Happy birthday to Queen Seondeok of Silla (c. 595 ~ 610 - 647), 27th ruler of one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, from 632-647, who brought about a renaissance in culture & science and built the Cheomseongdae moon & star-gazing observatory. 🐡🧪👩🏻‍🔬🔭#histsci Known for her intelligence, wisdom & 🧵 - ThreadSky

minouette.bsky.social • 8 days ago

Happy birthday to Queen Seondeok of Silla (c. 595 ~ 610 - 647), 27th ruler of one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, from 632-647, who brought about a renaissance in culture & science and built the Cheomseongdae moon & star-gazing observatory. 🐡🧪👩🏻‍🔬🔭#histsci

Known for her intelligence, wisdom & 🧵

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mrsrobotbirdie.bsky.social•8 days ago

There is a kdrama about her! That's when I first learned about her, amazing leader!

spg21212.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thank you for this wonderful post. I really enjoyed it.

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thank you!

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

benevolence, stories survive of her curiosity & cleverness even as a child. When her father the King was gifted peony seeds from China she remarked that it was a pity the lovely flowers had no scent. The astonished adults asked her how she knew; she had noted that the painting of the flower did

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

not show bees or butterflies & had corrected deduced that they were unscented.

She was introduced to astronomy by her tutor & tried to discuss it with the Chinese ambassador but was rebuffed as Confucianism discouraged educating women. Then she predicted the occurrence & duration of a solar eclipse

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

which angered him & he persuaded her father to stop her studies. Seondeok wrote the following on a votive jar dedicated to her grandmother:

Will I ever know the truth about the stars?

I’m too young to engage in theories about our Universe.

I just know that I want to understand more. I want to

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

know all

I can. Why should it be forbidden?

But when her father died she became Queen. After lifting peasants’ taxes for a year & helping orphans & elderly, she set to work building a 9m tall moon & star-gazing tower Cheomseogdae, which survives today, the oldest standing observatory in East Asia,

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

perhaps the world. The capital became a centre of culture & science, math, astronomy & astrology flourished. The observatory is believed to have been the centre of an entire scientific district.

The building itself represented knowledge; the number of stones represents days of the year.

minouette.bsky.social•8 days ago

The stones appear in 27 courses (for Seondeok, the 27th ruler) with 12 courses above & below the window for months of the year. The tower itself is a gnomon of a sundial & the window captures the sun’s rays on the interior floor at equinoxes.

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