Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island

ISBN-13: 9781493939077 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 444 str.

Giulio Magli (Politecnico di Milano)

Opis

This book offers the first authoritative introduction to the fascinating science of Archaeoastronomy. The reader is taken on a tour of many enigmatic places while the author studies the astronomical knowledge of our predecessors by analyzing their monuments.

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"Magli ... a theoretical physicist by training, turned to archeoastronomy a decade ago, the topic that marries astronomy to architecture, landscape, ancient astronomical lore, and culture. In this work, a translation of the 2005 Italian version, the author begins with what might be considered standard subjects for archeoastronomy: a survey of a wide range of ancient cultures and their remnants ... . Two appendixes ... and excellent line drawings and photographs are useful. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers." (M.-K. Hemenway, Choice, Vol. 47 (2), October, 2009)

"Professor Magli ... graduated to relativistic astrophysics, before 'seeing the light'. His book ... takes us on a guided tour of the world's archaeoastronomical monuments. ... His book is a comprehensive, well-illustrated, well-referenced, easily accessible intellectual joy. ... The constructors of Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids lived only a hundred or so generations ago. ... The quest to understand their astronomy, their minds, and their motivations is difficult and rewarding and worthy of encouragement. ... Magli's excellent book is an ideal place to start." (David W. Hughes, The Observatory, Vol. 129 (1213), December, 2009)

Spis treści

1.- Thirty thousand years of silence.- Forests of stones, rings of giants.- The island of the goddess.- A Civilization entitled to no place.- When the method is lacking.- Wheels, octagons and golf courses.- Straighr road , circle Buildings, and supernova.- The land where the god where born.- The tree of the world.- The four part of the Earth.- The People of the lines.- The last of the lands.- 2.- Apicnic on the side of the road.- Predidting the past.- Power and Replica.- 3.- The age of the Pyramides.- Gatway to the stars.- On the path of the Ancient Stars.- The scared landscape in the Age of the Pyrimid.

Blurb

This complete, authoritative study of the growing discipline of archaeoastronomy examines the role of astronomy in antiquity. Professor Guilio Magli provides a clear, up-to-date survey of current thinking on the motives of the ancients for building fabulous and mysterious monuments all over our planet. Was it an attempt to reproduce the sky on Earth? To bring down the power of the stars to where they could see it, worship it, and use it? The connecting thread is astronomy. Magli uses astronomy as a key to understanding our ancestors’ way of thinking. It is a challenge he likes to call "predicting the past."

The motives of the ancients have often been misconstrued, maligned, or even dismissed. Magli shows the limitations of orthodox archaeology in relation to astronomically based artifacts and tries to understand what led the ancients to construct such magnificent structures as the city of Teotihuacan in the Mexico Valley, the Ceremonial Center of Chaco Canyon in the United States, the Avebury stone circle in Great Britain, and the great pyramids in Egypt.

In this book, the reader is taken on a ‘world tour’ of many wonderful and enigmatic places on almost every continent, in search of traces of astronomical knowledge and lore of the sky. Then, the author discusses the fundamental ideas that he believes led to the construction of the giant monuments. Finally, Magli revisits one place in greater detail – Giza – in an attempt to provide proof for his ideas on the mindset of ancient cultures.

This fascinating book will take you places in time you have never been, and stimulate your imagination in regards to other people and other cultures. The result will be a better understanding of who we are and where we come from.