Omar Khayyam

poet, mathematician, astronomer

1048 – 1131 · 83 years · Nishapur · Middle East

Mathematician who devised a precise solar calendar and poet famed for his philosophical quatrains, the Rubaiyat.

Portrait: Atilin at French Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Henry IV — emperor humbled at Canossa in his struggle with the pope, 2 years younger
William the Conqueror — Duke of Normandy, King of England, 20 years older
Hildegard of Bingen — abbess, mystic and composer, 50 years younger
Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 45 years older
Henry I Beauclerc — law-giving king who created the Exchequer and the Charter of Liberties, 20 years younger
Philip I — son of Anne of Kiev, excommunicated for bigamy, 4 years younger

Vladimir II Monomakh — Grand Prince of Kiev, 5 years younger
Yuri Dolgoruky — prince of Rostov-Suzdal, founder of Moscow, 51 years younger
Andrey Bogolyubsky — prince who moved the centre of Rus to Vladimir, 63 years younger
Sviatopolk II — prince of Kiev, participant in the Congress of Liubech, 2 years younger
Nestor the Chronicler — monk and chronicler, 8 years younger
Mstislav the Great — last ruler of a united Kievan Rus, 28 years younger