Research indicates that Skaryna was born in 1470.[1] The year 1490 is often proposed based on the assumption that he was 14 when he came to study in Kraków in 1504. The date is an upper boundary; while new students younger than 14 were rare, older ones were not unusual, and Skaryna could have started his studies at the age of 18 or even older. Mikalai Shchakatsikhin [be] suggested that the overlapping sun and moon on Skaryna's personal emblem indicates that he was born around the time of the 1486 solar eclipse, which was observed in Polotsk.[4]: 154–156