Open Questions

Open Imperial Regalia of Japan

Why It Is Open Shinto religious practice keeps all three objects permanently unshown. Atsuta Shrine, Ise Grand Shrine and the Imperial Household Agency have never permitted an outside examination, so nobody outside the shrines and the Agency has verified the objects present or their condition in the modern era.

What Would Settle It A supervised non-invasive examination, such as imaging conducted by the custodial shrines or the Imperial Household Agency themselves, since no outside access has ever been permitted.

Expertise Needed Shinto studies, archaeometry

Question posed in The Imperial Regalia: Japan's Three Sacred Treasures (Nippon.com), Nippon.com.

Open Tooth Relic of Lingguang Temple

Why It Is Open Attribution rests on transmitted tradition. The relic has not been independently examined.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis of the relic, if the custodial temple ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Buddha Tooth Relic Stupa, Lingguang Temple (Visit Beijing official), Visit Beijing.

Open Sri Dalada Maligawa

Why It Is Open The temple permits only devotional access. No independent scientific examination of the relic has ever been permitted, so authenticity rests on transmitted tradition alone.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis of the relic, such as micro-CT or isotopic testing, if the temple ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Sri Dalada Maligawa (institutional record).

Open Sudarium of Oviedo

Why It Is Open Radiocarbon testing of the cloth returned an approximate seventh century date, but the testing laboratory itself cautioned that oil contamination absorbed by the cloth could distort the result, so the date obtained has never been treated as reliable.

What Would Settle It A repeat radiocarbon dating using a sample cleaned of contaminant oils, of the kind used elsewhere to correct for similar contamination in aged relics.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, radiocarbon dating

Question posed in The Oviedo Cloth, Mark Guscin.

Open Radiocarbon Dating of the Sudarium of Oviedo

Why It Is Open The published assay came with the laboratory's own caveat that oils absorbed over centuries of veneration could distort the measured age, and that caveat was never tested. No scholar holds a position on what a clean measurement would show, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement: the work was started, it reached no conclusion, and nobody resumed it.

What Would Settle It A repeat assay on material cleaned by a published decontamination protocol, run blind across more than one laboratory, with the sampling location on the cloth recorded. Independent characterisation of the absorbed organic contaminants would show how large a shift they are capable of producing, which is the part the original caveat left unquantified.

Expertise Needed Radiocarbon dating and archaeometry, with textile conservation science for the decontamination protocol.

Question posed in The Oviedo Cloth, Mark Guscin.

Open Dzogchen

Why It Is Open The Nyingma tradition attributes Dzogchen's transmission to Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra in the eighth century CE, but the earliest securely datable Dzogchen texts are placed later by scholars, and the surviving Dunhuang manuscripts leave the relationship between early Dzogchen and Chan Buddhist teaching in Tibet unresolved.

What Would Settle It Further codicological dating and textual comparison of the Dunhuang Dzogchen and Chan manuscripts against securely dated Chan sources, by scholars working directly with the manuscript corpus.

Expertise Needed Tibetology; Buddhist studies; manuscript studies

Question posed in Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, John Powers.

Open Amarnath Cave

Why It Is Open The cave is named in the Nilamata Purana and in Kalhana's Rajatarangini, but neither text's date of composition is settled, so their references cannot fix how far back the site's veneration actually runs.

What Would Settle It A codicological or paleographic dating study of the manuscript traditions of the Nilamata Purana and the Rajatarangini, or an independently dated inscription or record naming the cave before the nineteenth century.

Expertise Needed Indology, manuscript studies, Sanskrit philology

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.).

