ORGANISMO AUTONOMO DE MUSEOS Y CENTROS OXFORD VI AND SEAC 99 ((Astronomy and cultural diversity)) César Esteban Juan Antonio Belmonte Editorsl Editores Proceedings of the lnternational Conference ((OXFORD VI & SEAC 99)) held in Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos, La Laguna, June 1999 Memorias del Congreso Internacional «OXFORD VI y SEAC 99)) celebrado en el Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos, La Laguna, Junio de 1999 O OACIMC Organismo Autónomo de Museos del Cabildo de Tenerife ISBN: 84-88594-24-0 MAQUETACI~N Miriam Cruz (Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos) PREIMPRESI~N: Con tacto IMPRESI~N: Producciones Gráficas DEDICADO A LA MEMORIA DE DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CARLOS JASCHEK FOREWORD.......................................................................................................................................................... 9 PREFACIO ............................................................................................................................................... 1 1 CARLOS JASCHEK, IN MEMORIAM Arnold Le Beuf................................ INVITED PAPERS INTRODUCCIONA LA MITOLOG~ADE LOS CANARIOS PREHISPÁNICOS . Antonio Tejera Gaspar ................................................................................................................................. 1 7 TOMBS, TEMPLES AND ORIENTATIONS IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN Michael Hoskin.. .................................................. ............................... ARCHAEOASTRONOMY: NEW RESULTS AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES THE STONE ROWS OF THE WEST OF IRELAND: A PRELlMlNARY ARCHAEOASTRONOMICAL ANALYSIS Frank T Prendergast .................................................................................................................................35 GAZING AT THE HORIZON: SUB-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN WESTERN SCOTLAND? Gail Higginbottom, Andrew Smith, Ken Simpson, and Roger Clay.................................................... 43 ARCHAEOASTRONOMY STUDY ON THE DlSPOSlTlON OF SARDINIAN NURAGHES IN THE BRABACIERA VALLEY . Mauro Peppino Zedda and Paolo PiIi............................................................................................................ 51 ORIENTATIONS OF THE PHOENlClAN AND PUNlC SHAFT TOMBS IN MALTA Frank Ventura ...................................................................................................................................................59 ORlENTATlON OF DANISH GEOMETRICAL VIKING FORTRESSES Emília Pásztor and Curt Roslund ................... .............................................................. ..... ........... ................65 ARCHAEOASTROIVOMICAL OBJECT OF THE ENEOLITHIC EPOCH IN RUSSIA Tamila Poiyomkina.......................... .... ..............................................................................................................71 ON ANCIENT ASTRONOMY 1N ARMENIA Elma S. Parsamian.............................................................................................................................................. 77 CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING POSSIBLE MODALlTlES TO ESTABLISH THE ASTRONOMICAL DlRECTlONS IN DACIAN SANCTUARIES Florin Stanexu.................................................................................................................................................. 83 "MUSTACHED" BARROWS AS THE HORIZON SOLAR CALENDARS OF EARLY NOMADS OF KAZAKHSTAN Nyssanbai M. Bekbassar............................................................................................................................... 91 COPERNICAN ICONOGRAPHY IN MICHELANGELO'S LASTJUDGMENT: THE IDEA OF THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE Valerie Shrimplin... : ............. .... ...............................................................................................................203 THE SUBARTIC HORIZON AS A SUNDIAL Thorsteinn Vilhjálmsson................................................................................................................................ 2 1 1 PRE-COLUMBIANASTRONOMY IN CENTRALAREA OF THE PERÚ Elena Ortíz García ............................................................................................................................................2 17 UNE POSSIBILITÉ DE DATATION HlSTORlQUE ABSOLUE DE LA TABLE DES ECLIPSES DU CODEX DE DRESDEPAR LE PASSAGEDES LE~NIDES Arnold Le Beuf .............................................................................................................................................. 225 STARBORN: ANALYSIS OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLISM IN A NATIVE AMERICAN LEGEND Von Del Chamberlain..................................................................................................................................... 