ABSTRACT
A famous "Almagest" of Claudius Ptolemy for a long time attracts the attention of astronomers and historians. It is considered that it was created in the II century A.D. It appears that this is wrong. By means of the methods of geometry and statistics the authors date a famous star catalogue of Almagest with the epoch of the VII-XIII centuries A.D. The final edition of the whole Almagest was done, probably, only in the XVI-XVII centuries A.D. The developed by the authors method is applicable for any ancient star catalogues. It appeared that in all cases, except the catalogue of Almagest, the generally accepted medieval datings of the star catalogues of Tycho Brahe, Ulugbek and Hevel were confirmed.
The most part of the book will not require from the reader any special knowledge in mathematics, going out of the frames of the first two courses of technical higher educational institution. It is interesting for mathematicians, physicians, mechanics, astronomers and statists. The book definitely will be interesting for everyone, interested in the history of the Ancient world, Middle ages and the history of science. A reader will learn, for example, which famous astronomer of the XVI century is known to us today also under the name of "antique" Hipparch.
