Mysteries and discoveries of archaeoastronomy : from Giza to Easter Island

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.… (more)