Open Questions

Open Khipu

Why It Is Open That khipu record numbers in a decimal positional system is settled and readable. Beyond that the field divides. Gary Urton argues that the binary structural choices available in the medium, in colour, spin, ply and attachment, give it an information capacity well beyond accounting. Others hold the cords numerical, with any narrative held in the specialist's memory and the khipu serving as a mnemonic prompt. Colonial testimony describing khipu specialists reading out histories and confessional records is compatible with both, because a skilled performance from a numerical prompt looks identical to a reading.

What Would Settle It A matched pair: one khipu and an independent Spanish document recording the same content, aligned closely enough that the correspondence cannot be coincidence. A small number of candidate matches have been proposed and none is yet accepted as conclusive. Progress requires archival paleography alongside statistical analysis of the surviving corpus of roughly a thousand khipu.

Expertise Needed Andean archaeology, colonial paleography and quantitative analysis of the khipu corpus

Question posed in Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records, Gary Urton.

Open Khamsa

Why It Is Open A derivation from a Punic hand of the goddess Tanit is repeated widely in popular and semi-scholarly writing about North African amulets, and no chain of evidence is offered for it. No competing positive account of the origin has been established either, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement between camps.

What Would Settle It A published series of hand-shaped protective objects with secure archaeological contexts spanning the Punic period, late antiquity and the medieval Maghreb, or a study demonstrating that no such series exists and that the form arises later and independently.

Expertise Needed Punic and Roman North African archaeology, together with the material culture history of the medieval Maghreb

Question posed in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.).

Open Tislit Unzar, the Rain Bride

Why It Is Open The rite is known almost entirely from twentieth century ethnography. Anzar appears in Amazigh oral tradition, but no documentary record has been identified between antiquity and the modern recording, so claims that the procession is a pre-Islamic survival rest on nothing that can be checked, and no dated alternative account exists.

What Would Settle It An attestation of the procession, or of a recognisably related rite, in medieval or early modern Maghribi Arabic writing, in an Amazigh manuscript tradition, or in a travel account with a firm date.

Expertise Needed Amazigh philology and the ethnohistory of the Maghreb, with medieval Arabic textual scholarship

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

Open Thor's Hammer Pendant

Why It Is Open Effectively the entire corpus of around a thousand pendants falls in the ninth to eleventh centuries. That is also the conversion period, so the distribution is compatible both with an old practice becoming archaeologically visible and with a practice that begins as a response to Christian cross-wearing. No securely dated earlier example has been published, and no positive account of an earlier phase exists, so this is an evidential gap rather than a contest between established positions.

What Would Settle It A hammer pendant, or a mould for one, recovered from a securely dated context earlier than the ninth century, or a systematic re-examination and re-dating of the existing corpus establishing that no such context exists.

Expertise Needed Viking Age and Migration Period archaeology, with finds dating and metalwork typology

Question posed in Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, John Lindow.

Open Reformed Egyptian

Why It Is Open Reformed Egyptian is described only inside the Book of Mormon's own text, attributed to Nephite scribes modifying Egyptian characters over centuries. No inscription, manuscript or artifact outside that text has been identified as an example of it, and mainstream Egyptology and historical linguistics have found no independent evidence such a script existed, so there is nothing external against which to locate an origin.

What Would Settle It An inscription or manuscript independently datable and decipherable, found outside the Book of Mormon tradition, that could be shown on linguistic or archaeological grounds to be the same writing system, would give scholars an actual artifact to locate and analyze.

Expertise Needed Egyptology and historical linguistics

Question posed in The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith (translator, by his own account), Mormon 9:32-34.

Open Sefer HaRazim (Book of the Mysteries)

Why It Is Open The text presents itself as angelic revelation rather than the work of a named human author, and it survives in no single complete manuscript, only later medieval copies and Cairo Geniza fragments assembled into a modern critical reconstruction, so neither its compiler nor a precise date can be read directly off any single witness.

