A Periodic Table Unearthed at St Andrews University in Scotland Might Be the Oldest in Existence

According to the Scottish newspaper The Courier, the world’s oldest known periodic table of elements may have been found at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Experts from the university and around the world recently concluded that the chart, rediscovered in a chemistry department storage area in 2014, dates back to 1885—only 16 years after Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev first proposed the method of organizing the elements into related groups and ordering them by increasing atomic weight.

Mendeleev’s original periodic table included 60 elements, while the modern table we use today contains 118. The chart found at St Andrews closely resembles Mendeleev’s second iteration of the table from 1871, and it is believed to be the last remaining table of its kind in Europe.

The St Andrews table is written in German and was likely created for use in German universities as a teaching tool, according to St Andrews chemistry professor David O’Hagan. Though the item itself is marked as 1885, St Andrews researcher M. Pilar Gil discovered a receipt showing that the university bought it from a German catalog in 1888. A St Andrews chemistry professor likely ordered it to ensure access to the most up-to-date educational resources, even if they were not in English.

When the table was first discovered by university staff in 2014, it was in poor condition,” O’Hagan tells The Courier in the video below. The material was delicate, with pieces flaking off when handled. Since then, conservators from the university's special collections department have worked to preserve it for future generations.

The 19th-century table looks quite different from modern versions. While Mendeleev laid the foundation for the periodic table we use today, English physicist Henry Moseley refined it in 1913 by organizing the elements based on the number of protons, rather than atomic weight. Later, in the 1920s, Horace Deming introduced the boxy layout we now associate with periodic tables.

Watch the video below to learn more about the St Andrews discovery.