Open Questions

Open Indus Valley

Why It Is Open The Indus script that labels these seals has never been deciphered, so the horned seated figure on seal M-304 and its kin cannot be read against a text that would say who or what it depicts. The proto-Shiva reading popularized in early twentieth century scholarship rests on visual resemblance to later Hindu iconography (the seated posture, the horns, the surrounding animals), not on any legible caption, and Srinivasan's own iconological re-assessment finds the identification unsupported by the seal's own details.

What Would Settle It A decipherment of the Indus script that survives scholarly scrutiny, or an independently datable bilingual inscription pairing Indus signs with a known language, would let the seals be read on their own terms rather than through later Vedic or Hindu iconography projected backward onto them.

Expertise Needed Indus Valley archaeology, epigraphy and comparative iconography

Question posed in The So-Called Proto-Siva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological Assessment, Doris Meth Srinivasan.

Open Uruk: the Eanna Precinct

Why It Is Open Inanna holds Eanna throughout the historical period and there is no doubt about that. The earliest monumental levels are several centuries older than any readable statement of dedication. The tablets recovered from them are accounts and word lists, the buildings carry no dedicatory inscription, and no foundation deposit naming a recipient has been found. The usual identification is an inference backward from later certainty, and no scholar has argued a rival case, because there is nothing to argue from.

What Would Settle It A dedicatory inscription, a foundation deposit or an archaic text from the Uruk V or IV levels that names the recipient of the buildings. Failing that, a decisive advance in reading the non-administrative part of the proto-cuneiform corpus, which would let the archaic lists be read as statements rather than inventories.

Expertise Needed Assyriology and proto-cuneiform palaeography, working with Near Eastern archaeology of the fourth millennium BCE.

Question posed in Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Nicole Brisch (ed.).

Open Eridu: the Temple of Enki

Why It Is Open The stack of temples is real and is cited everywhere as evidence of continuity, but continuity is an inference from the stack rather than something the stack demonstrates. The excavation belongs to the 1940s, its final report appeared decades later, and no radiocarbon series was run through the sequence. Whether the deposits between one temple and the next represent a few years or several centuries of abandonment is not recorded, and no one has argued the question either way for want of data.

What Would Settle It Re-excavation of a limited sounding through the sequence with modern stratigraphic recording, a radiocarbon series taken level by level, and micromorphological study of the intervening deposits for signs of abandonment surfaces. Any one of the three would narrow it; together they would settle it.

Expertise Needed Near Eastern archaeology, with stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating and geoarchaeological micromorphology.

Question posed in Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, Jeremy Black and Anthony Green.

Open Bighorn Medicine Wheel

Why It Is Open The structure is stone laid on the ground surface, so it carries no stratigraphy and cannot be dated directly. Cairns have been added to and rebuilt by users over an unknown period, and material recovered at the site has returned a wide spread of dates. Estimates in the literature run from a few centuries to several thousand years. The builders are equally open: the Plains nations now associated with the site did not all occupy the Bighorn country at the same time, and Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Shoshone and Lakota traditions each connect the wheel to their own history.

What Would Settle It A securely associated context: a buried feature or datable deposit beneath an undisturbed part of the structure, excavated with the consent of the associated nations and dated on material demonstrably contemporary with construction rather than with later use.

Expertise Needed Archaeology, working with the associated Plains nations; archaeoastronomy for the alignment claims

Question posed in Astronomical Alignment of the Big Horn Medicine Wheel, John A. Eddy.

Open Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Why It Is Open The two and a half leaves carrying the letter ascribed to Clement of Alexandria were removed from their host volume in the patriarchate library, reportedly for separate conservation, and have not been publicly produced since. Searches reported in the 2000s did not locate them, and no statement of their whereabouts has been published by the library or by anyone else.

What Would Settle It A statement from the patriarchate library, or a catalogue entry recording the leaves as a separate item with a shelfmark, would settle whether they are still held. Producing them for ink and paper analysis would additionally settle the authenticity question that currently depends entirely on photographs.

Expertise Needed Manuscript librarianship and codicology, with analytical conservation science if the leaves are produced

Question posed in Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery, Scott G. Brown.

Open The Kotel Pilgrimage

Why It Is Open The atlas holds no catalogued source establishing the present division of the plaza, which forms of prayer are conducted where, or where authority over those decisions rests. The arrangements have changed more than once and are the subject of continuing public and legal argument in Israel, so a description taken from a general history would very likely be out of date and would risk asserting one party's position as settled.

What Would Settle It Cataloguing the governing Israeli instruments and any current court decisions, together with the published positions of the parties to the dispute, so that the entry can describe the arrangement and the disagreement about it from documents rather than from report.

Expertise Needed Israeli religious law and public administration, and contemporary Jewish religious sociology

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

Open Mount Hor

Why It Is Open The biblical text places Mount Hor in an itinerary rather than at a location, on the border of Edom between camps that are themselves unidentified. The traditional identification with Jebel Harun above Petra is comparatively late and rests on the tradition itself. A competing identification places the mountain considerably further north, nearer the edge of the Negev, on a different reading of the route.

What Would Settle It Excavation or survey producing an independent identification of any camp on the wilderness itinerary, or an early inscription or cultic deposit on either candidate summit that ties it to Aaron independently of the later shrine tradition. Failing that, the question stays open and the atlas records the identification as traditional.

Expertise Needed Biblical archaeology and historical geography of the southern Levant

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

Open Agarwood

Why It Is Open Aguru and related terms appear in later Sanskrit, Chinese and Arabic sources, but which candidate early mention, several sit in texts of disputed date, is genuinely the earliest surviving reference has not been settled against a securely dated source.

What Would Settle It A philological study fixing the earliest secure and datable occurrence of aguru or a cognate term in a text whose date scholars agree on, or an archaeobotanical identification of Aquilaria resin residue from a securely dated find.

Expertise Needed Philology, archaeobotany

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

Open Benzoin

Why It Is Open Benzoin, Styrax benzoin from Sumatra, was historically confused in trade and in texts with storax, a different resin from the Mediterranean, so an early mention of a term such as luban jawi cannot be taken as securely naming this specific substance without study establishing when the two were first reliably distinguished.

What Would Settle It A study of medieval Arab and European trade records tracing when a term for Sumatran benzoin first securely denotes it as distinct from Mediterranean storax.

Expertise Needed Historical linguistics, trade history

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

Open Camphor

Why It Is Open Camphor appears in the Sushruta Samhita, an Ayurvedic compilation whose textual layers and dating are themselves disputed, and in early medieval Chinese and Arabic sources, without the relative priority of these candidate mentions having been established here.

What Would Settle It A philological study fixing the earliest securely datable layer of the Sushruta Samhita naming camphor, compared against the earliest dated Chinese or Arabic trade record for it.

Expertise Needed Philology, history of medicine

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

Open Dammar

Why It Is Open No specific dated textual or archaeological reference for dammar's early use has been confirmed against available scholarship.

What Would Settle It A study of Southeast Asian trade records or an archaeobotanical residue analysis naming dammar specifically, rather than resin generally.

Expertise Needed Trade history, archaeobotany

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

Open Dragon's Blood

Why It Is Open Pliny and other classical writers use cinnabaris for both the red resin later called dragon's blood and, separately, the mineral cinnabar, mercury sulfide, and scholars disagree over which passages refer to which substance.

What Would Settle It A study disentangling the classical vocabulary for red resins and red minerals, establishing which passages securely name the Socotran dragon tree resin.

Expertise Needed Classical philology, history of pharmacology

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

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.).