+
upworthy

arabic

Democracy

11th-century ancient ‘smartphone’ found to have been shared between Muslims and Jews

The Verona astrolabe calculated time, distance, star positions and even casted horoscopes.

An Arabic astrolabe at the Pergamon Museum.

About a year ago, Dr. Federica Gigante, a research associate at Cambridge University, was preparing for a lecture and was looking for a photo of 17th-century Italian nobleman and collector Ludovico Moscardo when she happened upon an image of something exceedingly rare, an ancient Arab astrolabe.

The relic was kept in the same museum as Moscardo's photo.

According to the University of Cambridge, an astrolabe is an ancient instrument akin to the “world’s first smartphone" that has hundreds of uses, including calculating time and distances, plotting the position of the stars and even making predictions about the future by casting a horoscope.

Keep ReadingShow less