What is the connection between May Day and the Statue of Liberty? Between ancient solstice fires and Fourth of July fireworks? Between St. Valentine, the Groundhog, and the Virgin Mary? Why do people behave so bawdily during Mardi Gras? How has the significance and celebration of Christmas changed over the centuries? In The Book of the Year, Anthony Aveni offers fascinating answers to these questions and explains the many ways humans throughout time have tried to order and give meaning to time's passing. Aveni traces the origins of modern customs tied to seasonal holidays, exploring what...
What is the connection between May Day and the Statue of Liberty? Between ancient solstice fires and Fourth of July fireworks? Between St. Valentine, ...
Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico helped establish the field of archaeoastronomy, and it remains the standard introduction to this subject. Combining basic astronomy with archaeological and ethnological data, it presented a readable and entertaining synthesis of all that was known of ancient astronomy in the western hemisphere as of 1980.
In this revised edition, Anthony Aveni draws on his own and others' discoveries of the past twenty years to bring the Skywatchers story up to the present. He offers new data and interpretations in many areas, including:
The...
Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico helped establish the field of archaeoastronomy, and it remains the standard introduction to this subject...
"Tony Aveni has written a marvelous book about how the celestial rhythms influenced the cultures of the past. . . . It makes fascinating reading for any layperson."--Science Books and Films
"Clearly, if we can know more about these people, their religion, their culture, their hopes and dreams, according to Dr. Aveni, it will make our understanding of their astronomy more meaningful."--Planetarian
"A thoughtful analysis . . . highly recommended."--Library Journal
What was the meaning of Stonehenge? What was the Mayan Code? Why was the elaborate Incan city of Cuzco built?...
"Tony Aveni has written a marvelous book about how the celestial rhythms influenced the cultures of the past. . . . It makes fascinating reading for a...
Gazing into the black skies from the Anasazi observatory at Chimney Rock or the Castillo Pyramid in the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza, a modern visitor might wonder what ancient stargazers looked for in the skies and what they saw. Once considered unresearchable, these questions now drive cultural astronomers who draw on written and unwritten records and a constellation of disciplines to reveal the wonders of ancient and contemporary astronomies.
Cultural astronomy, first called archaeoastronomy, has evolved at ferocious speed since its genesis in the 1960s, with seminal essays and powerful...
Gazing into the black skies from the Anasazi observatory at Chimney Rock or the Castillo Pyramid in the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza, a modern visitor m...
First published in 1982, this volume summarises the proceedings of a conference which took place at the University of Oxford in September 1981. Held under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union and the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science, the meeting reviewed the progress in the archaeoastronomy of the New World. American archaeoastronomy is growing healthily. Researchers from different disciplines, showing an interest in Native American astronomy, have been collaborating since the early 1970s. Research paths opened by astronomers, archaeologists,...
First published in 1982, this volume summarises the proceedings of a conference which took place at the University of Oxford in September 1981. Held u...
Westerners think of time as a measure of duration, a metric quantity that is continuous, homogeneous, unchangeable, and never ending--a reality that lies outside of human existence. How did the people of Mesoamerica and the Andes, isolated as they were from the rest of the world, conceive of their histories? How and why did they time their rituals? What knowledge can we acquire about their time from studying the material record they have left behind?
This volume brings together specialists in anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, and the history of science to contemplate...
Westerners think of time as a measure of duration, a metric quantity that is continuous, homogeneous, unchangeable, and never ending--a reality tha...
Apocalyptic Anxiety traces the sources of American culture's obsession with predicting and preparing for the apocalypse. Author Anthony Aveni explores why Americans take millennial claims seriously, where and how end-of-the-world predictions emerge, how they develop within a broader historical framework, and what we can learn from doomsday predictions of the past. The book begins with the Millerites, the nineteenth-century religious sect of Pastor William Miller, who used biblical calculations to predict October 22, 1844 as the date for the Second Advent of Christ. Aveni also...
Apocalyptic Anxiety traces the sources of American culture's obsession with predicting and preparing for the apocalypse. Author Anthony Aveni e...
