Time and Astronomy in Past Cultures

188 Pages·2009·17.07 MB·English

by  Arkadiusz Sołtysiak

Time and Astronomy in Past Cultures
Gorgias Précis Portfolios
6
Gorgias Précis Portfolios gather the collected essays of established scholars into an
easily accessible and durable format. Also included in this series are collections of
essaysinconferenceorFestschriftformatfromdifferentscholarsbutunitedaround
a common theme.
Time and Astronomy in Past Cultures
Edited by
Arkadiusz Sołtysiak
9
34
2009
Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
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Copyright © 2 0 0 9 by Gorgias Press LLC
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of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any
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2009 ܝ 9
ISBN 978-1-60724-668-8 ISSN 1935-3871
Cover illustration inspired by a drawing of the Great Comet of 1577 by a Turkish
astronomer (from Mohammed ben Kamalladdin, Tarcuma-i cifr al-cami, 16th century).
Copyright © 2006 by Institute of Archaeology, Warsaw University and the Authors
Layout, typesetting, and cover design: Barbara Kasprzak
Printed in the United States of America
Honorary Patronate
Micha³ Zaleski, the President of Toruñ
Organizing Committee
Mariusz S. Zió³kowski
Department of Historical Anthropology
Institute of Archaeology
Warsaw University
Lucjan Broniewicz
Toruñ Planetarium
Arkadiusz So³tysiak
Department of Historical Anthropology
Institute of Archaeology
Warsaw University
Sponsors
Ministry of Science
and Information Society Technologies
(grant No. 2 H01H 034 25)
Toruñ City Hall

Table of contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Complete list of papers presented at the conference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
MEIR BAR-ILAN
The Calendar in the Flood Narrative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
PHILIPPE GUILLAUME
Sabbatical Calendar and Priestly Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
KRZYSZTOF JAKUBIAK, ARKADIUSZ SO£TYSIAK
Mesopotamian In‚uence on Persian Sky-watching and Calendar
Part I. Mithra, Shamash and Solar Festivals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
THOMAS ZIMMERMANN
The Philosophy of Time and Time Telling Devices in the Early
Islamic World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63
PETRA G. SCHMIDL
On Timekeeping by the Lunar Mansions in Medieval Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . .75
S£AWOMIRA ¯ERAÑSKA-KOMINEK
Music in the Iconography of Venus’ Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
STANIS£AW IWANISZEWSKI
Chronotypic Variation among Early and Middle Neolithic
Societes in Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
LIONEL SIMS
Ethnographic Correlates of One Type of Soli-lunar Alignment:
The Doubling of Winter Solstice Sunset with the Southern
(Minor or Major) Standstill Moonsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117
HARALD GROPP
The Calendar of Coligny and Related Calendars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
STEPHEN MCCLUSKEY
The Medieval Liturgical Calendar, Sacred Space, and the
Orientations of Churches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139
SVETLANA KOLEVA, VESSELINA KOLEVA
The Finnish Wooden Calendars and Some Aspects of
Folk Knowledge in the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
JONAS VAIŠKŪNAS
The Observation of Celestial Bodies and Time Counting
in the Lithuanian Folk Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167

Preface
The present volume contains papers presented at the conference “Time and
Astronomy in Past Cultures” which was held in Toruñ early spring last year.
This meeting was organised as a commemoration of the late Andrzej Wierciñski
(1930–2003) who after a long academic career in the fields of physical and cul-
tural anthropology initiated at Warsaw University in mid-1970s the scholarly
research on astronomy in culture and ancient calendars. His studies (published
e.g. in “Almogaren”) concerned chie‚ytheastronomy,calendars,andcosmogony
of ancient Mexico, although occasionally Professor Wierciñski discussed also the
Biblical and Egyptian topics. The most comprehensive collection of His writings
has been published in the book “Tlillan–Tlapallan. Estudios sobre la religión
mesoamericana” (Polish Society for Latin American Studies: Warsaw 1999).
The idea of organising the conference had been conceived in early 2004 by
Professor Mariusz Zió³kowski, the disciple and successor of Professor Wierciñski
as the head of the Department of Historical Anthropology at Warsaw Univer-
sity, and himself an outstanding student of ancient astronomical traditions.
Toruñ was selected as the place of the conference for two reasons: first, being
the city of Nicolaus Copernicus it was the most obvious place for discussing
the past astronomical ideas, second, the kindness of local municipality made
the organisational challenges easy to cope with. Apart from the Department of
Historical Anthropology, also the Toruñ Planetarium has been involved in the
preparation of the meeting and his director, Mr. Lucjan Broniewicz, became
the member of the Organising Committee. In the preparation of the sympo-
sium’s scientific program, we were supported also by the European Society
for Astronomy in Culture (ESAC/SEAC) represented by its former president,
Dr Stanis³aw Iwaniszewski. Owing to the assistance of the Toruñ Municipality
the conference could have taken its place in a very beautiful old room of the
Scientific Society at Toruñ, located in the heart of the Gothic Old Town.
During the three days of the conference (from Wednesday, March 30 till
Friday, April 1, 2005) about 40 registered participants listened to 28 papers
divided into ten sessions (the full list of the papers is presented below).
In general, the topics discussed during the conference were quite varied,
from the most numerous category of ancient and medieval Near East (11 pa-
pers), through European archaeoastronomy (4 papers), astronomy of medieval
Europe (5 papers) and ethnic traditions of Eastern and Northern Europe (6
papers), to astronomy in New World cultures (2 papers). In most cases the
papers provoked fruitful discussions, which unfortunately cannot be described
here. The present volume contains twelve papers representing almost all topic
categories covered by the conference.
It is obvious that any scientific meeting owes its success to many people.
Many thanks are due to the participants of the conference who had created
a very friendly atmosphere and provided a proper level of scientificdiscussion.
Mr. Micha³ Zaleski, the President of Toruñ, assumed not only the honorary
patronate, but also facilitated the organisational works. Mr. Lucjan Broniewicz,
the director of Toruñ Planetarium and co-organiser of the conference, enabled
us to offer a public lecture about Stonehenge given by Professor Clive Ruggles