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Research at the University of Leicester sheds new light on Ancient GreeksNew research at the University of Leicester has identified scores of Sicilian temples built to face the rising Sun, shedding light on the practices of the Ancient Greeks. Dr Alun Salt, an astronomy technician from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science at the University of Leicester, found that out of all the temples he surveyed in Sicily, all but three faced the rising sun. The findings have been published on line in the journal PLoS ONE. The results may imply that there is an 'astronomical fingerprint' for Greek settlers in...

Jim Krehbiel was up past midnight making a piece of art by layering maps and field notes onto photos he had taken of an ancient ritual site high on a cliff ledge in the desert Southwest. He looked at the image of the kiva and remembered how the ruins were nearly inaccessible. Krehbiel had to lower himself on a rope to reach them. Why, he wondered that night in the fall of 2007, would anyone build something so important in such a remote spot among the canyons and mesas? It was then that the chairman of Ohio Wesleyan University's art...

> Researchers have dubbed the site "Bluehenge," after the color of the 27 Welsh stones that were laid to make up a path. The stones have disappeared, but the path of holes remains. >

It's considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller. But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think. According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers. The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with 'pinpoint accuracy' more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian Tom Brooks says. The grid covered much of southern England and Wales and included landmarks such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, claims Mr Brooks,...

ANCIENT Egyptian temples were aligned so precisely with astronomical events that people could set their political, economic and religious calendars by them. So finds a study of 650 temples, some dating back to 3000 BC. For example, New Year coincided with the moment that the winter-solstice sun hit the central sanctuary of the Karnak temple (pictured) in present-day Luxor, says archaeological astronomer Juan Belmonte of the Canaries Astrophysical Institute in Tenerife, Spain. Hieroglyphs on temple walls have hinted at the use of astronomy in temple architecture, including depictions of the "stretching of the cord" ceremony in which the pharaoh marked...

From the sky, the Mound of the Cross at Paquime, a 14th-century ruin in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, looks like a compass rose -- the roundish emblem indicating the cardinal directions on a map. About 30 feet in diameter and molded from compacted earth and rock taken near the banks of the Casas Grandes River, the crisscross arms point to four circular platforms. They might as well be labeled N, S, E and W...

A qualified surveyor claims a picturesque village on the Essex/Suffolk border might boast the only proper stone circle outside the west of England. For generations the sarcen stones at Alphamstone near Sudbury have been at the centre of hot debate as to whether they were ever part of a stone circle. There are two stones marking the entrance to St Barnabas Church and a number of others further back near - and in - the church, but they form neither a circle nor part of a circle. But Paul Daw, a surveyor who has visited more than 300 of the...

In the new authoritative study of the growing discipline of archaeoastronomy, Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island, Professor Guilio Magli asks, 'Was it an attempt to reproduce the sky on Earth? To bring down the power of the stars to where they could see it, worship it, and use it?' Magli examines the role of astronomy in antiquity and provides a clear, up-to-date survey of current thinking on the motives of the ancients for building fabulous and mysterious monuments all over our planet. He uses astronomy as a key to understanding our ancestors' way of thinking....

The imposing temple in Rome, completed in AD 128, is one of the most impressive buildings that survives from antiquity. It consists of a cylindrical chamber topped by a domed roof with an oculus in the top which lets through a dramatic shaft of sunlight. It boasts a colonnaded courtyard at the front. When Robert Hannah of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, visited the Pantheon in 2005, researching for a book... he realised that the Pantheon may have been more than just a temple. During the six months of winter, the light of the noon sun traces...

An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada’s prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England’s Stonehenge and Egypt’s pyramids. Mainstream archeologists consider the rock-encircled cairn to be just another medicine wheel left behind by early aboriginals. But a new book by retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says it is in fact the centre of a 26-square-kilometre stone “lacework” that marks the changing seasons and the phases of the moon with greater accuracy than our current calendar. “Genius existed on the prairies...

we knew nothing of how Minoan people reckoned the days of the year and the flow of time. No advanced and prosperous society could manage its agriculture, foreign trade and ritual life without a calendar. And yet, till now, little was known except that the 4-year timing of Olympic Games (first recorded in 776 BCE) was based in a much older calendar that began each year at Winter Solstice. This mystery began to be solved in 1972, when American scholar Dr. Charles F. Herberger published The Thread of Ariadne and revealed the Minoan calendar hiding in plain sight -- in...

