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The ziqqurat is the symbol of the Mesopotamian sacred architecture in the western thought. This monument, standardized at the end of the III millennium BC by the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, has changed during the history of Mesopotamia its shape and architecture, but remained till the end of the Neo-Babylonian Period in the I millennium BC the highest structure of the city. The ziqqurat is the only monument visible over the settlements wall with a strong visual impact around the urban and the countryside landscape. Despite its simple structural function, a high mud brick platform to sustain an upper temple, the ziqqurat appears in the Mesopotamian art and literature as a structure of primary importance, a connection between the earth, domain of the god Enlil, with the sky, domain of the god Anu. The ideological function to connect the earth and the sky was related also with the rituals performed in the high temples built above these monuments, usually linked with important seasonal royal rituals. The paper will analyze this particular aspect of ziqqurat, looking also to their orientations and to the changing in the relationship between these monuments and the urban landscape through the centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Mankind has been observing the sky since ever and also intentional human activity of interpreting what is seen in the sky is very old. The usefulness of studies aimed at analyzing the possible astronomical content of ancient structures and artifacts is thus not in doubt. However, many archaeologists still do not acknowledge Archaeoastronomy as a useful subsidiary science for Archaeology. This situation is mainly due to two factors. On the one hand, many archaeoastronomical works devoid of any scientific content continue to discredit even the most serious researches in the field. On the other hand, the purely humanistic formation of most archaeologists does not incline them to accept the evidence that archaeoastronomers present in support of their arguments. While the first problem can hopefully find a solution with a strict self-control of the archaeoastronomical community, the solution of the latter is more complex. Actually, the difficulty of proving the presence of astronomical contents in an ancient artifact is, in large measure, real and certainly not ascribable only to the lack of scientific expertise. However, the problem of the credibility of a scientific study is indeed becoming more and more serious in all disciplines. In fact, the pressure in the whole scientific community to increase one's output, for a positive assessment of the activities of a researcher, is causing numerous cases of poor scientific ethics. Obviously this situation has very negative consequences especially in those disciplines, such as clinical trials, which have a strong social impact. For this reason, the community of Pharmacology scholars is considering to introduce a standard procedure, which is to be explicated in the evaluation of the credibility of the results of a research. We will show how a similar standard procedure can be adapted to increase also the credibility of the archaeoastronomical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The OAS Project has been run with the support of the Spanish research funding agencies during the last dozen years. Within its framework, research on cultural astronomy has been developed for a series of ancient civilizations, from the Atlantic Islands to the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, with the Meditterranean Sea as the principal axis of action of the project. A catalogue of studies has been performed in a set of cultures such as the Megalithic Phenomenon (González-García and Belmonte, 2010; Belmonte; González-García and Polcaro, 2013a), ancient Egypt (Belmonte and Shaltout, 2009; Belmonte, 2012), Middle East Bronze Age (notably on the Hittites: González-García and Belmonte, 2011) and Iron Age (notably on the Nabataeans: Belmonte, González-García and Polcaro, 2013b) civilizations and the Roman World (e.g. González-García, Rodríguez-Antón and Belmonte, 2014), among many others. In this essay a general scope of the project and a series of most interesting highlights will be presented. The evolutionary ties of the megalithic monuments of the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere, the pattern of orientation of Egyptian temples and skyscaping practices within the Hittite or Nabataean cultures, among others, will be briefly explored; including a comprehensive, statistical and comparative study of the orientation patterns of thousands of ancient monuments of the Mediterranean region (González-García and Belmonte, 2014). Finally, a sketch of our most recent, still ongoing, research will be a compelling and promising closing remark of our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

