Overview
- Allows readers to virtually experience many astronomically-related archaeological sites through augmented reality potentialities
- Offers a comprehensive, easy-to-read, up-to-date account of the fascinating discipline of archaeoastronomy
- Includes sections on methodology and current understanding of a range of sites and structures
- Features a set of exercises that can be performed using free software (e.g. Google Earth or Stellarium)
- Offers readers the foundations of archaeoastronomy and equips them to conduct their own research
- Provides a global didactic experience through direct links to the relevant sections of the MOOC online lessons by the same author
Part of the book series: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics (ULNP)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Methods
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Archaeoastronomy Textbook
- Archaeology of the Landscape in the Archaeoastronomy Textbook
- Astronomical Software in the Archaeoastronomy Textbook
- Astronomical Value of Cultural Heritage
- History of Ancient Astronomy
- Methods of Archaeoastronomy
- Relationship between Architecture and Astronomy
- Stonehenge Astronomy
About this book
This is a second edition of a textbook that provides the first comprehensive, easy-to-read, and up-to-date account of the fascinating discipline of archaeoastronomy, in which the relationship between ancient constructions and the sky is studied in order to gain a better understanding of the ideas of the architects of the past and of their religious and symbolic worlds. The book is divided into three sections, the first of which explores the past relations between astronomy and people, power, the afterworld, architecture, and landscape. The second part then discusses in detail the fundamentals of archaeoastronomy, including the celestial coordinates; the apparent motion of the sun, moon, stars, and planets; observation of celestial bodies at the horizon; the use of astronomical software in archaeoastronomy; and current methods for making and analyzing measurements. The final section reviews what archaeoastronomy can now tell us about the nature and purpose of such sites and structures as Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, Chichen Itza, the Angkor Temples, the Campus Martius, and the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento. In addition, it provides a set of exercises that can be performed using non-commercial free software, e.g., Google Earth and Stellarium, and that will equip readers to conduct their own research. This new edition features a completely new chapter on archaeoastronomy in Asia and an “augmented reality” framework, which on the one hand enhances the didactic value of the book using direct links to the relevant sections of the author’s MOOC (online) lessons and, on the other, allows readers to directly experience – albeit virtually –many of the spectacular archaeological sites described in the book. This is an ideal introduction to what has become a wide-ranging multidisciplinary science.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Archaeoastronomy
Book Subtitle: Introduction to the Science of Stars and Stones
Authors: Giulio Magli
Series Title: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45147-9
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-45146-2Published: 29 September 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-45147-9Published: 28 September 2020
Series ISSN: 2192-4791
Series E-ISSN: 2192-4805
Edition Number: 2
Number of Pages: XIII, 264
Number of Illustrations: 103 b/w illustrations, 122 illustrations in colour
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Architectural History and Theory, Cultural Heritage