Open Questions

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.

Open Calligraphic Roundels of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque)

Why It Is Open Published encyclopedia and visitor-education accounts describe the roundels only in prose, as massive circular panels hung from the four dome piers, without giving a measured diameter or any other numeric dimension, and no published architectural survey of the mosque's interior fittings could be found.

What Would Settle It A published architectural survey or conservation report of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque's interior fittings giving the roundels' measured diameter, or a direct measurement taken and published by a future visitor or researcher with access to the mosque's own restoration records.

Expertise Needed Ottoman architectural history, historic building conservation

Question posed in The Divine Script: Decoding the Calligraphy of the Blue Mosque (bluemosque.tr).

Open Great Buddha of Kamakura

Why It Is Open No inscription, temple record or contemporary chronicle names the sculptor, workshop or foundry responsible for casting the 1252 bronze, unlike a number of later Japanese Buddhist bronzes whose makers are documented.

What Would Settle It A surviving Kamakura-period temple record, a foundry mark recovered from inside the hollow bronze during conservation work, or a documentary source not yet examined naming the casting workshop.

Expertise Needed Japanese art history, Kamakura-period documentary history

Question posed in Great Buddha of Kamakura (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors.

Open Wilton Diptych

Why It Is Open The panel carries no signature and no surviving documentary record names its painter; art historians disagree over whether the artist was English or French (or Franco-Flemish) trained, a debate more than a century old and still unresolved.

What Would Settle It A documentary record from Richard II's own household accounts naming a payment to a specific painter, or a technical or stylistic match confidently linking the panel to another securely attributed work from the same workshop.

Expertise Needed Medieval English and French art history

Question posed in Wilton Diptych (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors.

Open Ajanta Cave Paintings

Why It Is Open No inscription anywhere in the thirty caves names an individual painter or workshop; the paintings span roughly seven centuries and two distinct building phases, almost certainly the work of many different hands whose identities were never recorded or have not survived.

What Would Settle It A donor or workshop inscription not yet identified among the site's epigraphy, or a stylistic study confidently grouping specific caves to a named or datable workshop tradition documented elsewhere in the Vakataka or earlier period.

Expertise Needed South Asian art history, epigraphy

Question posed in Ajanta Caves, Paintings (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors.

Open James Ossuary

Why It Is Open The rest of the inscription is Lemaire's securely read and palaeographically dated first century text, but the final clause survives only through a chain of contested physical evidence: the Israel Antiquities Authority's 2003 committees read a difference in patina and letter depth at exactly that clause, Oded Golan's 2012 criminal trial ended in acquittal for want of proof rather than a finding that the clause is ancient, and subsequent patina and isotope analyses from scientists on both sides of the case read the same kind of physical evidence in opposite directions.

What Would Settle It A single non-destructive patina or isotope protocol agreed by laboratories on both sides of the dispute, run on samples taken from across the whole inscription rather than only the disputed clause, with the raw data and method published for independent review rather than each side re-reading data produced under its own protocol.

Expertise Needed Epigraphy; archaeometry; forensic materials science

Question posed in Burial Box of James the Brother of Jesus, Andre Lemaire.

Open Blessed Mantle of the Prophet

Why It Is Open Identification rests on tradition and unbroken custody. The textile has never been radiocarbon dated or otherwise scientifically tested.

What Would Settle It Radiocarbon dating and textile fiber analysis of the cloak, if the Topkapi Palace Museum ever permitted sampling.

Expertise Needed Textile archaeometry, Islamic studies

Question posed in Chamber of the Sacred Relics, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul.

Open Sacred Tooth Relic of Kandy

Why It Is Open No independent scientific examination of the relic has ever been permitted. Its identification rests entirely on transmitted religious tradition, not on physical testing.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis, such as micro-CT or isotopic testing, of the relic, if Sri Dalada Maligawa ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Sri Dalada Maligawa, The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (official site), Sri Dalada Maligawa.

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 Shtreimel

Why It Is Open Three accounts circulate and none is documented: adoption of Polish or Russian noble dress; a decree said to have required Jews to wear an animal tail, for which no text has been produced; and the honouring of Shabbat with the best available in a cold climate. Jewish law neither requires nor mentions the garment, so there is no legal literature to trace it through, and it was written about only long after it was in use.

What Would Settle It Dated communal records, sumptuary or discriminatory legislation from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Russian Empire naming a fur headcovering for Jews, rabbinic responsa or communal takkanot referring to it, portraiture or inventories from the eighteenth century, and dress-history comparison with the szlachta kolpak.

Expertise Needed Jewish social history of eastern Europe; dress history; archival research in Polish, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish sources

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

Open Soma

Why It Is Open The Rigveda describes a mountain plant of stalks and shoots, never mentioning root, leaf, flower, seed or fruit, and never names it in identifying terms. The Brahmanas already prescribe substitutes, so the plant had passed out of reach inside the tradition itself. Fly agaric, ephedra and Syrian rue each have serious advocates and each faces an objection that has not been answered.

What Would Settle It Residue analysis of pressing stones, strainers or storage vessels from a securely dated Indo-Iranian ritual context, with the identification independently replicated. Earlier claims of ephedra in Central Asian Bronze Age vessels have not settled the matter, so replication rather than a single result is what is needed.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany and residue chemistry, working with Vedic and Avestan philology

Question posed in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, R. Gordon Wasson.

Open Haoma

Why It Is Open The Zoroastrian ceremony has been performed continuously and uses ephedra, which is the strongest evidence anyone has in the whole soma and haoma question because it is a practice rather than a reconstruction. But continuity of a rite does not establish continuity of a species, and substitution is documented on the Vedic side of the same inherited tradition.

What Would Settle It Residue analysis of Iranian ritual vessels of Achaemenid date or earlier, compared against the ephedra of current practice.

Expertise Needed Archaeobotany with Avestan philology

Question posed in A History of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce.

Open Kykeon

Why It Is Open Wasson, Hofmann and Ruck proposed in 1978 that ergot on the barley was the agent. Critics hold that ergot as it grows is severely toxic and that no ancient technique for separating a psychoactive fraction has been demonstrated, and that fasting, darkness and staging account for the reported experience without pharmacology. The oath of silence means no participant account survives to test either reading against.

What Would Settle It Residue analysis of drinking vessels securely tied to the Eleusinian sanctuary and to the rite rather than to general sanctuary use, with independent replication.

Expertise Needed Archaeochemistry and classical archaeology

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

Open Shagai

Why It Is Open The correspondence is exact rather than approximate: the same bone, the same four landing faces, cast in the same small numbers, read for answers and played with for entertainment in both regions. It is also exactly what one would expect to arise independently anywhere sheep are kept, since the bone is nearly cubical, resists rolling and is produced free in quantity. The objects themselves cannot distinguish the two explanations.

What Would Settle It Comparative work at the level of the cultural layer rather than the object: which faces are assigned which values, what combinations are named, and how the reading is structured. Those choices are cultural and could carry a transmission signal that the anatomy cannot. Dated archaeological assemblages showing marked or modified bones along a plausible corridor would also bear on it.

Expertise Needed Comparative archaeology of divination, and Eurasian material culture studies

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