Oldest surviving star chart on manuscript

Dating back to c. AD 649–684, the Dunhuang Chinese Sky star chart comprises a sequence of drawings of sky maps on rolls of manuscript and depicts the constellations visible from the Northern Hemisphere. The atlas was discovered in 1907 by Hungarian-born archaeologist Aurel Stein in the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. It illustrates more than 1,300 stars, to a high degree of accuracy, and is currently housed in the British Library, London, UK. The map, along with around 40,000 other manuscripts, was remarkably well preserved, owing to the dry climate of the region.