Open Enochian Calls

Why It Is Open Secondary sources agree the sixteen calls between the two general openers and the Aethyr call work the four Elemental Watchtowers (earth, water, air, fire), but they disagree on the exact call-by-call assignment, and some later schemes (Golden Dawn) elaborate a finer subdivision (24 sub-angles) that is a 19th century systematization rather than Dee's own division. c2-esoterica declined to assign a specific element to any of the sixteen individual calls on 2026-07-27 rather than pick one scheme and present it as settled.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of the relevant Sloane manuscript folios (the calls proper, distinct from Sloane 3191's Heptarchia material) cross checked against Casaubon's 1659 print, or a specialist secondary source that states its own call-by-call table and its manuscript basis explicitly.

Expertise Needed Early modern manuscript studies / history of Renaissance magic

Question posed in A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, John Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon.

Open De Heptarchia Mystica

Why It Is Open The 2026-07-26 discovery and buildout design documents estimated 49 HeptarchicRoyalty rows for this table. Peterson's edition of Sloane MS 3191 and the parallel full text edition on archive.org name only fourteen individuals: the seven Heptarchical Kings and their seven Princes, one pair per day of the week. Each Prince is also described with a retinue of forty two attendant ministers, but the manuscript identifies these by table position or letter rather than by proper name, so seeding them as Name rows would mean inventing names Dee never gave them. c2-esoterica seeded the fourteen verified Kings and Princes on 2026-07-27 and left this gap open rather than closing it with fabricated rows.

What Would Settle It A closer reading of the full Sloane 3191 folios, or a scholarly edition that resolves whether the forty two ministers per prince carry individual names anywhere in Dee's working papers, or whether the 49 estimate instead conflated the Heptarchia with a different Enochian roster (the ninety one Aethyr governors, or the Watchtower angels) that has its own separate naming scheme.

Expertise Needed Early modern manuscript studies / history of Renaissance magic

Question posed in De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, John Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson.

Open Vatican Apostolic Library

Why It Is Open The library plainly holds material relevant to this atlas, and popular accounts make expansive claims about it. Specific holdings could not be verified well enough to assert a custody relation for any individual work, and asserting one without evidence would be exactly the kind of confident claim the atlas exists to avoid.

What Would Settle It Shelfmarks from the library's own catalogue, which is partly published, for specific works already in this atlas.

Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and catalogue research; Latin and Italian.

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Bodleian Library

Why It Is Open The Bodleian holds significant alchemical and occult manuscript collections, including Ashmole material, but specific holdings for the works in this atlas were not verified to the point where a custody relation could be cited.

What Would Settle It Shelfmarks from the Bodleian's catalogue for named works, which is largely searchable.

Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and catalogue research.

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Sacred Tooth Relic of Kandy

Why It Is Open No independent scientific examination of the relic has ever been permitted. Its identification rests entirely on transmitted religious tradition, not on physical testing.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis, such as micro-CT or isotopic testing, of the relic, if Sri Dalada Maligawa ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Sri Dalada Maligawa, The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (official site), Sri Dalada Maligawa.

Open Tooth Relic of Lingguang Temple

Why It Is Open Attribution rests on transmitted tradition. The relic has not been independently examined.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis of the relic, if the custodial temple ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Buddha Tooth Relic Stupa, Lingguang Temple (Visit Beijing official), Visit Beijing.

Open Sri Dalada Maligawa

Why It Is Open The temple permits only devotional access. No independent scientific examination of the relic has ever been permitted, so authenticity rests on transmitted tradition alone.

What Would Settle It Non-destructive material analysis of the relic, such as micro-CT or isotopic testing, if the temple ever permitted an outside examination.

Expertise Needed Archaeometry, Buddhist studies

Question posed in Sri Dalada Maligawa (institutional record).

Open Dzogchen

Why It Is Open The Nyingma tradition attributes Dzogchen's transmission to Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra in the eighth century CE, but the earliest securely datable Dzogchen texts are placed later by scholars, and the surviving Dunhuang manuscripts leave the relationship between early Dzogchen and Chan Buddhist teaching in Tibet unresolved.

What Would Settle It Further codicological dating and textual comparison of the Dunhuang Dzogchen and Chan manuscripts against securely dated Chan sources, by scholars working directly with the manuscript corpus.

