Historical & Cultural Astronomy

Historical & Cultural Astronomy Historical & Cultural Astronomy EDITORIAL BOARD Chairman W. BUTLER BURTON, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA ([email protected]); University of Leiden, The Netherlands, ([email protected]) JAMES EVANS, University of Puget Sound, USA MILLER GOSS, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, USA JAMES LEQUEUX, Observatoire de Paris, France SIMON MITTON, St. Edmund’s College Cambridge University, UK WAYNE ORCHISTON, National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, Thailand MARC ROTHENBERG, AAS Historical Astronomy Division Chair, USA VIRGINIA TRIMBLE, University of California Irvine, USA XIAOCHUN SUN, Institute of History of Natural Science, China GUDRUN WOLFSCHMIDT, Institute for History of Science and Technology, Germany More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15156 Alexus McLeod Astronomy in the Ancient World Early and Modern Views on Celestial Events 123 Alexus McLeod University of Connecticut Storrs, CT USA ISSN 2509-310X ISSN 2509-3118 (electronic) Historical & Cultural Astronomy ISBN 978-3-319-23599-8 ISBN 978-3-319-23600-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23600-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941290 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: The series cover image, “Astronomer by Candlelight,” was painted by Gerrit Dou in the style of the school of Leiden “fijnschilders;” Dou was born in Leiden in 1613 and died there in 1675. Image Credit: Jarek Tuszynski/CC-BY-SA & GDFL. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Acknowledgements I owe thanks to many people, all of whom have helped me learn and attain some small amount of understanding in a field in which I received no formal training. I first and foremost thank those astronomers, historians, and other scholars who I have relied on to help me through the thickets of the material. I am a scholar who has wandered out of my own academic backyard and into theirs, and they have displayed admirable patience with my fumbling, misunderstandings, and ignorance. While there have been many people who have guided and assisted me in this project, I want to point out a few in particular. I would like to thank Cheri Adams and the staff of the Astronomy Department at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio, for their wonderful public outreach and for helping to rekindle an interest in astronomy that had been dormant for years. Thanks also to the Miami Valley Astronomical Society, Mound Science and Energy Museum, and the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society, whose members offered me valuable feedback on various parts of what became this book. This book would have been impossible without the hard work and dedication of the people who preserve the amazing historical sites and artifacts of our shared human history, including the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society and the SunWatch Indian Village staff—espe- cially site manager Andrew Sawyer and Curator of Anthropology Bill Kennedy, who saved me from a few boneheaded mistakes, the members of the Archaeological Survey of India tasked with maintaining such a difficult site in a difficult city as Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, and the staff of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, one of my favorite places on the Earth. Thanks also to my friend Leanne Martin, whose conversations about cultural astronomy through the years have helped me to think through much of this, and her husband Christopher Martin of Caltech, whose conversations about the GALEX discoveries and enthusiasm for astronomical discovery inspired me to conclude the section on contemporary astronomy with an account of his work. I would also like to thank a reviewer for Springer, whose insightful comments and suggestions both saved me from a number of (sometimes egregious) mistakes and helped me to further think through a number of issues. v vi Acknowledgements Finally, thanks to my two sons, Siddhu and Francis, whose curiosity about the stars motivated me to learn more in order to teach them and encourage them not to lose that fascination. This book is dedicated to my parents, Gustavus Arius McLeod and Mary Alice McLeod, who instilled my love of learning, and who never gave up, even though they had every right to. Contents 1 Introduction......................................... 1 References . 8 Part I Watchers of the Sun 2 The Americas........................................ 11 Cahokia . 11 Mesoamerica. 16 Maya Cosmology . 28 1054 for the Maya: Some Speculations. 39 Mississippian Culture . 40 References . 50 3 Supernova–Cataclysm in the Sky ......................... 53 Introduction . 53 SN 1054 Elsewhere in the World. 60 The Philosophy of Time—On Time, the Nature of Time, and Its Changing . 63 Part II The Celestial Empire 4 The Chinese World ................................... 75 The Celestial Sphere . 75 Astronomy and the Fall of the “New” Dynasty . 84 Early Chinese Cosmology. 89 Chinese Astronomical Systems and Tools . 95 References . 108 5 Comet—A Sea of Dust and Ice ........................... 109 Historical Comets and Their Effects on Culture . 116 The Philosophy of Unification in Early China . 118 References . 125 vii viii Contents Part III Calculation of Astronomical Wonders 6 India .............................................. 129 Eating the Sun. 129 Early Indian Astronomy—Vedic . 132 Siddhantic Astronomy . 143 Indian Cosmology . 144 Islamic Thought and Astronomy, and Its Influence on India . 149 Return to Jai Singh . 156 References . 168 7 Eclipse—Shadows and Light............................. 171 Eclipses in History. 179 References . 181 Part IV The Perfection of the Spheres 8 Europe and the West .................................. 185 Pre Greco-Roman Astronomy in Europe . 185 Stonehenge . 185 Goseck Circle . 189 Newgrange . 191 Astronomy in Ancient Greece . 194 Ptolemy and the Spheres. 203 The Problems of Ptolemy . 205 Visions of Change—Brahe and Kepler . 207 References . 211 9 Contemporary Astronomical Thought ...................... 213 Ultraviolet Astronomy-Mira’s Tail . 220 Cosmic Background Radiation. 222 The Philosophy of Two-World Naturalism and the Future of Astronomy . 223 References . 225 Index ................................................ 227.

Load more