In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle -- a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made. What could it be? An Ainu fortress? ...Oshoro today is part of the city of Otaru, on its western fringe, 20 km from the city center and 60 km west of Sapporo. The Late Jomon period (circa 2400-1000 B.C.) was an age of northward migration. The north was warming, and severe rainfall was ravaging the...

Archaeological excavations have continued this summer within ‘The Heart of Neolithic Orkney’ World Heritage Site. The Ring of Brodgar, the third largest standing stone circle in Britain and the Ness of Brodgar, its accompanying settlement site, have been the focus of an investigation funded by Historic Scotland and Orkney Island Council under the direction of Dr Jane Downes (Orkney College UHI) and Dr Colin Richards (Manchester University). This season saw the anticipated re-opening of Professor Colin Renfrew’s 1973 trenches at the Ring of Brodgar, the impressive monument which is thought to be 4 to 4,500 years old although the date...

Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetry throughout its history, according to new evidence that divides archaeologists over whether England's most famous ancient monument was about celebrating life or death... The latest evidence is from a team of archaeologists from a number of British universities who have been carrying out excavations over the past five summers... The report said: "We propose that very early in Stonehenge's history, 56 Welsh bluestones stood in a ring 285 feet 6 inches across. This has sweeping implications for our understanding of Stonehenge." The second significant finding was from radiocarbon dating of human remains found...

Discovered by Clonmany man Sean Devlin, the previously unrecorded structure appears to be an underground tunnel or souterrain. Mr Devlin revealed yesterday that he first discovered the underground chamber several years ago while landscaping his front garden, but didn't make much of a fuss about his amazing find at the time. The historic significance of the tunnel only became apparent recently after Mr Devlin showed it to amateur archaeologist friends... Souterrains are underground man-made drystone built structures roofed with large lintels, comprising of one or more chambers linked by tunnels called creepways. Their entrance is concealed at ground level. They...

Archaeologists have discovered traces of a Bronze Age place of worship in Germany in what they say might be the country's answer to Stonehenge. Scientists from a university in Halle are excavating a roughly 4,000 year-old circular site in eastern Germany which contains graves that bear a strong resemblance to Stonehenge, a prehistoric stone circle of towering megaliths in southern Britain. "It is the first finding of this kind on the European mainland which we have been able to fully excavate and which shows a structure we have until now only seen in Britain," Andre Spatzier, head of the excavation...

<p>As the sun rose at 0458, a cheer went up from the brave crowds who had taken up their positions overnight at the stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.</p> <p>Clad in ponchos, black cloaks and makeshift waterproof jackets made from bin-bags, revellers gathered at the Heel stone....</p>

Pearson said, "I think the key thing is that from the moment that Stonehenge is built -- this is very shortly after 3,000 B.C. -- they're putting in burials as well as the parts of the monument itself. And I think it's something that is going hand in hand with it." He referred to alternative theories, including Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill's idea that Stonehenge was a place of healing, as in no way inconsistent with the site also serving as a cemetery. A place devoted to the ancestors naturally could have a variety of secondary uses, such as invoking...

Digging up the past at ancient stone circle Date: 02 July 2008 By John Ross WORK will start next week to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands. It is believed it was part of a massive ritual complex but little is known about the monument, including its exact age or purpose. It is...

A Pembroke man was playing with Google Earth - an online digital map of the planet - when he came across something that seemed out of this world: an apparent meteorite crater in Pawtuckaway State Park in Nottingham. "I was just searching around on Google, looking at lakes, because I'm a sailor," said Stephen Dupuis, 52. "As I was panning down through the landscape, it kind of caught my eye." Dupuis, a multimedia artist, has been fascinated with astronomy and outer space since his father, a former engineer, built the heat shields used for the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s....

The 2,000-year-old site remains under temporary protection laid in 2003. Nine years ago, an array of American Indians, environmentalists, preservationists, New Age spiritualists, diviners, even Cub Scouts rose up to save the Miami Circle, a 2,000-year-old artifact that many embraced as America's own Stonehenge. But today, the Circle -- a series of loaf-shaped holes chiseled into the limestone bedrock at the mouth of the Miami River -- is interred beneath bags of sand and gravel, laid over the formation in 2003 to protect it from the elements. And though taxpayers shelled out $27.6 million to purchase the 38-foot Circle and...

