“I saw it was a lot more ancient than they’d realized... But at that point, I had no idea it had Hebrew on it. It was only when we took it to a side room, and I started to analyze it – by chance, I was sitting by a window, and the raking light came in – that I started to see these scratches. They were very strange because they weren’t the scratches you’d expect from use. I thought maybe I was just a bit too tired, but more kept coming out,” Gigante told news sources.
“There’s an added dedication or signature on the object that reads: ‘For Isaac, the work of Jonah… They’re both Jewish names so it’s very likely that by then the astrolabe had passed into Jewish ownership. But it’s interesting that it’s written in Arabic. Although it was probably in the hands of some Jews, Arabic was the lingua franca and was used by Jews as much as Muslims and Christians,” the historian noted.
“We know that in 11th-century Spain, Jews, Muslims and Christians were working alongside each other, especially in the scientific media, and that many Jewish scientists were sponsored and patronized by Muslim rulers with no concern for their religion… It’s not that this instrument tells us this for the first time. All this is known, but what I find extraordinary is that this is a very tangible, physical proof of that history,” she remarked.