What Would Settle It An earlier or more complete manuscript witness, or an external contemporary reference to the text, would help fix its date and origin; comparative philological work situating its Greek-influenced Hebrew more precisely within the late antique Jewish magical corpus could narrow the range further.

Expertise Needed Jewish studies and late antique magical and esoteric textual studies

Question posed in Sefer Ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries (Michael A. Morgan), Michael A. Morgan, translator, based on Mordecai Margalioth's critical Hebrew reconstruction.

Open Nanak Shah Fakir (2015)

Why It Is Open In April 2018 the Akal Takht declared the film banned and excommunicated producer Harinder Singh Sikka for proceeding with its re-release regardless. Every source consulted for this entry stops there: none records whether the ban or the excommunication were later upheld, formally lifted, or quietly left unaddressed by Sikh religious authority.

What Would Settle It A later Akal Takht or SGPC statement, resolution or press record addressing either the ban or Sikka's excommunication after April 2018, or a current interview or public record confirming Sikka's present standing within the Sikh religious community.

Expertise Needed Contemporary Sikh institutional history, South Asian religion journalism

Question posed in SBS Punjabi, "Controversial Movie 'Nanak Shah Fakir' to Be Released Despite Protests," 2018, Paramjit Singh Sona.

Open Sarajevo Haggadah

Why It Is Open The manuscript's marginal notes place it in Italy by the sixteenth century, and it was purchased by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo in 1894, but no source consulted names an owner, a sale or a route connecting the two. Three centuries of the manuscript's history are undocumented.

What Would Settle It An archival record, an auction or sale document, an ownership mark, or a scholarly study of the manuscript's codicology that names an intervening owner or location between its sixteenth century appearance in Italy and its 1894 purchase in Sarajevo.

Expertise Needed Manuscript provenance research, Sephardic Jewish history

Question posed in National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo Haggadah Catalogue Record, National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Open Rylands Library Papyrus P52

Why It Is Open The fragment reached the John Rylands Library as part of a purchase of papyri from the Egyptian antiquities market in the early twentieth century, most likely acquired by the papyrologist Bernard Grenfell no later than 1920. No excavation record, findspot, or acquisition documentation naming the seller or the circumstances of discovery survives or was ever published, which is typical for papyri bought on the market rather than professionally excavated.

What Would Settle It Surviving acquisition correspondence or dealer records from the Rylands Library's early twentieth century papyrus purchases, if any exist and can be located, naming the seller and the material's reported findspot in Egypt.

Expertise Needed Papyrology, library archival history

Question posed in An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library, C. H. Roberts.

Open The Gospel of Jesus's Wife Fragment

Why It Is Open Karen King had custody of the fragment for study and testing between 2011 and roughly 2016. Ariel Sabar's reporting identified Walter Fritz as the owner and documented that the fragment was returned to him, but no institution or individual has publicly confirmed holding it since, and this atlas has found no subsequent public accounting of its physical location as of this entry.

What Would Settle It A public statement from Walter Fritz, Karen King, Harvard, or another named custodian confirming current possession, or the fragment surfacing again in scholarly, journalistic, or auction records.

Expertise Needed Investigative journalism, Coptic studies, manuscript provenance research

Question posed in Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife, Ariel Sabar.

Open Arbatel de Magia Veterum

Why It Is Open The 1575 Basel edition names no author, and no signed manuscript or contemporary attribution has surfaced. Modern critical editions have examined the question without reaching a settled candidate.

What Would Settle It A documentary link, a printer's record, a contemporary letter or an internal stylistic match tying the Latin text to a named figure in the Basel printing or physicians' circles of the 1570s.

Expertise Needed History of science / early modern book history

Question posed in Arbatel de Magia Veterum (Robert Turner's 1655 translation), Anonymous, first printed Basel 1575; English translation by Robert Turner, 1655.

Open Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra

Why It Is Open The tradition attributes the text to the Vedic-age sage Parashara, but no surviving manuscript is reliably datable earlier than the medieval period, and the text shows internal evidence of compilation over time rather than single authorship.

