Related papers: The Solar Numbers in Angkor Wat
The heartland of the Khmer empire is literally crowded by magnificent monuments built in the course of many centuries. These monuments include the world-famous state-temples, such as Angkor Wat, but also many other temples and huge water…
Among the magnificent temple complexes built during the Khmer empire, two single out both for their distance from the Angkor heartland as well as for their anomalous, not cardinal, orientation: Koh Ker and Preah Khan of Kompong Svay. Their…
An equation, fundamental for solar energy applications, can be used to determine the sunrise amplitude at given latitude. It is therefore suitable for being applied to archaeoastronomical calculations concerning the orientation of towns,…
Astronomy arises very early in a civilization and evolves as the civilization advances. It is therefore reasonable to assume that a vibrant knowledge of astronomy would have been a feature of a civilization the size of the Harappan…
The world famous Javanese temple of Borobudur is located at the westernmost end of a straight line which includes two satellite temples, Mendut and Pawon. Originally, the three buildings were probably connected by a processional path…
Summer 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the excavation by J.W. Fewkes of the Sun Temple in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado; an ancient ceremonial complex of unknown purpose, prominently located atop a mesa, constructed by the Pueblo…
This paper discusses the solar orientation of the archaeological complex of Sigiriya, the Lion Rock, in Sri Lanka. We can see that the axis of this complex is oriented with the sunset of the zenithal sun.
We use standard tools of Archaeoastronomy to approach the study of orientations, possibly astronomical, of a group of colonial Christian churches. We present preliminary results of the analysis of the precise spatial orientation of nearly…
An ancient solar observatory is composed by thirteen towers lined on a hill of a coastal desert of Peru. This is the Chankillo observatory. Here we discuss it, showing some simulations of the local sun direction. An analysis of the…
We present an archaeoastronomical study of the orientations of the colonial Christian churches on the island of Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, Spain, mostly built from the period of the Norman conquest in the 15th century to the 19th…
Summer 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the excavation by J.W. Fewkes of the Sun Temple in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, an ancient complex prominently located atop a mesa, constructed by the ancestral Pueblo peoples approximately…
The issue of the orientation of Greek Temples has been the subject of several debates since the end of the 19 century. In fact, although a general tendency to orientation within the arc of the rising sun is undeniable, specific patterns and…
This paper presents textual evidence for an astronomical basis of the dimensions of the axis and perimeter in the plan of the Indian temple.
We have summarized here the astronomical knowledge of the ancient Hindu astronomers. This knowledge was accumulated from before 1500 B.C. up to around 1200 A.D. In Section \ref{equiv} we have correlated terms used by the Hindu astronomers…
In the planning of some Chinese towns we can see an evident orientation with the cardinal north-south direction. However, other features reveal a possible orientation with the sunrise/sunset azimuth on solstices too, as in the case of…
The Mayan calendar is proposed to derive from an arithmetical model of naked-eye astronomy. The Palenque and Copan lunar equations, used during the Maya Classic period (200 to 900 AD) are solution of the model and the results are expressed…
The Hittite city Sarissa was founded in the 16th century BC and has been systematically constructed. The city gates and the bigger public buildings were arranged at about 45{\deg} relative to the cardinal directions. However, one of the…
Textual and archaeological sources are used to provide a synoptic vision of the universe in India. This vision was based on an assumed equivalence of the outer and the inner cosmoses and it is embodied in architecture, music, and art. It…
In this paper we discuss the importance of studying the orientation of ancient Christian churches, as a complement to the historical and cultural research of the temples. We present preliminary results of the analysis of the precise spatial…
An architectural framework for implementing a distributed observatory control system is presented here. It has been partially realized and tested in the 2m optical and infrared Observatory at Pune, India.