A brief moment of wonder awaits a few lucky people who see the winter solstice sunrise in Newgrange, Co Meath, Ireland, reports Sophie Campbell. If you put your head on the floor of the burial chamber at Newgrange, Ireland's most famous passage tomb, rest your cheek on the soft grit and look back down the slightly wonky passage of upright stone slabs, you can see a wigwam of light at the end. This is the entrance, which faces south-east over the wide, shallow valley of the River Boyne and a ridge called Red Mountain. If you are lucky enough to...

Ancient stone circle found in Skåne Published: 9 Dec 07 10:57 CET Ancient remains including a 3,000 year-old stone circle and presumed place of sacrifice have been discovered near Vitemölla on Österlen in the far south of Sweden. The site extends over two hectares and is older and bigger than the region's celebrated Ale's Stones. The site, presumed to date from the bronze age, is reported to be probably the largest stone circle in the whole of northern Europe. The find was made by Bob G Lind, a private researcher and archeoastronomer, reports Kvällsposten. Lind has named the stone circle...

I found this really interesting. This guy is building his own Stonehenge with simple handmade tools. http://youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0

A Saudi archaeologist... claims the Dilmun civilisation marked the first day of the year by the summer solstice, which falls today and every year on June 21. The theory is based on a discovery made by Dammam Regional Museum archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh in 1996, while he was conducting an excavation with a British team of archaeologists. At the site, he found an ancient temple with an oddly positioned triangular corner room, which he claims was used as an astronomical device to measure the position of the sun. He believes that during the summer solstice the sun would set over...

The Thirteen Towers were the key to the scientists conclusion that the site was a solar observatory. These regularly spaced towers line up along a hill, separated by about 5 meters (16 feet). The towers are easily seen from Chankillo's central complex, but the views of these towers from the eastern and western observing points are especially illuminating. These viewpoints are situated so that, on the winter and summer solstices, the sunrises and sunsets line up with the towers at either end of the line. Other solar events, such as the rising and setting of the Sun at the mid-points...

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt the Ancient Egyptians possess an ingenious skill for calculation? Assem Deif* works out an ancient problem The Greeks developed mathematics as a deductive science that reached its climax with Euclid of Alexandria in his masterpiece The Elements. Before that, during the ancient Egyptian era, mathematics was an inductive discipline of a utilitarian nature used to perform practical tasks such as flood control or land measurement using rope. It has been suggested that mathematics then amounted to no more than the two-times table and the ability to find two-thirds of any number. The whole structure of Egyptian...

4,000-year-old Seahenge to rise again – but not until 2008Pieces of Seahenge, the mysterious Bronze Age monument uncovered on the beach at Holme in 1998, will be renovated and transported to Lynn Museum over the next few months, where a permanent display will be painstakingly created for them. CONSERVATION work on the Seahenge wooden circle is continuing apace – but it will be at least a year before the Bronze Age monument will be on display in Lynn. The 4,000-year-old structure was uncovered by waves on the beach at Holme in 1998, sparking frenzied interest from the archaeological community. In...

Last night Professor Peter Fowler, an internationally acknowledged expert on the Stonehenge landscape and on World Heritage Sites management, washed his hands of the whole argument. The A303, a main artery to the south west that narrows to a grinding two-lane traffic jam where it passes the stone circle, should be closed and replaced with a tunnel, and the smaller A344 which actually clips the heel stone of the monument, should also go, he said, adding, "But since no sort of a tunnel is going to be built, the A303 should be kept exactly as and where it is, because...

Markings on top of the figures appear to depict an entry from, or part of, a 13-month lunar calendar, said archaeologist Guillermo Ahuja, who led the excavation of the monument. "This would be the first depiction of a calendar or calendar elements in such an early time period," he said. The monolith, which measures more than 25 feet and weighs about 20 tons, was found in March 2005 at the Tantoc ruins in San Luis Potosi state, near Mexico's northern Gulf coast, by construction workers. Ahuja theorized that the stone's glyphlike inscriptions were carved sometime around 700 B.C., likely by...

A team of 100 archaeologists, from various universities around Britain, along with Wessex Archaeology, has been carrying out excavations as part of the seven-year Riverside Project at Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and Stonehenge Cursus to find out more about the sites and their links with Stonehenge in the 26th Century BC... Professor of archaeology at Sheffield University Mike Parker- Pearson is leading the dig: "I think our most exciting discovery is the ceremonial avenue which leads from Durrington Walls to the river." ...The road, which formed an avenue aligned on the Midsummer Solstice sunset, suggested that Durrington Walls and Woodhenge were...

