“Relationship between Archeoastronomy and Architecture
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Modern Architecture”
Archeoastronomy is an interdisciplinary science lying somewhere between archeology astronomy and has a link with architecture.
Archeology is the study of ancient civilizations, their physical remains, and the analysis of human cultures
Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Archeoastronomy is the study of the connection of people in past with the sky, their astronomical practices, celestial objects, mythologies, religions, and world perspectives about ancient cultures.
Establishing alignment is often a focus of Archeoastronomy but as with the interpretation of the past, seeing, and drawing a conclusion.
For instance, it can recognize whether a structure was intentionally built in such a way as to capture sunlight on particularly important days of the year.
My research paper aims to highlight the relation between Archeoastronomy and architecture as an interdisciplinary field and how architecture was shaped by Archeoastronomy.
And modern architects incorporating cosmic to create new forms.
Through case studies I have tried to explain the importance of astronomy in architecture and how archeoastronomy works hand by hand with architecture.
A lot more study is required in this field for better understanding of our present and future.
Problem Statement:
Although there is a lot of discussion about the arrangement of Archeological sites in concern with celestials and there is a deep study of archeoastronomy and history of architecture, but they are not explained under one umbrella and how modern architects are practicing and involving archeoastronomy in their designs.
Stonehenge's first version some dated back to 3000BCE was made at that time, but the difference is that it was spread 100 meters and would have two or three open spaces for approaching the circle.
Archeologist remains evidence that there was a centered timber building that was 30m. the large area of scattered stones is spread up to the trench and a heel stone with a pointed head with a height 4.9m high is just outside of the circle.
Two astronomical alignments were erected into it, one of which faces towards the northeast entrance towards the northern alignment of the moon while the other is orientated towards the cardinal point to the south.
In 2500BCE this structure was reshaped by the Beaker people, they changed the earthwork structure, its associated landscape from lunar to the solar monument.
According to the beliefs of beaker people, their cosmology was connected between smelting of ore and sun, that is why they reshaped Stonehenge and transformed its orientation.
To do this they rotated the axis to unnoticeable 3 degrees eastwards that harmonized with the rising midsummer sun.
Located in modern-day southern Egypt, some 80km west of Abu Simbel.
This was not a common Stonehenge site, as it contains a circle of modest upright stones, while the main stones are being in pair of four sets close together.
With contrast to Stonehenge, built 4,500 years later, the circle is small, roughly 4 meters in diameters, but its ambition was similar: to organize time according to the seasons.
Two of which stones are aligned towards true northeast- southwest.
They are assisted towards observation of motion of the sun and the constellation orion.
Each stone seems to represent a star in the sky.
Studies reveal the stone circle acts as a map for accurate angles and distances to relative stars.
It is the much larger cycle of the star constellations in the sky comparative to the sunrise on the spring solstice.
Just before the sun rose on the summer solstice around 5000BC, three of the stones in the center of the stone circle would have lined up perfectly with the belt stars of the constellation of Orion.
In hongshan culture of inner Mongolia located along the Laoha, Yingjin and Daling rivers that empty into Bohai bay that was surrendering over a large area over but had a single, common ritual center that consisted of at least fourteen burial mounds and alters over several hill tops.
As a religious scared landscape, the core might also have north-south axis attracts the ritual center with the center of zhushan, or the pig mountain to the south.
On its northern end is a single detached room clay body parts were excavated.
There burials at hill side were oriented north-south, at extremes of the moonrise in the east.
Avebury’s stone circle in England on the southern coast of Brittany at the base of peninsula. Leading this stone circle is an impressive ritual road, some 100 meters wide and 1,165 meters long, oriented southwest to northeast and makes up almost 1,100 standing stones or menhirs, with eleven rows.
These stones were meant to follow the movement of celestial cycle (stars and moon) land not the sun.
In there religious believes snake was dormient force, astronomical alignment is indeed aligned a way where the snakes head is aligned to the summer solstice and the various curves to other celestial events.
A collection of architectural astronomical instruments build by king of at new Jaipur in 1727-1734.
He has constructed total of five such structures at different locations including Jaipur and Delhi.
The largest sundial of the world Samrat, its function is to indicate solar time of the place.
On a clear day, due to sun’s orientation, Samrat cast shadow on quadrant scale at on point and travels to another with movement of sun.
Shadow on quadrant scale identifies the local time. For finding altitudes and azimuth angle of celestial objects instruments like Kapali Yantra and Ram Yantra are used.
Roden charter is in deserted region of northern Arizona.
Roden Crater belongs to a tradition of monumental structures that have been built by artists, rulers, and priests, ancient and modern.
Turrell studied and adapted essential features of the naked-eye observatory in his designs for Roden Crater, where the natural formation recalled these man-made models.
When completed the structures within the Crater will form a vast naked eye observatory for celestial objects and events ranging from uncertain and baffling to the more familiar summer and winter solstice.
The East Portal, the Alpha (East) Tunnel and the Sun | Moon Chamber act in concert as a monumental Camera unclear, or pinhole camera.
