Divinity Atlas

Open Questions

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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 shape of the gap rather than its subject: what sort of thing is unresolved.

Filter By Specialty 99 fields

Showing 161 to 180 of 610 open questions, page 9 of 31.

data-gap 169

Recorded as unresolved.

Slavic How did the pre-Christian Slavs account for the making of the world?

Open Slavic

Why It Is Open Every surviving description of Slavic religion was written by Christian outsiders recording what they intended to destroy, and none of them records a cosmogony. The dualist earth-diver story usually printed as the Slavic creation myth is attested only in folklore collected after a thousand years of Christianity, in a form shared with Finno-Ugric and Turkic neighbours. Attempts to recover a pre-Christian original from it have produced competing reconstructions and no agreement, and most specialists have stopped trying.

What Would Settle It A pre-Christian Slavic text of any length would settle it, and none is known to exist. Short of that, an inscribed or iconographic find from a pagan-period sanctuary that depicts a creation sequence, of the kind Arkona or Zbrucz might still yield, would give the reconstruction something outside the folklore to stand on.

Expertise Needed Slavic philology and the archaeology of pagan-period sanctuaries in the western Slavic lands

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

Etruscan How did the Etruscans account for the making of the world?

Open Etruscan

Why It Is Open The Etruscan language is read only in short, largely formulaic texts, and the longest survivals, the Zagreb mummy wrappings and the Capua tile, are ritual calendars rather than narrative. What Roman writers preserved of the Etrusca disciplina is the part that interested them, the reading of lightning and livers, and it does not include a cosmogony. Nobody holds a position on what the Etruscan account was, because there is nothing to hold a position about.

What Would Settle It A long Etruscan narrative text would settle it. The known corpus is almost entirely epigraphic and funerary, so the realistic route is a new find of the length of the Zagreb wrappings that is narrative rather than calendrical.

Expertise Needed Etruscology, with epigraphy and the archaeology of Etruscan sanctuary sites

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

Phrygian How did the Phrygians account for the making of the world?

Open Phrygian

Why It Is Open The Old Phrygian corpus is short and largely dedicatory, and the Greek and Roman writers who describe the cult of the Mother report its rites and the story of Attis without any account of origins. It is not that two readings compete; it is that the material has never yielded one, and the question has effectively been set down rather than argued over.

What Would Settle It A longer Old or New Phrygian text of narrative character, or a securely Phrygian iconographic sequence depicting origins, from the highland monuments or a sanctuary excavation.

Expertise Needed Anatolian epigraphy and Phrygian philology, with the archaeology of the Phrygian highlands

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

Uk Ѹ Which letter carries the numeral 400 in Church Slavonic, uk or izhitsa?

Open Uk Ѹ

Why It Is Open The manuscript tradition gives 400 to uk. The printed Church Slavonic tables give it to izhitsa. Both usages are attested and they cannot both be right for any one book, so a number in the four hundreds cannot be read without knowing which tradition the source follows. The atlas records the value on both letters for that reason, which is a compromise rather than an answer.

What Would Settle It A survey of dated Slavonic manuscripts and early printed books recording which letter carries 400 in each, by region and by period, which would establish whether the printed usage is an innovation of the printers, an inheritance from one recension, or a correction toward the Greek series.

Expertise Needed Slavic palaeography and the history of Slavonic printing

Question posed in The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.).

San Religion What did the San communities of the southern and eastern Cape believe, in the period before their languages ended?

Open San Religion

Why It Is Open There is no answer on record and nobody holds a position, because the evidence to hold one was never gathered. Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd recorded /Xam between 1870 and 1884 and their work ended when their narrators went home and no further speakers could be found. The neighbouring communities of the southern and eastern Cape were recorded by no one. Their languages have no speakers and their descendants were absorbed into other communities. The San religion described in the scholarly literature is therefore the religion of the /Xam and of a small number of twentieth-century northern groups, generalised, and the generalisation covers an absence rather than a consensus.

