Encyclopedia of Space and Astronomy
Encyclopedia of Space and Astronomy

Author: Joseph A. Angelo

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 753

ISBN-13: 1438110189

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Presents a comprehensive reference to astronomy and space exploration, with articles on space technology, astronauts, stars, planets, key theories and laws and more.

Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition
Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition

Author: Sacha Stern

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 900425966X

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The study of time, astronomy, and calendars, has been closely intertwined in the history of Western culture and, more particularly, Jewish tradition. Jewish interest in astronomy was fostered by the Jewish calendar, which was based on the courses of the sun and the moon, whilst astronomy, in turn, led to a better understanding of how time should be reckoned. Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition, edited by Sacha Stern and Charles Burnett, presents a wide selection of original research in this multi-disciplinary field, ranging from Antiquity to the later Middle Ages. Its variety of approaches and sub-themes reflects the relevance of astronomy and calendars to many aspects of Jewish, and more generally ancient and medieval, culture and social history. Contributors include: Jonathan Ben-Dov, Reimund Leicht, Marina Rustow, Francois de Blois, Raymond Mercier, Philipp Nothaft, Josefina Rodriguez Arribas, Ilana Wartenberg, Israel Sandman, Justine Isserles, Anne C. Kineret Sittig, Katharina Keim, and Sacha Stern

Astronomical Knowledge Transmission Through Illustrated Aratea Manuscripts
Astronomical Knowledge Transmission Through Illustrated Aratea Manuscripts

Author: Marion Dolan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-08-22

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 3319567845

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This carefully researched monograph is a historical investigation of the illustrated Aratea astronomical manuscript and its many interpretations over the centuries. Aratus' 270 B.C.E. Greek poem describing the constellations and astrological phenomena was translated and copied over 800 years into illuminated manuscripts that preserved and illustrated these ancient stories about the constellations. The Aratea survives in its entirety due to multiple translations from Greek to Latin and even to Arabic, with many illuminated versions being commissioned over the ages. The survey encompasses four interrelated disciplines: history of literature, history of myth, history of science, and history of art. Aratea manuscripts by their nature are a meeting place of these distinct branches, and the culling of information from historical literature and from the manuscripts themselves focuses on a wider, holistic view; a narrow approach could not provide a proper prospective. What is most essential to know about this work is that because of its successive incarnations it has survived and been reinterpreted through the centuries, which speaks to its importance in all of these disciplines. This book brings a better understanding of the history, changes and transmission of the original astronomical Phaenomena poem. Historians, art historians, astronomy lovers, and historians of astronomy will learn more specialized details concerning the Aratea and how the tradition survived from the Middle Ages. It is a credit to the poetry of Aratus and the later interpreters of the text that its pagan aspects were not edited nor removed, but respected and maintained in the exact same form despite the fact that all sixty Aratea manuscripts mentioned in this study were produced under the rule of Christianity.

Maya E Groups
Maya E Groups

Author: David A. Freidel

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2017-08-08

Total Pages: 655

ISBN-13: 0813052815

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As complex societies emerged in the Maya lowlands during the first millennium BCE, so did stable communities focused around public squares and the worship of a divine ruler tied to a Maize God cult. “E Groups,” central to many of these settlements, are architectural complexes: typically, a long platform supporting three struc¬tures and facing a western pyramid across a formal plaza. Aligned with the movements of the sun, E Groups have long been interpreted as giant calendrical devices crucial to the rise of Maya civilization. This volume presents new archaeological data to reveal that E Groups were constructed earlier than previously thought. In fact, they are the earliest identifiable architectural plan at many Maya settlements. More than just astronomical observatories or calendars, E Groups were a key element of community organization, urbanism, and identity in the heart of the Maya lowlands. They served as gathering places for emerging communities and centers of ritual; they were the very first civic-religious public architecture in the Maya lowlands. Investigating a wide variety of E Group sites—including some of the most famous like the Mundo Perdido in Tikal and the hitherto little known complex at Chan, as well as others in Ceibal, El Palmar, Cival, Calakmul, Caracol, Xunantunich, Yaxnohcah, Yaxuná, and San Bartolo—this volume pieces together the development of social and political complexity in ancient Maya civilization. James Aimers | Anthony F. Aveni | Jamie J. Awe | Boris Beltran | M. Kathryn Brown | Arlen F. Chase | Diane Z. Chase | Anne S. Dowd | James Doyle | Francisco Estrada-Belli | David A. Freidel | Julie A. Hoggarth | Takeshi Inomata | Patricia A. Mcanany | Susan Milbrath | Jerry Murdock | Kathryn Reese-Taylor | Prudence M. Rice | Cynthia Robin | Franco D. Rossi | Jeremy A. Sabloff | William A. Saturno | Travis W. Stanton A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests
Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests

Author: Gabrielle Vail

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9780884023463

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This book examines evidence for cultural interchange among the intellectual powerbrokers in Postclassic Mesoamerica, specifically those centered in the northern Maya lowlands and the central Mexican highlands. It includes a wealth of new data and interpretive frameworks in a comprehensive discussion of a critical time period in Mesoamerica.