A page from the Book of Silk
The Book of Silk is an ancient astronomy book made by Chinese astronomers around 400 BCE and found in the Mawangdui tomb of China in 1973. It lists 29 comets (referred to as 彗星, literally broom stars) that appeared over a period of about 300 years.
Contents
The Book of Silk contains what archaeologists claim is the first definitive atlas of comets. There are roughly 2 dozen renderings of comets, some in fold out/pop-up format. In some cases the pages of the document roll out to be 5 feet long. Each comet's picture has a caption which describes an event its appearance corresponded to, for example, "the death of the prince," "the coming of the plague," or "the 3 year drought."
See also
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