Ukraine may be thousands of miles away from Egypt, but archaeologists there say they have found pyramids. It is claimed that the monuments have been uncovered in the east of the country and that they predate the pyramids in Egypt. But the claim that there is evidence of pyramids is being disputed. The prestigious Academy of Sciences has sent its own expert to the dig. It believes that this could be the Ukrainian version of Stonehenge. This could be one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries in recent years. It is claimed that pyramids are buried underground in eastern Ukraine....

A SMALL building project in Brittany has hit the buffers with the discovery of a buried "menhir" or Neolithic standing stone. A little more digging by archaeologists uncovered around 50 other stones that date from between the 5th and 3rd Century BC. The site is near the village of Belz, in the south of Brittany, and the area is known for other standing stone formations, but this one is already being heralded as the most interesting ever discovered in France. A team from the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques (Inrap) is slowly revealing a large quantity of remains such as...

Neolithic stone carving of Big Dipper discovered in northwest China A neolithic stone carving of the Big Dipper star formation has been found on Baimiaozi Mountain near Chifeng City in northwest China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to experts. The stone carving was discovered by Wu Jiacai, a 50-year-old researcher in literature and history with Wongniute Banner of Inner Mongolia. Wu found a large yam-shaped stone, 310 centimeters long, onto which 19 stars had been carved. The representation of the Big Dipper is on the north face of the stone. The stars are represented by indentations in the stone. The...

Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...

Sunrise Solstice at Stonehenge Credit & Copyright: Pete Strasser (Tucson, Arizona, USA) Today the Sun reaches its northernmost point in the planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice, the date traditionally marks a change of seasons -- from spring to summer in Earth's Northern Hemisphere and from fall to winter in Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Pictured above is the 2005 Summer Solstice celebration at Stonehenge in England. The event was rare because Stonehenge was not always open to the public, and because recent summer solstices there had been annoyingly cloudy. In 2005, however, thousands of people gathered at sunrise to see...

Native Americans recorded supernova explosion 16:45 05 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Zeeya Merali and Kelly Young The Arizonan petroglyph may depict the supernova of 1006 AD - the star symbol is on the right and the constellation Scorpius on the left (Image: John Barentine, Apache Point Observatory) This double-sun petroglyph at Chaco Canyon National Monument in New Mexico may depict the supernova of 4 July 1054 (Image: Mark Lansing) There are numerous examples of rock art in the Chaco Canyon National Monument depicting celestial objects (Image: Mark Lansing) Prehistoric Native Americans may have carved a record of a supernova...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Archaeologists discovered a pre-colonial astrological observatory possibly 2,000 years old in the Amazon basin near French Guiana, said a report. "Only a society with a complex culture could have built such a monument," archaeologist Mariana Petry Cabral, of the Amapa Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IEPA), told O Globo newspaper. The observatory was built of 127 blocks of granite each three meters (10 feet) high and regularly placed in circles in an open field, she said. Cabral said the site resembles a temple which could have been used as an observatory, because the blocks...

Pyramid is giant farming clock John Harlow, Los Angeles THE archeologist Bob Benfer will never forget the moment when he realised that a pyramid he had unearthed high in the Andes was the New World’s oldest alarm clock. On a barren hillside just north of Lima, he had found an observatory more than 4,000 years old that had been built by a lost civilisation with astonishing sophistication. The oldest astronomical observatory in the Americas, it told farmers exactly when to sow their crops. Its discovery has provided startling clues to the way in which early man learnt to cultivate his...

Brazilian archaeologists have found an ancient stone structure in a remote corner of the Amazon that may cast new light on the region's past. The site, thought to be an observatory or place of worship, pre-dates European colonisation and is said to suggest a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy. Its appearance is being compared to the English site of Stonehenge. It was traditionally thought that before European colonisation, the Amazon had no advanced societies. Winter solstice The archaeologists made the discovery in the state of Amapa, in the far north of Brazil. A total of 127 large blocks of stone were...

