Nothing in the text can settle it; the question would move only on evidence about which flowers were locally called krinon in first-century Galilean usage.

Expertise Needed Koine Greek lexicography and Levantine field botany.

Question posed in Plants in the New Testament, Terry B. Ball, Entry for lily.

Open Myrrh

Why It Is Open Myrrh is traded and described across the ancient world as one commodity, but the genus has several resin-producing species and the ancient sources do not distinguish them. A genetic study of commercial myrrh found only a small proportion of samples matching the pharmacopoeia species, so even the modern trade is not one thing.

What Would Settle It Species-level identification of resin residues from a securely dated archaeological context, ideally from more than one trade period.

Expertise Needed Botany, archaeobotany, and the economic history of the incense routes.

Question posed in Deciphering Insights into Commercial Myrrh Species Authenticity from the psbA-trnH Genetic Region, Changhong Cao, Wenting Zhong, Feng Gao, Ying Zhang, Zhiguo Ma, Hui Cao and Menghua Wu, Article e0320731, results on species identification.

Open Ayahuasca Vine

Why It Is Open Two unrelated plants, out of the tens of thousands in the Amazon, must be combined for either to have any effect, and nothing about the appearance, taste or separate action of either suggests the other. Explanations range from very long systematic experimentation to the answer the traditions give, which is that the plants communicated it. The record is oral and the practice is old.

What Would Settle It Probably nothing can settle it. What would help is comparative work on how many other plant pairings are known in Amazonian practice, since a tradition with many such combinations implies a method, while a single one implies an accident or a transmission.

Expertise Needed Ethnobotany, Amazonian anthropology, ethnopharmacology

Question posed in Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, Luis Eduardo Luna.

Open Ergot

Why It Is Open Proposed by Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck in 1978. It would explain how an experience initiates consistently described as overwhelming could be produced reliably for thousands of people on a schedule. But no ancient source describes anything of the kind, the water extraction needed to separate soluble from toxic alkaloids is delicate, and the argument reasons backwards from the reported effect to a cause that would account for it.

What Would Settle It Residue analysis of vessels securely associated with the Eleusinian rite, or a text that describes the preparation. Absent either, the question may be permanently undecidable, since the Mysteries were kept for roughly two thousand years and the secret held.

Expertise Needed Classics, ancient history, archaeochemistry, mycology

Question posed in The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck.

Open Iboga

Why It Is Open Reported since 1962 and repeated many times in unregulated clinics, but the evidence base is weak. Rigorous trials have been slow, partly because the compound is controlled in many jurisdictions and partly because a treatment given once does not fit the commercial model that funds drug development. Meanwhile ibogaine is cardiotoxic, prolongs the QT interval, and deaths have occurred where screening was absent.

What Would Settle It Adequately powered controlled trials with cardiac monitoring. The question is included here rather than left to medicine because the answer bears on the plant: demand from outside Gabon is already driving overharvesting of wild stands of a slow growing species that a religion depends on.

Expertise Needed Pharmacology, addiction medicine, cardiology, conservation biology

Question posed in Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa, James W. Fernandez.

Open Salvia Divinorum

Why It Is Open The plant has no confirmed wild population, sets seed poorly and is propagated from cuttings, which points to long cultivation, as with kava and Brugmansia. But there is no colonial record of it, unlike the mushrooms and ololiuqui which the friars documented extensively, and no archaeological evidence. So the plant looks ancient and the documentation begins in the twentieth century.

What Would Settle It Discovery of a wild population would settle the origin. A colonial or pre-conquest reference, possibly under a name not yet connected to it, would settle the antiquity. Genetic work on cultivated clones could estimate how long it has been propagated vegetatively.

Expertise Needed Ethnobotany, plant genetics, Mesoamerican ethnohistory

Question posed in Ethnopharmacology of Ska Maria Pastora (Salvia divinorum, Epling and Jativa-M.), Leander J. Valdes III, Jose Luis Diaz and Ara G. Paul.

Open Blue Lotus

Why It Is Open The iconographic case, argued by Emboden, is substantial: the flower is held to the nose with unusual persistence in banquet scenes, some figures appear to be in altered states, and it is linked to wine and to the drinking festivals of Hathor. The pharmacological case is weak. Apomorphine and nuciferine are present in small amounts, apomorphine is a strong emetic rather than a pleasant intoxicant, and no psychoactive dose has been shown achievable from a quantity of flowers a person would plausibly use.

