Abstract
Humans viewed the stars, imagined the structure of the universe in their star tales and cosmologies, and then very quickly began to recreate this structure on the earth in monumental buildings. These buildings took the forms of ziggurats, pyramids, cathedrals, temples, and kivas in various continents and centuries and served many purposes. One key element in making a structure part of the “celestial architecture” is to align the structure with the night sky or the morning or evening sunrise or sunset. In this chapter we explore the many ways in which humans have made “celestial architecture” that either mirrors cosmology, reflects the origins and beliefs of the people, or is aligned with morning sunrises, evening sunsets, or transits and standstills of the Sun, the Moon, and planets.
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Penprase, B.E. (2011). Celestial Architecture: Monuments of the Sky. In: The Power of Stars. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6803-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6803-6_7
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