What Would Settle It A critical, manuscript-stemma edition comparing the major recensions, dating their strata by internal astronomical references and cross-checking against securely dated citing texts such as the Phaladeepika.

Expertise Needed Indology / history of science (Sanskrit textual criticism)

Question posed in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Sage Parashara (attributed).

Open Vedanga Jyotisha

Why It Is Open No independent record of Lagadha survives outside the text's own attribution. Nothing about his identity, period, or historical existence can be checked against any other source, which is a gap rather than a live scholarly disagreement: no camp holds a documented rival candidate.

What Would Settle It A securely dated independent reference to Lagadha in another Vedic-era or classical Indian text, or manuscript evidence tying a specific historical figure to the Vedanga Jyotisha's composition.

Expertise Needed Indology / history of Vedic literature

Question posed in The Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha, in its Rigveda and Yajurveda Recensions, Translated and critically edited by T. S. Kuppanna Sastry.

Open Aleppo Codex

Why It Is Open The codex was in the Great Synagogue of Aleppo when it burned in the riot of December 1947 and reached Israel in 1958 with about two fifths of its leaves gone. The leaves were never observed to burn, and the surviving pages show no fire damage consistent with the loss. Two leaves have since surfaced from private hands, in 1982 and in 2007, which shows that at least some left Aleppo intact. Beyond that there is no established account. Competing suspicions have been aired, about the community in Aleppo, about those who carried the codex out, and about the institution that received it, and none has been tested to a finding. This is an absence rather than a scholarly dispute: no one holds a position that can be read and argued with.

What Would Settle It Provenance research in the archives of the parties who handled the codex between 1947 and 1958, including the Ben-Zvi Institute's own acquisition file and the Israeli state inquiry papers; and forensic examination of any further leaf that surfaces, since the two recovered so far were identified by matching parchment and hand.

Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and archival provenance research; Hebrew and Arabic; the modern history of the Syrian Jewish communities.

Question posed in The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible, Matti Friedman.

Open Mar Saba Letter

Why It Is Open The leaves were removed from their printed volume at the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem after the examination of 1983 and have not been publicly produced since. Nobody has stated where they are. Every argument about the document, on both sides of a fifty-year dispute, therefore rests on two sets of photographs, one black and white from 1958 and one colour from 1983. No ink analysis, no paper analysis and no examination of the writing under magnification by a document examiner with the original in front of them has ever been carried out. This is not a case of scholars disagreeing about evidence; it is a case of the evidence being unavailable.

What Would Settle It Locating the leaves within the Patriarchate library and permitting a standard document examination: ink composition, comparison of the ink against other eighteenth-century writing in the same collection, paper and pen analysis, and assessment of the hand by a forensic document examiner. Any of those would bear directly on whether the writing is of the eighteenth century or the twentieth, which is the question the whole dispute turns on.

Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and Greek palaeography; forensic document examination and ink chemistry; and the cooperation of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

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

Open Younger Futhark

Why It Is Open The atlas holds three Aett rows and all three are Elder Futhark. The division of the sixteen rune Younger Futhark into three families is structurally real: cipher rune inscriptions encode a rune as a family number plus a position within that family, which cannot work without an agreed division of the row. The live rune ordering here fits the partition usually reported, six, five and five, because Hagall stands at position 7 and Tyr at position 12, exactly where the second and third families would begin. The naming is what could not be established. A pass on 2026-07-27 found only popular and unsourced material, which does not agree with itself: the same three names are given over groups of eight, four and four, of six, six and four, of six, five and five, and of eight, eight and eight, and none of it carried a locator that could be checked. Deriving the rows from the rune ordering alone was refused as inference presented as attestation, so nothing was seeded.

