Avainsana-arkisto: jätinkirkot

Marianna Ridderstad: “Monuments of Stone and of the Sky. Archaeoastronomical investigations into ancient Finland”. Lectio praecursoria 22.10.2015

The astronomical knowledge of ancient cultures only becomes visible to us at the point in history when the written word was invented; however, it must have accumulated during thousands of years. The science of archaeoastronomy was built on the notion first made in the seventeenth century that the orientations of ancient temples and monuments form sorts of ‘records in stone’ – that they are the silent testimonies of the accumulated astronomical knowledge of many generations past. The astronomical orientations of the monuments tell us that their builders were aware of the basic celestial cycles and presumably had calendars very similar to those found in fairly recent times in the pre-industrial societies all around the world.