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Historical & Cultural Astronomy Series Editor: Butler Burton Alexus McLeod Astronomy in the Ancient World Early and Modern Views on Celestial Events 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 AlexusMcLeod University of Connecticut Storrs,CT USA ISSN 2509-310X ISSN 2509-3118 (electronic) Historical & Cultural Astronomy ISBN978-3-319-23599-8 ISBN978-3-319-23600-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23600-1 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016941290 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart 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 orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. 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 authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor foranyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Coverillustration:Theseriescoverimage,“AstronomerbyCandlelight,”waspaintedbyGerritDouin thestyleoftheschoolofLeiden“fijnschilders;”DouwasborninLeidenin1613anddiedtherein1675. ImageCredit:JarekTuszynski/CC-BY-SA&GDFL. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerland 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 displayedadmirablepatiencewithmyfumbling,misunderstandings,andignorance. 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 andthestaffoftheAstronomyDepartmentattheBoonshoftMuseumofDiscovery inDayton,Ohio,fortheirwonderfulpublicoutreachandforhelpingtorekindlean 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, whosavedmefromafewboneheadedmistakes,themembersoftheArchaeological Survey of India tasked with maintaining such a difficult site in a difficult city as Delhi’sJantarMantar,andthestaffoftheAdlerPlanetariuminChicago,oneofmy 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 discoveryinspiredmetoconcludethesection oncontemporaryastronomywithan account of his work. I would also like to thank a reviewer for Springer, whose insightfulcomments and suggestionsbothsaved mefrom a numberof (sometimes egregious) mistakes and helped me to further think through a number of issues. v vi Acknowledgements Finally,thankstomytwosons,SiddhuandFrancis,whosecuriosityaboutthestars motivatedme tolearn more in order toteach them andencourage them nottolose thatfascination.Thisbookisdedicatedtomyparents, GustavusAriusMcLeodand 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 Chapter 1 Introduction I am an eager student of the history of astronomy in general. I’ve devoured books onthegreatsoftheWest—PtolemyandCopernicus,visionariessuchasBraheand Kepler, geniuses such as Newton and Herschel, and the revolutionaries of modern astronomy such as Einstein, Hoyle, and others. But through most of my years of studyIhadhardlyeverencounteredanyinformationaboutastronomydoneoutside of the European and American West. In the histories of astronomy I encountered, Non-Westernastronomywasgenerallyrelegatedtoafewparagraphsatbest,about how “pre-scientific” cultures viewed and understood the sky. It would be easy to concludefromsuchreadingthatthescientificstudyofastronomybeganinandwas limitedtotheWest.Strangelyenough,itwasmyreadinginphilosophythatopened up to me the world of Non-Western astronomy and showed me its true extent and its purpose. Years ago, I read a book by Zhou Guidian, Professor of Philosophy at Beijing NormalUniversity,onQinandHanPhilosophy.Oneofmyareasofspecialization withinphilosophyisHandynastyChinesephilosophy.OnthebasisofsomeworkI have done in this area, I was been approached by a colleague in China to write a reviewforaprofessionaljournalonProfessorZhou’sbook.Itookonthetask,and during my reading, I came across the following line: In order to fully understand traditional Chinese philosophy, it is necessary to understand traditionalChineseastronomy.1 Atthetime,eventhoughIhadbeenanenthusiastofthehistoryofphilosophyas well as an amateur astronomer for a long time, I thought this was completely wrongheaded. We can, I thought, understand and engage with different modes of thought and different areas independently. Indeed, in my review of Professor Zhou’s book I wrote something along these lines. I soon began to think more criticallyaboutthisview,however.ForsomereasonZhou’squoteaboutastronomy stayed with me well after I finished the review and had moved on to other issues and other works. I occasionally reflected on it, and thought about the divisions in our own academic world. We often see areas of thought as discrete and separate 1Zhou2006,190.Translationismyown. ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 1 A.McLeod,AstronomyintheAncientWorld, Historical&CulturalAstronomy,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-23600-1_1

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Alexus McLeod explores every aspect of the lesser-known history of astronomy in the Americas (Mesoamerica and North America), China and India, each through the frame of a particular astronomical phenomena. Part One considers the development of astronomy in the Americas as a response, in part, to the
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