[S]omewhere between the lost Incan city of Machu Picchu and mountaintop observatories of Cerro Tololo, Chile, retiree Larry Adkins opened a mysterious e-mail from an old childhood pal. And suddenly, Adkins, 66, of Tustin was solving a 4,000-year-old riddle, wrapped around pyramids, buried temples, mummies and a dark-cloud constellation known as The Fox. The temple just may be the Western Hemisphere's equivalent of Stonehenge, an ancient calendrical device intended to mark the seasons by pinpointing the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset. If Adkins and his friend's discovery stands up to academic scrutiny, "It would be the oldest...

The Temple of the Fox lay covered by dirt and sand for 4,000 years in the barren hills of Buena Vista, Peru, before it was unearthed in June 2004 by Robert Benfer, professor emeritus of anthropology at MU... In the 33-foot high Andean temple, Benfer’s team found the earliest known astronomical alignment and sculptures in the New World... For Benfer, the most significant finds from the temple were the numerous astronomical alignments, suggesting that the Andeans used constellations to guide their lives... However, these astronomical alignments no longer point to significant constellations and will not do so again for approximately...

We stand today at an unprecedented turning point in human history. In recent years two versions of ancient history have formed. One, we shall call ‘alternative’ history, the other we shall refer to as ‘official’ history. The former ponders over a variety of anomalies and tries to make sense out of the corpus of evidence, i.e., the pyramids and timelines, why they were built, by whom and when. The latter conducts digs, catalogues pottery shards, and tries to defend its proposal there are no enigmas, and virtually everything is explained. At one point perhaps as late as fifteen years ago...

Archaeologists find 'Russian Stonehenge' Big News Network.com Friday 28th January, 2005 (UPI) Russian archaeologists have found the site of a 4,000-year-old concentric wooden structure resembling Britain's Stonehenge, the Art Newspaper reported Friday. Evidence of the structure was found near Ryazan southeast of Moscow at the confluence of the Oka and Pronya rivers. The area long known for its archaeological treasures was settled by tribes migrating from Eurasia thousands of years ago. The report quoted Ilha Ahmedov of Moscow's State History Museum as saying a recent dig had uncovered evidence of a circular structure that would have been formed of wooden...

Earliest Depiction of a Rainbow Found? By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Dec. 21, 2004 — An ancient bronze disc that looks a bit like a freckled smiley face may show the world's earliest known depiction of a rainbow, according to a report published in the new issue of British Archaeology magazine. If the rainbow interpretation proves to be correct, the rare image also would be the only known representation of a rainbow from prehistoric Europe. The round bronze object, called the Sky Disc, was excavated in 1999 at Nebra in central Germany. It was said to have been found at...

Early Christians hid the origins of the Bethlehem star 13:15 21 December 01 Marcus Chown A US astronomer claims he has found the first mention of the star of Bethlehem outside the Bible. The reference is in a 4th-century manuscript written by a Roman astrologer and Christian convert called Firmicus Maternus. Photo: Bridgeman Art Library Michael Molnar, formerly of Rutgers University in New Jersey, is the originator of the idea that the star of Bethlehem was not a spectacular astronomical event such as a supernova or a comet but an obscure astrological one. The event would nevertheless have been ...

At 8.45 on the morning of 15 April 136 BC, Babylon was plunged into darkness when the Moon passed in front of the Sun. An astrologer, who recorded the details in cuneiform characters on a clay tablet, wrote: "At 24 degrees after sunrise-a solar eclipse. When it began on the southwest side, Venus, Mercury and the normal stars were visible. Jupiter and Mars, which were in their period of disappearance, became visible. The Sun threw off the shadow from southwest to northeast." If present-day astronomers use a computer to run the movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun backwards...

How old is the site? Pottery fragments have been tested and found to go back as far as 1000 BC. Charcoal from one fire pit, measured by radiocarbon dating, was found to be 4000 years old.

Enigmatic circular stone formations reminiscent of those in Europe are found on remote hilltops and valleys throughout Saudi Arabia. The rings are 5 to 100 meters in diameter and are surrounded by stone walls a foot or two tall. Some of the rings have "tails" that stretch out for hundreds of meters. From the air, the patterns have a striking resemblance to designs etched in Peru's Nazca plateau. Little is known about the circles and virtually nothing about their purpose.

'Oldest star chart' found The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old. The tiny sliver of mammoth tusk contains a carving of a man-like figure with arms and legs outstretched in the same pose as the stars of Orion. The claim is made by Dr Michael Rappenglueck, formerly of the University of Munich, who is already renowned for his pioneering work locating star charts painted on the walls of prehistoric caves. The tablet also contains mysterious notches, carved on its sides and...