We conducted an investigation on the orientations and geometrical content of the Mithraea of Ostia Antica. A geometrical CAD study based on the most reliable plans from the Archives of the Sovrintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il MNR e l'Area Archeologica di Roma - Ostia Antica, aside with the identification of geometrical and numerical schemes and associated length units, allowed us to identify the axes of the Mithraea. Then the orientations of the axes were measured on field by means of a professional compass with ± 0.5° uncertainty. The distribution of these measured azimuths follows the topography of the city. On the contrary, the Decumanus, the main street of the town, presents an indubitable orientation toward the Winter Solstice Sunset. This was ascertained by measuring the coordinates of four significant points along the street with the help of a palmar Trimble GPS which averages 100 measures per point. The exceptional density of Mithraea in Ostia led us to suppose that a symbolic cosmic-solar value is to be searched in the orientation as a whole of the town itself, founded half a millennium before the first presence of Mithraism in Rome. The Decumanus could be considered the very holder of this symbolic value with its orientation toward the Winter Solstice Sunset, possibly making of Ostia a very special place for Mithraicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Located in the southern part of the Levant, the territory of present day Jordan functioned as a cultural crossroad since times immemorial. The state of preservation of the different remains and the quantity of the different stages makes Jordan a perfect area to perform a study on the evolution along time of the orientation customs. During our field campaign in December 2011, we collected data on a number of different cultic structures throughout the country, from Bronze Age temples, to megalithic monuments, Iron Age Nabataean monuments, Roman and Hellenistic cities and temples and Byzantine churches with a small number of Muslim mosques. This sample of over 300 structures of different periods allows a diachronic comparison of the orientation of cultic buildings for the last 5000 years in this area of the Levant. We find a consistency to orientate the cultic structures in accordance to similar areas of the horizon. This similarity is striking when comparing the megalithic monuments found along the whole country with the Nabataean monuments of nearly 2000 years later. This consistency appears despite the chronological gap, the cultural differences and also possibly the different ethnic components of these societies. The consistency seems to be broken after the Roman conquest, especially with the introduction of Christianity and definitely after the expansion of Islam. A comparison with other neighboring areas of the Near East is sketched in order to compare with contemporary monuments for each epoch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

We have recently discovered that, not far (8 km) from the Monte Arcivocalotto megalith (the Campanaru, presented at the previous SAEC Conference), on the top of a hill significantly named "Cozzo Perciata" (i.e., in local dialect "Hill of the pierced one"), there is another pierced rock. It collapsed a few decades ago, but a photograph, taken in the late 1960s or in the first half of the 1970s, shows as it was quite similar to the Campanaru of Monte Arcivocalotto. Furthermore, the lower part of this rock is still in place: it was thus possible to measure the direction of the hole axis. It was found that it points to the top of the Bronze Age sacred rock of Pizzo Pietralunga, with azimuth of 60.6° and altitude over the horizontal plane of 1.7°: this direction exactly corresponds to the one of the sunrise over the local geographical horizon on the summer solstice of the beginning of the second millennium BC. Direct observations performed during the summer solstice of 2013 have actually shown that the phenomenon is still observable. Also in the case of this pierced rock, there are various ethnographic evidences of the symbolical value of the claimed alignment. Concerning the archaeological evidences, in the area of a few meters around the pierced rock of Cozzo Perciata, fragments of Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age ceramics are visible. Thus, also waiting for further archaeological studies that can finally confirm the contemporary frequentation of the Monte Arcivocalotto, Pizzo Pietralunga and Cozzo Perciata sites, the probability that in this area could be found by chance two similar artificially pierced rocks (the ones of Monte Arcivocalotto and Cozzo Perciata), with different and complementary solstitial alignments (to winter and summer solstices) looks to be totally negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

An imposing megalith is visible from many kilometres of distance near the top of the hill named Monte Arcivocalotto (Sicily). It is made by a single sandstone slab, shaped in triangular form with a large circular hole pierced at the centre. It is known to local people as U Campanaru ("The Bell Tower") and it was considered as a magic place until recently. The megalith is oriented toward the sunrise of the winter solstice, when the Sun rises at the hole centre, becoming visible from a very large distance. At a few kilometres, on the top of another hill, significantly named "Cozzo Perciata" ("Hill of the pierced one") a similar megalith was standing until to a few decades ago. It is presently collapsed, probably by a lighting, but the remains clearly show that it is oriented toward the summer solstice sunrise. Both megaliths have to be considered in the framework of the Eneolithic / Early Bronze Age worship centre of Pizzo Pietralunga, located halfway between Monte Arcivocalotto and Cozzo Perciata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...