Transmitting light from the East Portal aperture, the Alpha (East) Tunnel focuses images on the west side of the monumental image stone in the Sun | Moon Chamber annually for the southernmost sunset and every 18.61 years to mark the Major Lunar Standstill.
Annually, ten days before and ten days after the Winter Solstice (Dec 11th and Dec 31st with additional imaging on three days before and after those dates), the annual southernmost sunset, offset by the dates above, is pictured on the west side of the image stone.
The Alpha Tunnel also serves as a naked eye telescope to view the setting moon.
Every 18.61 years (the most recent was 2006) the moon reaches its northernmost and southernmost maximums known as a Major Lunar Standstill. Viewed through the tunnel, the southernmost moonset will form a reverse image on the west side of the image stone.
The next Major Lunar Standstill is calculated to be at zenith in 2025.
The South Space is aligned to the North Star that concentrates the viewer’s attention on the night sky.
With this instrument celestial bodies and events (such as lunar and solar eclipses) as they occur within the timeframe of the 18-year, 11-day Saros Cycle.
A single seat provides a view focused on the North Star. The South Space is, in effect, both a space with its own characteristics and a calendar for the celestial movements and events that are at the heart of the varied spaces of the Roden Crater project.
A design concept for Sharaan, were there will be a hidden resort in the rock dwelling of Alula, an oasis in north-west Arabia Asia.
This design will showcase modernity giving a style of living in an old Millennium way, a modern curved monumental design in rocks while preserving and respecting mother nature’s landscape.
The concept is to bring landscape with history.
Preserving nature while introducing modern way of living, the project will have minimal impact on nature and on urban landscape.
Alula development will have a balance of heritage with economic potentials.
Archaeological traces discovered dated back to the Bronze Age and several ancient treasures and cities that existed, with evidence of thriving civilizations such as the Dadan/Lihyan and the Nabataean kingdoms.
AlUla’s most significant landmark is the Nabatean city of Hegra, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site -popular for its well-preserved tombs and structures.
Also known as Mada’in Salih, Hegra was once a thriving metropolis for the Nabatean people, setting the scene for the Silk Road and a vast trading empire.
China is planning to make a new planetarium and astronomical museum in Shanghai, one of the crowded hubs of China, Asia.
Consisting of three “celestial bodies,” the entire building is assembled of the oculus, the inverted dome, and the sphere.
The building will anchor on astronomy and planetary science and will characterize a solar telescope,18m-diameter optical planetarium, an IMAX cinema, a 21m-diameter digital sky theatre, an education and research Centre, a youth observation camp and observatory and a range of galleries a 38,000 square-meter planetarium set for construction on the coast of East China Sea.
The curved, futuristic planetarium is built on three key architectural features – the oculus, the inverted dome, and the sphere, each of which acts as an astronomical instrument, tracking the sun, moon, and stars.
Each element speaks its own story:
the Oculus — an ancient architectural element first made famous when first made in the Rome Pantheon— turns the building itself into an astronomical instrument, visualizing the passage of time with a circle of light that moves slowly across the gallery floor.
By using reflecting pools—and the external environment of the museum creates a scenery of Japanese modernists.
The Inverted Dome —forms a focal point at the museum’s heart, presenting a description of architects as “sublime spatial experience” at the height of the visitors’ journey through the museum interior.
The Sphere houses the Planetarium theater inside a geodesic dome, a classic form reminiscent of many astronomically oriented buildings around the world.
The Sphere appears as the positive complement to the inverted dome, nestled within a curved pedestal like a pearl in the heart of a concrete oyster shell.
Landscaped pathways spiral outward from pedestal, around the exterior of the planetarium, resonating the elliptical orbits of the planets around the sun.
The sweeping green space creates an embracing addition in a city crowded at the seams with new development, provides further external exhibitory to supplement the museum program, including a 24-meter-high solar telescope.
Astronomy was the important element used by ancient people in every aspect of life, including their architecture.
From Stonehenge, its study and science had inspired other cultures to modify ancient practices according to there needs and this process continued and gave others an idea to create something better and more useful for their time according to their needs.
From bronze age to shanghai Planetarium complexity has increased but they all have a single mainstay, Astronomy that always binds them together.
Archeoastronomy has its own significance in the field of architecture and the modern-day designers are more concerned for making use of prehistoric elements in their design as a dominant feature by adding complexity according to their time and needs.
Having a thorough research on archeoastronomy and presented case studies of modern architecture it is understood that both Architecture and Archeoastronomy are interrelated, and each has an impact on other as both are dependent on each other.
There is no impact on Astronomy without both as it is naturally occurred but archeoastronomy and architecture are dependent on astronomy as sky is the priority of man.
Hence an extensive study is required to understand celestial objects, movement of sun and stars and how these celestial objects have an intensive impact on architecture of prehistoric and today.
Certain case studies are presented in this paper for understanding the relationship of archeoastronomy, with architecture and astronomy, but there is a lot more study required for understand the complex relation between these fields and more work is required in the field of architecture for better understanding of our future having a concern of present.
