The centuriations were public lands delimited and divided in regular lots by Rome as a result of the conquest but also the conceptual appropriation of new territories, which were transformed ...according to particular ideas of space. Despite previous works rejecting the astronomical hypothesis for the orientation of Roman centuriations, recent publications have supported the role of particular astronomical phenomena in the design of Roman land and urbanism in Italy. The aim of this work is to determine whether the orientation of the centuriations follows any pattern, and to determine the precepts, if any, underlying the election of privileged directions. We present a statistical study of the orientation of 67 centuriations in Italy—the largest sample of this type ever studied in this region—that considers the conditions of the surrounding environment together with a comparative analysis with a dataset of the same type that includes 52 Italian Roman towns. The results show interesting patterns shared by both centuriations and towns, some of them coinciding with relevant astronomical events in the Roman context, together with others in which differentrequirements would have been prioritized. In summary, we should consider the sky as an element involved in the creation of Roman urban and rural spaces.
A variety of Prehistoric dry-stone monuments are ubiquitous in Western Sahara, a region delimited by the boundaries of the former Spanish colony. With either burial or ritual functions, these ...monuments are spread throughout the Sahara Desert creating sacred landscapes and housing the memory of millennia of occupation. Previous research has explored the role of the sky in various aspects of the life of early inhabitants, such as their religious beliefs or funerary practices. These have been identified by the patterns of location and orientation of these constructions and their relation to particular astronomical events. This work presents a statistical analysis of the orientation of more than 200 prehistoric dry-stone monuments in Western Sahara occupied by Morocco, currently the biggest sample ever studied in this area and the first unique sample obtained in situ. The results show that the orientations follow similar trends observed in other areas of North Africa and the Mediterranean and that they fit with the visibility of particular celestial objects. This provides new insights into the ideas about space, time, and death and the cultural changes and mobility of those peoples and contributes to the preservation of a highly threatened heritage that is immersed in a vast land currently under dispute.
The archaeological World Heritage Site of Hegra (Mada´in Salih, Al-Hijr), in Saudi Arabia, is often considered the southern capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. Positioned just northeast of the AlUla ...Valley (where ancient Dadan is located), the Nabataeans recreated several aspects of their northern capital, Petra. They carved more than 130 tombs into the sandstone outcrops of which nearly a hundred had a monumental character with ornate façades of exceptional beauty and deep sense of enduring. In February 2023, our international, multidisciplinary research team conducted a field campaign in Hegra. Our objective was to measure the orientation of Nabataean tombs and sanctuaries in the area, which could offer new clues to aspects of Nabataean culture and religion that we had studied in earlier works at Petra, and elsewhere in Nabataea. This paper includes the analysis and interpretation of the data on the orientation of 113 tombs, including all monumental ones, the largest coherent set of Nabataean tombs ever analyzed. The results show that the tombs were not randomly orientated but followed a series of patterns, most probably emphasizing the skyscape, within the framework of the Nabataean lunisolar calendar religious festivals, and, on occasions, also the local landscape.
The winter solstice shaped Rome and its landscape from the ancestral cult of Saturnus as primordial god of the Roman territory before the city's founding to its use by Augustus as one of the signs of ...his multiple celestial and solar connections. The important feasts around this date are well known and, in this paper, we propose to demonstrate how some significant public monuments, possibly from the origins of Rome and certainly from during Augustus's reign, are oriented towards the winter solstice sunrise or sunset. To demonstrate the importance and truly cultural sense of these observations we show how the solstitial orientation is dominant in the cities founded or significantly rebuilt under Augustus. The winter solstice appears then as a powerful and stable cultural marker that traverses the history of the city of Rome, links Augustus with the origins of the city as a kind of new founder - as was already known through other evidence - and connects any provincial cities with Rome to show the depth of their commitment to her as a part of a common world view.
The work presented in this article is part of a wide-ranging and ambitious project, started few years ago, to study the role of astronomy in Roman urban layout. In particular, the main aim is to ...check whether Roman cities present astronomical patterns in their orientations. The project emerged from ideas on how to properly orientate the main streets of a Roman town, as attested in a number of ancient texts and later discussions led by contemporary scholars. We present here the final conclusions of a particular study developed in the Iberian Peninsula (Roman Hispania), where the urbanism that we tend to characterize as properly Roman flourished during both the Republic and the Empire. The sample analysed includes 81 measurements of Roman urban entities spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and is the largest dataset obtained in a specific region so far. Our results present suggestive orientation patterns that seem to point towards an astronomical intentionality.
In earlier works, we had shown the actual possibility that the Nabataeans had used the Equinox, or an astronomical event equivalent to this, as an important milestone to control the calendar, ...stablish festivals and perform pilgrimages to important sacred sites. In this paper we present evidence that this was indeed the case. In a research carried out in Petra in March 2018, equinoctial phenomena were observed and tested at the Urn Tomb, the Obelisks at Jabal Madbah and the sacred area of Al Madras, showing that the actual astronomical Equinox could be observed together with other related phenomena such as the midday between the solstices. Besides, this campaign was used to obtain data in various isolated places in Petra seldom visited by the general public such as the Obodas Chapel, Sidd al Ma’jin, Parcak’s Platform, or the sacred areas on top of Umm al Biyara. These little known monumental sites have also provided interesting results that are described and discussed in this paper.
