Related papers: Prehistoric sanctuaries in Daunia
Prehistoric sanctuaries of Daunia date back several thousand years. During the Neolithic and Bronze Age the farmers in that region dug hypogea and holes whose characteristics suggest a ritual use. In the present note we summarize the…
The third column of the left row in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, has a hole carved in it, of probable astronomical use. The tube aims at a point a 116 degrees of azimut, East-South-East and 17.3 degrees of altitude, the…
The placement of the Middle Bronze Age settlement Villaggio dei Faraglioni on the Ustica island, one of the best preserved prehistoric village of the Mediterranean area, is analyzed from a cognitive point of view, taking into account…
In this paper we present the results of an archaeoastronomical survey of three proto-historical sites located in the high Friulian plain (Galleriano, Gradisca and Savalons), dating from the end of the Early Bronze Age (1900 B.C.) to the end…
The Astronomical Diaries from Babylonia (ADB) are an excellent source of information of natural phenomena, including astronomical ones, in pre-Christ era because it contains the record of highly continuous and systematic observations. In…
Ethnographic evidence indicates that bora (initiation) ceremonial sites in southeast Australia, which typically comprise a pair of circles connected by a pathway, are symbolically reflected in the Milky Way as the 'Sky Bora'. This evidence…
In the past, the Arabs in Al-Hara Zone used many stars to deduce the seasons of the year and also to deduce the roads, at that time this was the most convenient way to figure their ways and to know the time of the year they have to travel…
Whilst camped at Ooldea, South Australia, between 1919 and 1935, the amateur anthropologist Daisy Bates CBE (1859-1951) recorded the daily lives, lore, and oral traditions of the Aboriginal people of the Great Victoria Desert region…
The Taurus-Auriga complex is the prototypical low-mass star forming region, and provides a unique testbed of the star formation process, which left observable imprints on the spatial, kinematic, and temporal structure of its stellar…
We agree with the interpretation of W. Schlosser, that the Nebra Sky Disc is a reminder of a method of determining a start date (and possibly also an end date) of the farming year. We extend this interpretation. We think that we found the…
Stellar occultations provide a powerful tool to explore objects of the outer solar system. The Gaia mission now provides milli-arcsec accuracy on the predictions of these events and makes possible observations that were previously…
The Nabateans built several monuments in Petra and elsewhere displaying a decoration with a preference for astronomical motifs, possibly as a reflection of their religion. However, due to the lack of direct written accounts and the scarcity…
I discuss various aspects of archeoastronomy concentrating on physical artifacts (i.e., not including ethno-archeoastronomy) focusing on the period that ended about 2000 years ago. I present examples of artifacts interpreted as showing the…
In an article written by Giulio Magli on the orientation of the Roman towns, Bononia, the Roman Bologna, is given as a specific example to support Magli's thesis on the existence of preferred solar alignments of the urban layout. Assuming…
The paper is proposing a possible link between the construction of the Silbury Hill, the prehistoric artificial mound near Avebury, and the observation of Alpha Crucis, the main star of the Crux constellation, which was slowly disappearing…
A campaign is described, open to participation by interested AAVSO members, of follow-up observations for newly-discovered Cepheid variables in undersampled and obscured regions of the Galaxy. A primary objective being to use these…
Compact object binaries (a black hole or a neutron star orbiting a non-degenerate stellar companion) are key to our understanding of late massive star evolution, in addition to being some of the best probes of extreme gravity and accretion…
Here we present the little explored Ca II K archives from the Rome and the Catania observatories and analyse the digitised images from these archives to derive plage areas.
Evidence of a supernova event, discussed in Wallner et al., was discovered in the deep-sea crusts with two signals dating back to 2-3 and 7-9 Myr ago. In this contribution, we place constraints on the birth-site of the supernova progenitors…
The Circle of Apollonius is named after the ancient geometrician Apollonius of Perga. This beautiful geometric construct can be helpful when solving some general problems of mathematical physics, optics and electricity. Here we discuss its…