Expertise Needed Tibetology; Buddhist studies; manuscript studies

Question posed in Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, John Powers.

Open Nefertem

Why It Is Open The name is written nfr plus tm and both halves are ambiguous. It is read as "Atum is beautiful", making the god a statement about the creator, and it is read as "the beautiful one who closes", making it a description of the lotus shutting at dusk. The two readings imply different theologies and Egyptological reference works give both without settling between them.

What Would Settle It An early attestation where the name is written with a determinative or in a context that disambiguates tm as the divine name rather than the verb, or a demonstrably early orthography that rules one reading out.

Expertise Needed Egyptology, philology

Question posed in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Donald B. Redford (ed.).

Open Nefertem

Why It Is Open Sekhmet is his mother in the Memphite triad, which is the arrangement most often reproduced, but Bastet and Wadjet are each named in other local traditions. It is not clear whether one of the three is original and the others are later local substitutions, or whether the triad itself is a Memphite systematisation of a god who began without a fixed parentage.

What Would Settle It A survey of the earliest attestations by site and date rather than by the standard triad, which would show whether the variation is chronological or purely geographical.

Expertise Needed Egyptology

Question posed in The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson.

Open Reflexology

Why It Is Open The Sixth Dynasty relief at Saqqara is very widely cited by reflexology sources as evidence of ancient Egyptian practice. Egyptological readings of the same scene as ordinary manicure, pedicure or medical care exist. Engy El-Kilany has published a survey of foot care scenes in Egyptian tombs which secondary reports quote as calling the nature of the therapy depicted still debated, but that paper could not be obtained, and no Egyptological analysis settling the question either way has been found.

What Would Settle It A published Egyptological analysis of the Ankhmahor relief addressing the reflexology claim directly, either way.

Expertise Needed Egyptology and the history of medicine.

Question posed in Reflexology: Panacea or Placebo?, Hylton B. Menz, Paragraph on the tomb of Ankhmahor.

Open Blue Lotus

Why It Is Open The iconographic case, argued by Emboden, is substantial: the flower is held to the nose with unusual persistence in banquet scenes, some figures appear to be in altered states, and it is linked to wine and to the drinking festivals of Hathor. The pharmacological case is weak. Apomorphine and nuciferine are present in small amounts, apomorphine is a strong emetic rather than a pleasant intoxicant, and no psychoactive dose has been shown achievable from a quantity of flowers a person would plausibly use.

What Would Settle It Quantitative analysis of alkaloid content in Nymphaea caerulea grown under conditions comparable to ancient Egypt, plus a controlled account of the effect of a realistic dose. Residue analysis of vessels from banquet or funerary contexts would help. Note that ololiuqui was doubted on similar grounds for centuries and then vindicated, so an absence of demonstrated activity is not evidence of absence.

Expertise Needed Egyptology, ethnobotany, phytochemistry

Question posed in Transcultural Use of Narcotic Water Lilies in Ancient Egyptian and Maya Drug Ritual, William A. Emboden.

Open Soma

Why It Is Open At least three serious candidates have been argued at length and none is established. Wasson proposed Amanita muscaria in 1968; Flattery and Schwartz proposed Peganum harmala in 1989; ephedra is favoured on the grounds that it is the plant used in the living Zoroastrian Yasna, a ritual with no recorded break. Each fits some of the textual evidence and fails on other parts of it.

What Would Settle It A securely dated archaeobotanical find from an Indo-Iranian ritual context with residue analysis, or a philological argument that settles the disputed Rig Veda passages. A fourth possibility deserves testing: that the hymns are liturgical praise rather than pharmacological description, in which case a mild plant is sufficient and the search for a potent one is misconceived.

Expertise Needed Indology, Iranian and Avestan philology, archaeobotany, ethnobotany

Question posed in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, R. Gordon Wasson.