En el presente artículo se aborda la tan debatida cuestión de las orientaciones de ciudades romanas combinando dos procedimientos: un análisis estadístico de las orientaciones de una muestra ...significativa de ciudades romanas en la península ibérica, y los resultados de una investigación basada en la experimentación y reconstrucción de instrumental de agrimensura romana. En concreto, se busca reforzar, o rechazar, la hipótesis del empleo de la varatio para la orientación en el terreno, y su posible modo de ejecución: método basado en la aplicación de triángulos rectángulos con catetos en proporción de números naturales. Se postula además la línea meridiana como la generadora de cada nuevo proyecto, incluyéndose un posible procedimiento para su obtención a partir de los preceptos de Vitruvio (De Architectura VI, I). Los resultados del análisis estadístico devuelven una distribución de las orientaciones no aleatoria y que, en muchos casos, está en buen acuerdo con los valores predichos de la aplicación de la técnica de la varatio en sus diferentes variantes. Con esto se pretende determinar si sería factible el empleo de una técnica estandarizada para trazar los patrones de orientación obtenidos.
An Archaeology of the Sky in Gaul in the Augustan Period García Quintela, Marco V; González-García, A César; Espinosa-Espinosa, David ...
Journal of skyscape archaeology (Online),
02/2023, Letnik:
8, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Ancient Gaul was transformed during the reign of Augustus (r. 31 BC–14 AD) through a major programme of city building. The new Roman cities were constructed according to topographic, health and ...ritual considerations, and we hypothesise that their orientations also reflect distinct celestial conceptions held by the Gauls and by the Roman emperor Augustus. Our study of the orientation of 60 cities verifies the existence of coherent patterns, and distinguishes two dominant schemes: a pattern prevailing in the south and focused on cardinal orientations, possibly related to the dies natalis of Augustus; and a pattern dominant in the north, focused on the dates of the festivities at the beginning of the seasons from the Celtic tradition. We argue that the orientation of the cities was used by the Gallic elites to express the validity of their cultural tradition when they became a part of the Roman Empire.
Digital tools are increasingly used in cultural astronomy, so that it is now more important than ever to assess their precision and reliability, and to identify what uncertainties they may introduce. ...The present work aims to address these issues by comparing a dataset of orientations of Roman cities in the Iberian Peninsula measured in situ with measurements of the same structures obtained through different digital tools. By this, it is possible to estimate the errors that using these techniques introduce and to establish precision limits to data in future work. The results of this preliminary study are then implemented in an archaeoastronomical research project in North Africa, where some on-site measurements had been made in previous fieldwork campaigns by members of the group prior to the current political unrest that now prevents work at some sites in the region. In these instances, Google Earth Pro (2017) and HeyWhatsThat (Kosowsky 2012) have been key tools that have allowed us to complete a survey stretching from present-day Morocco to Libya, as well as to extract a preliminary outline of orientation trends in Roman Africa.
Archaeological investigations in Cartagena –the ancient Punic Qart Hadašt, Roman Carthago Nova– have manifested the existence of ritual, urban and topographical elements that could be analyzed from ...the perspective of Cultural Astronomy. Therefore, in October 2013, an interdisciplinary team of astronomers and archaeologists conducted a field campaign of the main topographic and archaeological landmarks of the Punic and Roman periods of the city. Methodologically, a basic guide criterion was established for each particular element, measuring its corresponding azimuth(s). Three tandems, including precision compasses and clinometers, were used to take the measurements. The data obtained have demonstrated the relevance, within the ancient city, of a series of orientations towards sunrise and sunset at the summer solstice, whose significance could be fully integrated within the context of the Punic ritual. This skyscaping was merged and reinterpreted in the framework of the subsequent Roman appropriation of the city landscape, including their successive urban and architectural programs, in particular that of the period of Emperor Augustus, when certain astronomical orientations could serve to strengthen the image of Rome and the ‘Princeps’ as restorers of peace and guarantees of a new order based in cosmological elements.
Las investigaciones arqueológicas en Cartagena –la antigua Qart Hadašt púnica, posterior Carthago Nova romana– evidencian la existencia de elementos topográficos, urbanísticos y rituales, susceptibles de ser analizados desde la perspectiva de la Astronomía Cultural. Por ello, en octubre de 2013 un equipo interdisciplinar de astrofísicos y arqueólogos realizó una campaña de mediciones de los principales hitos topográficos y arqueológicos de la ciudad púnica y romana. Metodológicamente, para cada ítem se estableció el criterio básico de orientación y se tomó su azimut utilizando tres tándems de brújula de precisión más clinómetro. Los datos obtenidos demuestran la relevancia en la ciudad antigua de una serie de orientaciones hacia la salida y la puesta del sol en el solsticio de verano, cuya significación se integra plenamente en el contexto del ritual fenicio-púnico. Dicho sentido pudo incorporarse y reinterpretarse en el contexto de las posteriores refundaciones romanas y de sus sucesivos programas urbanísticos y arquitectónicos, en particular el del período augústeo, cuando determinadas orientaciones astronómicas pudieron servir para afianzar la imagen de Roma y el princeps como restauradores de la paz y garantes de un nuevo orden fundado en elementos cosmológicos.
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