A medieval smartphone? The surprising find of a 1000-year-old device that defies history
A seemingly impossible object has been found that defies what we know about history.
A remarkable 1,000-year-old artefact has been discovered at the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo in Verona, Italy, by Federica Gigante, a historian from the University of Cambridge. It may not play Spotify and have TikTok, but scientists are labelling it the world’s first ‘smartphone’.
The medieval astronomical instrument comes from the 11th-century Al-Andalus region, which is now modern-day Spain. The purpose of the device allows the user to identify the position and height of up to 850 stars in the sky. As well as that, muslims used the artefact to find the direction of Mecca.
A number of Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions highlight the scientific exchanges among Arab, Jewish, and Christian scholars of that era as well as shedding light on the interconnected nature of scientific knowledge across cultures at the time.
This astrolabe from 1026 AD, engraved with city names from Mecca to Toledo, reveals the history of science and navigation in the Islamic world.
— Museum With No Frontiers (@mwnf_org) February 25, 2025
From timeless monuments to intricate designs, explore it all in 'Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean' | https://t.co/RU54KwUVjQ pic.twitter.com/w2wusaUwWY
Astrolabe ‘now the single most important object in their collection’
Remarkably, Gigante stumbled across the device while scrolling through the museum website. After calling the institution to ask for more information, she was told that they in fact knew nothing about the object.
“The museum didn’t know what it was. It’s now the single most important object in their collection”, Dr Gigante said in a statement.
“When I visited the museum and studied the astrolabe up close, I noticed that not only was it covered in beautifully engraved Arabic inscriptions but that I could see faint inscriptions in Hebrew. I could only make them out in the raking light entering from a window. I thought I might be dreaming but I kept seeing more and more. It was very exciting.
1. Byzantine astrolabe, 11th-century, exact copy in the Science Center and Technology Museum of Thessalonike, the original being kept in Civici Musei d'Arte e Storia in Brescia, Italy.
— Chrysoloras (@Alyunan00) February 23, 2025
2. Byzantine clock-calender, 6th century, exact copy in the Science Center and Technology… pic.twitter.com/6ZLDrFXmts
“This isn’t just an incredibly rare object. It’s a powerful record of scientific exchange between Arabs, Jews and Christians over hundreds of years.”
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