Posted on Wednesday, August 02, 2017
Looking at the sky and using the annual and even daily apparent motions of astronomical objects in the sky for practical purposes goes back thousands of years. Although there are still people, who look for guidance for everyday life in the goings-on in space, we mostly now see astronomy in connection to space-telescopes, giant ground-based telescopes and awe-inspiring images of deep space objects, and not so much in what can be seen and learned with the naked eye over a large timespan from one location.
This book deals with archaeoastronomy - an area of research that looks at ancient structures that were aligned in a specific way or used in connection to astronomy for timekeeping or religious festivals etc. The most famous examples of some such structures include Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids and Chichen Itza.
This book provides information on what kind of celestial motions can be followed with the naked eye and what kind of significance they might have had for the people who built these magnificent structures. In addition to the exposition we also get a glimpse of how archaeoastronomy is done and the reader is also provided with some tools and resources together with some exercises using widely available free software or internet resources that enable one to gain a better understanding of the nature of both archaeoastronomy and the historic sites mentioned in the book.
Labels: archaeoastronomy, book review