233 HlSTORlCAL LEXICOGRAPHY AND THE ASTRONOMICAL LEXICON Terry Mahoney....................... .. ................................................................................... ......................239 CALENDARS: CYCLES OF TIME AT THE END OF THE MlLLENNlUM THE BABYLONIAN CIVIL CALENDAR 731 -626 B.C. EVIDENCE FOR PRE-"METONIC" PERlODlC INTER- CALATION PATERNS Manuel Gerber.............................................................................................................................................. 245 LUNAR SEASONAL CALENDARS FROM THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Duane W. Eichholz........................................................................................................................................ 249 DOMESTICATING THE LANDSCAPE - THE PROBLEM OF THE 17-DEGREE FAMILY ORlENTATlON IN MESOAMERICA Ellbieta Siarkiewicz........... .... ..........................................................................................................255 CALENDRICAL INFORMATION ON MAPUCHE CERAMICS Carlos Gonzalez Vargas ......................................................................................................................... 263 AGRICULTURAL CALENDARS AND CALENDAR FORECASTING PREDICTIONS: AN INTERPRETATION OF CANARY ABORlGlNAL CALENDARS José Manuel González Rodriguez .......... .... ..................................................................................... 269 THE AGE OF AQUARIUS: A MODERN CONSTELLATION MYTH Nicholas Campion........................................................................................................................................ 277 THE ORlGlN OF CONSTELLATIONS DATE AND PLACE OF ORlGlN OF THE ASlAN LUNAR LODGE SYSTEM Bradley E. Schaefer............... ... ..................................................................................................................283 ADAPA, ETANA AND GILGAMES THREE SUMERIAN RULERS AMONG THE CONSTELLATIONS Arkadiusz Soltysiak ............... .. ...............................................................................................................289 HUNTING THE EUROPEAN SKY BEARS: HERCULES MEETS HARZKUME Roslyn M. Frank ..............................................................................................................................................295 NEW ARGLIMENTS FOR THE MINOAN ORlGlN OFTHE STELLAR POSlTlONS IN ARATOS' PHAINOMENA Goran Henriksson and Mary Blomberg............... .. .................................................................................303 AN ASTRONOMICAL INTERPRETATION OF FlNDS FROM MINOAN CRETE Peter E. Blomberg................. .. ....................................................................................................................31 1 DID THERE EXlST THE BALTIC ZODIAC? ." - lonas Vaiskunas ........................................................................................................................................ 3 19 ETHNOASTRONOMY: THE SKY OF LlVlNG PEOPLE BULGARIAN TRADlTlONAL COSMOGONICAL AND COSMOLOGICAL BELIEFS (AFTER ETHNOGRAPHIC DATA FROM AD 1 9Ih TO 2OIh) Dimiter Kolw.................................................................................................................................................. 327 METEORITES OF CAMPO DEL CIELO: IMPACT ON THE INDIAN CULTURE Sixto R. Giménez Benítez, Alejandro M. López, and Luis A. Mammana............................................ 335 CULTURAL CONCEPTS OF THE MlLKY WAY Phyllis Burton Pitluga ..................................................................................................................................... 343 ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCE AND SPIRITUALITIES IN EMPlRlCAL ABORlGlNAL NlGHT SKY Hugh Cairns ..................................................................................................................................................... 349 FOREWORD Astronomy and Cultural Diversity The Sixth Oxford International Conference on Archaeoastronomy and the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Société Européenne pour I'Astronom~edans la Culture (SEAC, European Society for Astronomy in Culture) was held jointly in the days around the summer solstice of 1999 at the Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos, in the historical city of La Laguna, in the lsland of Tenerife. One hundred participants from more than 20 countries of the five continents and almost 60 talks indicate un- doubtedly the relevance of this meeting. The Canary lslands are a crossroads of peoples and cultures, with strong fluxes of emigra- tion/immigration. Belonging politically to Europe, their remote cultural roots are of African origin. However, the idiosyncrasy of the people as well as the soft accent of their spoken Spanish, are more linked to the ones of the warm Caribbean Latin American countries. Taken into account their mag- nificent clear skies and the presence of first-rank international astrophysical observatories