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Filter by category and discipline, then by continent, country and century of birth. Countries not yet represented can be drafted at the research desk.
Category
Era
7 figures
Cai Lun
50 – 121Standardised papermaking, the substrate of recorded civilisation.
China·Engineering
Zhang Heng
78 – 139Built the first seismoscope and mapped 2,500 stars.
China·Astronomy · Engineering · Literature
Galen of Pergamon
129 – 216Physician to gladiators and emperors whose anatomy ruled medicine for 1,400 years.
Türkiye·Medicine · Philosophy · BiologyFull profile
Zhang Zhongjing
150 – 219Treatise on Cold Damage remains a foundation of Chinese medicine.
China·Medicine
Nagarjuna
150 – 250Founded Madhyamaka Buddhism and its logic of emptiness.
India·Philosophy
Kalidasa
400 – 460Sanskrit's supreme dramatist; Shakuntala reached Goethe.
India·Literature
Aryabhata
476 – 550Gave place-value, an accurate π, and a rotating Earth in 499 CE.
India·Mathematics · Astronomy