* Astronomy

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Archaeoastronomy

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RE: Ancient Astronomy

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Archeoastronomy

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Archaeoastronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Ancient Astronomy

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Recent astronomical observations at Kilmartin Glen, Argyll, Scotland

The Temple Wood and Nether Largie complex stands in the Kilmartin Glen, Argyll, Scotland (Grid Ref. NR 82 97; Lat. 56° 7' Long. 5° 29'). The Temple Wood site consists of two adjacent stone circles thought to have been built in the fourth millennium BC (RCAHMS 1988, 1999; Scott 1989: 53). However, there is some doubt about this date, (Butter 1999). Radiocarbon dates for the southern circle show that it was used for burial from the middle to late Bronze Age (Scott 1989: 115-7; Sheridan 2008). It is thought that the southern circle was erected after the northern circle (Scott 1989) and it is possible that they were built in the early Bronze Age. The line connecting the centre of the circles forms an axis running NE-SW, and coincides with the alignment of the southern circle's three burial cists. Three of the stones of the Temple Wood southern circle have symbols carved on their outer sides: stone 8 is cupmarked and stone 10 has a double spiral, while stone 12 has faint concentric circles.
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Tree Carving in California: Ancient Astronomers

Though local lore held that the so-called "scorpion tree" had been the work of cowboys, palaeontologist Rex Saint Onge immediately knew that the tree was carved by Indians when he stumbled upon it in the fall of 2006. Located in a shady grove atop the Santa Lucia Mountains in San Luis Obispo County, the centuries-old gnarled oak had the image of a six-legged, lizard-like being meticulously scrawled into its trunk, the nearly three-foot-tall beast topped with a rectangular crown and two large spheres.
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Date with destiny
Covering an area of 1,400 sq m, the rammed earth ruins of probably the world's oldest observatory is one of the most important discoveries at the Taoshi site in Shanxi province.

Just before dawn in a quiet village in North China, a short-waisted man hurries with a bundle of poles toward a clump of weeds to wait for sunrise. He busily makes measurements and takes photos. He wants to prove that ancient astronomers once stood at the same place 4,100 years ago to determine the changing of seasons, by observing the sunrise and discerning the best times for sowing and harvesting.
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Astronomical Associations of "The Day of the Dead"

Just as the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe can be traced to the pre-Conquest festival honouring the Nahua sun goddess Tonantzin at the winter solstice (December 12 in the Julian calendar), so too, may we discern the origins of the "Day of the Dead" in the Nahua ritual known as "the binding of the years". Although the astronomical event which specifically provided the timing for the latter was the zenithal passage of the Pleiades at midnight every 52 years (a year known as "2 Reed" in the Nahua calendar), there is the strong likelihood that the "Day of the Dead" represents an annual celebration whose original purpose was to commemorate the same celestial event.
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"Although weak in astronomical theory, given the charge to search for heavenly omens, Chinese astronomers became acute observers.who produced systematic star charts and catalogues. Chinese astronomers recorded 1,600 observations of solar and lunar eclipses from 720 BCE, and developed a limited ability to predict eclipses. They registered seventy-five novas and supernovas (or 'guest' stars) between 352 BCE and 1604 CE, including the exploding star of 1054 (now the Crab Nebula), visible even in the daytime but apparently not noticed by Islamic or European astronomers. With comets a portent of disaster, Chinese astronomers carefully logged twenty-two centuries of cometary observations from 613 BCE to 1621 CE, including the viewing of Halley's comet every 76 years from 240 BCE. Observations of sunspots (observed through dust storms) date from 28 BCE. Chinese astronomers knew the 26,000-year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes. Like the astronomers of the other Eastern civilizations, but unlike the Greeks, they did not develop explanatory models for planetary motion. They mastered planetary periods without speculating about orbits. Government officials also systematically collected weather data."

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