What Would Settle It Quantitative analysis of alkaloid content in Nymphaea caerulea grown under conditions comparable to ancient Egypt, plus a controlled account of the effect of a realistic dose. Residue analysis of vessels from banquet or funerary contexts would help. Note that ololiuqui was doubted on similar grounds for centuries and then vindicated, so an absence of demonstrated activity is not evidence of absence.

Expertise Needed Egyptology, ethnobotany, phytochemistry

Question posed in Transcultural Use of Narcotic Water Lilies in Ancient Egyptian and Maya Drug Ritual, William A. Emboden.

Open Statue of Gommateshwara Bahubali

Why It Is Open No inscription at Shravanabelagola records the name of the sculptor or workshop that carved the image, even though the patron, Chavundaraya, is well attested. Digambara colossal images of this scale from the tenth century rarely name their carvers at all, so the silence is consistent with the period's own convention rather than a loss of a record that once existed.

What Would Settle It A donative or masons' inscription naming a sculptor or guild, of a kind found at other Hoysala and Ganga-period sites but not yet identified at Shravanabelagola itself, or a documentary source from the Ganga court not yet examined.

Expertise Needed South Indian art history, Ganga-period epigraphy

Question posed in The Jains, Paul Dundas, Gommateshwara / Bahubali colossus at Shravanabelagola, attribution gap.

Open Leshan Giant Buddha

Why It Is Open No inscription, temple record or contemporary chronicle names the sculptor, master mason or workshop who carved the statue, even though the monk who conceived the project and the two officials who later funded its completion are all recorded by name.

What Would Settle It A Tang-period donative or masons' inscription naming a carving workshop, of a kind found at other major Tang Buddhist rock-carving sites but not yet identified at Leshan itself, or a documentary source from the Jiannan Xichuan administration not yet examined.

Expertise Needed Chinese Buddhist art history, Tang-period epigraphy

Question posed in Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference), Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, s.v. "Leshan Giant Buddha", attribution gap.

Open Dura-Europos Synagogue Frescoes

Why It Is Open The synagogue's dedicatory Aramaic inscription names the community elders and officials responsible for the 244 or 245 CE renovation, but no painter or workshop. Neither the founding excavation report nor later scholarship consulted for this entry identifies who executed the cycle.

What Would Settle It A signed or otherwise attributable inscription, a stylistic link to a documented workshop active elsewhere in Roman Syria, or comparative technical analysis of pigment and technique connecting the Dura Europos paintings to a named or identifiable school of painters.

Expertise Needed Ancient art history, Roman provincial archaeology

Question posed in Kraeling, "The Synagogue" (Dura-Europos Final Report VIII, Part I), 1956, Carl H. Kraeling.

Open Saraswati (Ravi Varma)

Why It Is Open Retail and auction sources consulted give three different years for Ravi Varma's Saraswati, 1881, 1886 and 1896, and none of the sources consulted names a current institutional home for the original oil with confidence; a compiled hobbyist list places a differently dated version at a named museum, but this atlas could not corroborate that against a museum catalogue record.

What Would Settle It A museum or gallery catalogue record, an exhibition history, or a scholarly catalogue raisonne of Ravi Varma's work that fixes the painting's completion year and names its present custodian with documentary support.

Expertise Needed Art historical provenance research, South Asian art history

Question posed in Wikipedia, "Raja Ravi Varma", Wikipedia contributors.

Open Assembly of the Taoist Deities (Yongle Palace)

Why It Is Open The mural's own inscription and every modern source consulted credit Ma Junxiang and his son Ma Qi as its painters "and others," but none names those others, states how many additional painters worked on it, or describes how a mural of roughly four hundred square meters completed within a single year was divided among a workshop team.

What Would Settle It A closer reading of the mural's own inscription text, temple donor or workshop records from the period, or a stylistic analysis distinguishing individual painting hands across different sections of the mural, any of which could identify the additional painters or at least establish how many there were.

Expertise Needed Chinese art history, Yuan dynasty epigraphy, workshop and guild studies

Question posed in Wikipedia, "Yongle Gong", Wikipedia contributors.