Kugel Globe

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann, Youla Azkarrula

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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 an Indian origin in the middle of the first millennium CE (from the fourth century onwards).

The Object

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).

Greek or Indian

The globe has long been treated as a Greek globe from the 2nd or 1st century BCE. Yet, there have always been anomalies. The spherical globe was discovered around the year 2000 at an art market in Paris, where it was being offered for sale alongside other silver objects. The first scholarly article (Cuvigny 2004) dates the globe to ‘around the 2nd or 1st century BC’ and ‘presumably from Anatolia’. Since then, the globe has typically been discussed in the category of ‘three Greek globes’ in the specialist literature (cf. Dekker 2013).

However, there are a number of peculiarities in the style of the markings and in the objects depicted (Hoffmann 2025). Astronomically questionable, for example, is the fact that the constellation Corona Australis is depicted there, a constellation first attested in texts only from the 1st century AD and which, given the dating of the spherical globe, would have to be dated one to two centuries earlier. Also strange is the depiction of the constellation Cetus as a normal marine mammal (whale) and not as a Greek sea monster: see Hoffmann, Vickers, Geymeier (2022).

News 2025

In 2025, our international team has identified further anomalies that suggest the basic assumption that the spherical globe originated in Greek culture is probably incorrect:

• The Great and Little Bears are depicted as tigers rather than bears,
• the woman depicted in the constellation Virgo is not only missing the usual ear of corn, but she is wearing an (Indian) sari,
• and her hairstyle is Chinese, the so-called ‘Maiden Bun’ (virgin’s bun), which has only been documented since the 4th century CE.

There is therefore much to suggest that this small silver globe by Nicolas and Alexis Kugel in Paris is likely to be of Indian origin and has numerous foreign influences – e.g. Greek, Chinese, and perhaps also Persian.

We published these clues only in a brief report by some 25 experts and hope that other colleagues, who are more knowledgeable than we are, will now finally be able to correctly classify the Kugel globe.

There is clearly still much research to be done on this!