What Would Settle It Recovery of further colonial-era linguistic or missionary material comparable to the Bleek and Lloyd notebooks: unpublished mission-station vocabularies, magistrates' and travellers' notebooks, or word lists held in South African, Dutch, German and British archives that have not been catalogued as linguistic material and so have not been looked for. A systematic archival survey aimed at this specific question has not been carried out. Failing that, the question stays open permanently, which is itself worth recording.

Expertise Needed Historical linguistics of the Khoisan languages; archival research in southern African, Dutch, German and British colonial and mission collections; southern African social history.

Question posed in Specimens of Bushman Folklore, W. H. I. Bleek and L. C. Lloyd.

Church of Scientology Do German state offices for the protection of the constitution still observe Scientology after the federal announcement of 15 May 2026?

Open Church of Scientology

Why It Is Open The announcement was made at federal level and concerned listing as a standalone nationwide intelligence target. Several German states ran their own observation from 1997 and their current position was not established by this run.

What Would Settle It The current annual reports of the state offices for the protection of the constitution, in particular those states that began observation in 1997, or a statement from the interior ministries of those states.

Expertise Needed Law and public administration (Germany)

Question posed in Germany Ends Decades-Long Surveillance of the Church of Scientology, KTLA.

Jainism Does Jainism have a therapeutic practice of its own, distinct from charitable medical giving?

Open Jainism

Why It Is Open The facet detector reports Jainism as carrying no Practice of kind Therapeutic while its Dharmic peers do. Jain fasting is ascetic rather than curative, and bhaishajya dana, the giving of medicine, is one of the four danas and so is charitable. Triage on 2026-07-29 could not name a Jain practice whose purpose is healing.

What Would Settle It A survey of the Shvetambara and Digambara prescriptive literature and of modern Jain institutional practice for a named healing observance, together with a ruling on whether Jain animal hospitals and the pinjrapole count as a therapeutic practice or as charity.

Expertise Needed Jain studies, South Asian religious history

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

Sikhism Does Sikhism have a therapeutic practice distinct from seva, its ethic of service?

Open Sikhism

Why It Is Open The facet detector reports Sikhism as carrying no Practice of kind Therapeutic. Sikh medical service, from Bhai Kanhaiya tending the wounded of both sides to gurdwara dispensaries and hospitals, is real and well attested, but it is the ethic of seva applied to medicine rather than a separate named practice. Triage on 2026-07-29 could not decide whether the atlas should record it twice.

What Would Settle It A ruling on the atlas facet boundary between Charitable and Therapeutic, plus evidence from the Rehat Maryada and Sikh institutional history for a named healing observance.

Expertise Needed Sikh studies, history of South Asian medicine

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

Norse Paganism Does the Old Norse corpus contain composite creatures that the atlas Hybrids facet is meant to capture?

Open Norse Paganism

Why It Is Open The facet detector reports Norse Paganism as carrying no MythicalCreature of kind Hybrids while all three Polytheistic peers do. The Norse bestiary the atlas holds is built from outsized single species beasts, serpents, sea monsters and spirits. Whether Sleipnir, Hraesvelgr, the swan maidens and the merfolk are composite creatures or shapeshifters and beasts in another guise is a question about the facet definition as much as about the sources, and triage on 2026-07-29 could not settle it.

What Would Settle It A definition of the Hybrids facet precise enough to sort cases, applied to a full inventory of creatures in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda and the fornaldarsogur.

Expertise Needed Old Norse philology, comparative mythology

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

attribution 58

Who said or wrote or made something, where the record is incomplete.

Angel Prayers Oracle Cards Who illustrated Kyle Gray's Angel Prayers Oracle Cards?

Open Angel Prayers Oracle Cards

Why It Is Open No illustrator is credited on the creator's own product page, the publisher's listing, or any retailer listing checked. Kyle Gray's later decks in this registry, credited to a named illustrator, make the silence here look like an omission rather than a genuinely uncredited work, but that could not be confirmed either way.

What Would Settle It The deck's own guidebook or box, examined directly, or a publisher catalogue record naming the illustrator.