Abstract
In the early fourth century AD, a sudden return of daylight after a darkening of the sky purportedly swayed King Mirian of Georgia to convert to Christianity. Medieval written sources and modern geophysical models suggest that Mirian, whilst on a mountain top near the city of Mtskheta, may have observed a total solar eclipse (TSE). Adjusting for both visibility corrections and constraints on the accumulated clock error known as ΔT, we examine the local circumstances of the TSE of AD 6 May 319, which Gigolashvili et al. (Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions 26, 199–201, 2007; Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion 6, 217–221, 2009) recently proposed as the most likely natural explanation. If the basis for the legendary accounts of Mirian’s conversion is this TSE—but we make no judgment upon this question—then the value of ΔT inferred from written sources agrees well with generally-accepted values, such as those derived by Morrison and Stephenson (Journal for the History of Astronomy 35, 327–336, 2004), namely, ΔT ≈ 7,450 ± 180 s. We also show the extent to which this TSE would have seemed remarkable to observers at Mirian’s presumed location and less so to those nearby at lower elevations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Akhvlediani, G. (1987). The solar eclipse in the legend of the life of St. Nino. Literary Investigations, 2, 465–471 [in Georgian].
Akhvlediani, G. (2002). The legend of the solar eclipse. Georgian Literature and Folklore, 1, 43–56 [in Georgian].
Biusi, E. (1944). Visibility conditions for solar eclipses in Georgia in the first half of the fourth century AD. Bulletin of the Georgian SSR Academy of Sciences, 9, 951–955 [in Georgian].
Braund, D. (1994). Georgian antiquity: A history of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 BC – AD 562. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Espenak, F., & Meeus, J. (2007). Five millennium canon of solar eclipses: −1999 to +3000 2000 BCE to 3000 CE. Hanover, Maryland (USA), NASA/TP—2006—214141. Revision 1.0, 11 May 2007.
Gigolashvili, M., Kiladze, R., Kukhianidze, V., & Ramishvili, G. (2007). On the date when Christianity became the state religion of Georgia. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions, 26, 199–201.
Gigolashvili, M., Kiladze, R., Ramishvili, G., & Kukhianidze, V. (2009). New evidence for determining of the date of adoption of Christianity as a state religion in Georgia. Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion, 6, 217–221.
Gogitidze, S. (1997). King Mirian and the Life of St. Nino. Batumi: Metsniereba Press of the Cooperative Institute of Adjara [in Georgian].
Jubier, X. (2007). Web site: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/. Accessed 30 Aug 2011.
Kelley, D., & Milone, E. (2011). Exploring ancient skies: An encyclopedic survey of archaeoastronomy (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.
Krupp, E. (2009). Web site: http://farhorizons.com/blog/into-the-shadow-and-beyond-the-great-wall-the-solar-eclipse-2009. Accessed 1 May 2009.
Lerner, C. (2004). The wellspring of Georgian historiography. The early medieval historical chronicle The Conversion of K’art’li and The Life of Nino. London: Bennett & Bloom.
Levy, D. (2010). David Levy’s guide to eclipses, transits, and occultations. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Meeus, J. (1997). Mathematical astronomical morsels. Richmond: Willmann-Bell.
Morrison, L., & Stephenson, F. (2004). Historical values of the Earth’s clock error Delta T and the calculation of eclipses. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 35, 327–336.
Pataridze, L. (2000). The Christianization of the Georgians according to the Life of Kartli. In: N. Abekelia and M. Chkhartishvili (Eds.), Christianity in Georgia. Historical-Ethnological Studies (pp. 8–16). Tbilisi: Mematiane.
Rapp, S. (2003). Studies in medieval Georgian historiography: Early texts and Eurasian contacts. Leuven: In aedibus Peters.
Rapp, S., & Crego, P. (2006). The conversion of Kartli. The Shatberdi Variant, Kek. Inst. S-1141. Le Muséon, 119, 169–226.
Rufinus of Aquileia. (1997). The Church history of Rufinus of Aquileia. Books 10 and 11 (trans: Amidon, P.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schove, D., & Fletcher, A. (1987). Chronology of eclipses and comets, A.D. 1–1000. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press.
Siradze, R. (1985). Saint Nino and the Queen. Luminary, 61, 153–170 [in Georgian].
Starry Night Software. (2009). Starry Night Pro Plus, Version 6.4.0. Watsonville: Imaginova.
Stephenson, F. (1997). Historical eclipses and Earth’s rotation. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Stephenson, F. (2007). Variations in the Earth’s clock error ΔT between AD 300 and 800 as deduced from observations of solar and lunar eclipses. Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 10, 211–220.
Thelamon, F. (1981). Païens et Chrétiens au IVe Siècle: L’apport de l’ “Histoire Ecclésiastique” de Rufin d'Aquilée. Paris: Études augustiniennes.
Thomson, R. (1996). Rewriting Caucasian history. The medieval Armenian adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. The original Georgian texts and the Armenian adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Walbiner, C., & Nanobashvili, M. (2008). Nicon’s treatise on the conversion of the Georgians in Christian Arabic literature and its possible Georgian source. Le Muséon, 121, 437–461.
Wardrop, M. (1903). Life of St. Nino (Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, Vol. 5, pp. 1–88). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Young, A. (2004). Sunset science. IV. Low-altitude refraction. The Astronomical Journal, 127, 3622–36.
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this paper were presented as poster papers at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in August 2009 and at the Seventh International Conference on Oriental Astronomy (ICOA-7) in Tokyo (Japan) in September, 2010. An oral version was presented by one of the authors (JS) at the History of Astronomy Division Winter Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle (Washington) on 10 January 2011. The authors wish to thank the conference attendees for comments and constructive feedback as well as Dr Stephen Rapp Jr. of Sam Houston State University (USA), Dr Paul Crego of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and Dr J. Christopher Hunt of the University of Maryland (USA). The authors are especially grateful to Professor Jay Pasachoff of Williams College (USA) for calling our attention to the July 2010 Patagonian eclipse. Finally, one of the authors (WO) wishes to thank Professor Boonrucksar Soonthornthum for offering him a Visiting Professorship at NARIT, where he was able to complete the revision of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sauter, J., Simonia, I., Stephenson, F.R., Orchiston, W. (2015). The Legendary Fourth-Century Total Solar Eclipse in Georgia: Fact or Fantasy?. In: Orchiston, W., Green, D., Strom, R. (eds) New Insights From Recent Studies in Historical Astronomy: Following in the Footsteps of F. Richard Stephenson. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07614-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07614-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07613-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07614-0
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)