What Would Settle It A reading of the standard runological literature on cryptic or cipher runes, for example Michael Barnes, Runes: A Handbook, 2012, or Klaus Duwel, Runenkunde, 2008, both already held as sources here, settling two things. First, whether the medieval evidence for the ordering of the families in cipher runes, which counts them in reverse so that the Tyr family is numbered first, is reported with family names attached or only with numbers. Second, whether the names Freyr, Hagall and Tyr for the Younger Futhark families occur in any Old Norse or Icelandic manuscript witness, or whether they enter print only in the modern revival, applied backwards from the Elder Futhark. A dated witness naming any one of the three would settle it and the rows could be seeded citing it. A demonstration that none exists would settle it the other way, and the division would stay a structural fact about cipher runes rather than three named entities.

Expertise Needed Runology; Old Norse philology; palaeography of Icelandic runic manuscripts

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

Open Ranjana

Why It Is Open Ranjana is unencoded, so there is no character standard to settle the inventory. The one openly licensed Ranjana typeface, Nithya Ranjana, ships two builds: the Devanagari-mapped build has no way to reach these six, because Devanagari has no letters for them, while the Newa-mapped build carries a separate outline for each, since the Newa block encodes them as letters of Prachalit. The font therefore draws six shapes whose status in Ranjana's own tradition this run could not establish, so the 47 letters seeded here are the vowels and consonants both builds agree on.

What Would Settle It A reading of Newar alphabet charts and primers that teach Ranjana in the Kathmandu Valley, or of the Ranjana Unicode encoding proposals submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee, either of which would state whether the six are counted as letters. If they are, they belong in the block at ids 5247 to 5252.

Expertise Needed Newar palaeography; South Asian script encoding

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

Open The Bahir (Book of Illumination)

Why It Is Open Scholem argued that the Bahir is an edited compilation rather than a single composition, and that some of its material is older than its Provencal setting and eastern in origin. He could not reconstruct what that material was or how it travelled, and neither has anyone since. The manuscript tradition begins after the book was already circulating in Languedoc, so there is no witness to the stage before editing.

What Would Settle It A manuscript or a citation predating the Provencal circulation, or a securely dated eastern text sharing the Bahir's distinctive images and its fragmentary form. Comparative work on the Gnostic and Merkavah parallels Scholem noted, done against dated witnesses rather than against reconstructions, would narrow it even without a new manuscript.

Expertise Needed Medieval Jewish intellectual history, Hebrew and Aramaic codicology, and the study of late antique Jewish esoteric literature

Question posed in Origins of the Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, translated by Allan Arkush.

Open The Heptameron (Elementa Magica)

Why It Is Open The ascription to Pietro d'Abano is rejected on chronological grounds, which removes an author without supplying one. The text first appears in print in 1559 appended to the pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book, and no manuscript witness earlier than the sixteenth century has been identified for it. Its angelic hours and weekday conjurations resemble material circulating in fifteenth-century ritual manuscripts, but resemblance is not descent.

What Would Settle It A dated manuscript of the text or of a recognisable portion of it from before 1559, or a securely dated source that the printed text can be shown to be copying. Collation of the Heptameron against the surviving fifteenth-century angel magic manuscripts, done systematically rather than by impression, would establish whether it is compiled from them.

Expertise Needed History of the book and early printing, Latin palaeography, and the study of late medieval ritual magic manuscripts

Question posed in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies.

Open Tibetan

Why It Is Open The script is plainly Brahmi-derived, but the candidates within that family are several and the letter forms have been argued both towards Gupta Brahmi transmitted through the Indian northwest and towards the scripts of Khotan and the Central Asian oasis towns. The traditional answer, a single minister trained in India, is first recorded four hundred years after the fact and cannot be tested against any imperial-period source.

What Would Settle It Dated inscriptions or manuscripts from the first century of Tibetan writing, compared letter by letter against securely dated Indic and Central Asian exemplars of the same decades. A palaeographic study of the earliest Tibetan hands against the Khotanese and northwest Indian corpora would narrow the model even if it never names a designer.

Expertise Needed Palaeography of the Brahmi-derived scripts, Old Tibetan philology, and Central Asian manuscript studies

Question posed in Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik.