Kugel Globe

high resolution drawing of the Kugel Globe, published in Hoffmann (2025)

The Kugel Globe is a historical silver globe. It has long been treated as an ancient Greek globe but newer finds point to a different direction.

Hoffmann (2025):

"The three preserved globes are artistic objects that were used for decoration or visualization. The holes at the poles of the globe in Mainz and at the North Pole of the Farnese Globe indicate that the small globe was impaled on a (wooden?) rod and that the marble globe was mounted at a supporting position of an architecture, possibly as a sort of unconventional column capital. None of the three is a scientific instrument. From Ptolemy’s Almagest (Alm. VIII, 3), we can infer the function of a scientific globe in antiquity: Such globes served as ‘analogue computers’."

The Kugel Globe is owned by the private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel, Paris.

The IAU WGSN thanks Alexis Kugel for the permission to publish these detailed photographs in the ASE.

Kugel Globe - centered on Ophiuchus (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - centered on Virgo (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - centered on Hydra (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).
Kugel Globe - centered on Gemini (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - centered on Taurus (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - centered on Aries (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).
Kugel Globe - centered on Pegasus (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - centered on Aqulia (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).	Kugel Globe - north pole view (CC BY "private collection of Nicolas and Alexis Kugel", Paris).