RESEARCH PAPER

“Relationship between Archeoastronomy and

Architecture
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Modern Architecture”

Saba Naz
Faculty of Architecture
Baluchistan University of Information Technology Engineering and
Life sciences Quetta, Takatu Campus
Sabanaz414588@gmail.com

Abstract: 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. That includes objects we can see with our naked eyes, like
the Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars. It also includes objects we can only see with
telescopes or other instruments, like faraway galaxies and tiny particles.
Archeoastronomy is the relation between celestial objects and archeological ruins and
historic monuments – While Architectural forms and spaces were built according to
specific geometrical relationships associated with astronomical observation. This paper
will draw a relationship between archeoastronomy and architecture and how modern-day
architecture is fabricated in harmony with celestial objects and using the practices of
ancient architects.
Key words: archeoastronomy, astronomy, faraway, celestial objects, architecture

Introduction:
Almost all the great civilizations of the past build spectacular monuments, which
testify to their skills, knowledge, and religious beliefs. All their monuments are silent,
there is no written evidence of how and when they were constructed. There is one thing
that is connecting these monuments, Astronomy. These projects are connected to the sky
due to their astronomical alignment, which is the core of archeoastronomy: The stars and
stones. Its gives us information about the mind of our ancestors’ gives us the emotion of
experiencing today, spectacular events, which were planned thousands of year ago.
Archeoastronomy is an interdisciplinary science lying somewhere between
archeology astronomy and has a link with architecture. Archeology is the study of human
activities through the recovery and analysis of material culture, efforts made for getting
evidence about the architecture of the sometime previous time, while astronomy is a
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study of celestial objects (moon, stars, planets, and galaxy). 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.
Material evidence from the past might be representational or physical. Establishing
alignment is often a focus of Archeoastronomy but as with the interpretation of the past,
seeing, and drawing a conclusion. Archeoastronomy, therefore, focuses on the material
elements present in the archeological record. 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. For example, the Passage tomb of New grange Ireland whose
entrance and roof-box captures sunrise on the winter solstice, and among one of the
bronze age sites in Europe, Stonehenge is prominent. The site is paramount as it is
relatively belonging to an advanced Bronze age structure. Stonehenge is isolated in the
topography that makes it difficult to envision the site that was once a highly settled area.
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.
Nabta Playa 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.
Niuheliang Ritual Center 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. It dates from around 3500BCE,
but it could find even earlier. Whereas no evidence of village settlement could be found
in its vicinity, its size is much larger than a clan or village could support. 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. A key building is resting on 40 by
60-meter loam platform on which rested a structure that is speculated to have been
goddess temple. Its base footing contains detailed geometric designs made with clay in
high relief and painted yellow, red, and white. On its northern end is a single detached
room clay body parts were excavated. The platform also contains eight interconnected
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sub-Terrance tracks constructed in asymmetrical node shaped 25m wide from south to
north. Archeologist main site of interest was an artificial hill at the entrance of valley.
The mound is encircled by ring of squared white stones at ground level. There burials at
hill side were oriented north-south, at extremes of the moonrise in the east.
Along the English Channel there are numerous bronze age sites one which is
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. among numerous other
sites is Serpent Mound in Ohio, once there Hopewell culture was settled that was later
occupied by what archeologists known as the Fort Ancient Culture (1000-1650). The
settlement was composed of circular and rectangular homes made of twinges and thatch.
In there religious believes snake was dormient force. Even its 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.[4] Astronomy was extremely important for
ancient Egyptians. For instance, the movements of stars and the appearance of
constellations represented an invaluable guide for agricultural purposes, yearly signaling
the beginning of the flood of Nile. Pharaohs themselves were thought to ascend to stars
after death. The positioning of the great pyramids of Giza, its sides are oriented cardinally
with entrance precision, pointing to specific points in the celestial meridian.
Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar: 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.
Modern Case Studies on how Archeoastronomy influenced modern
Architecture:
James Turrell’s Roden Crater:
Roden charter is in deserted region of northern Arizona. Late in 1970s, turrell spend a
night in extinct volcano bowl in Arizona. Since than he started buying and turning the site
into celestial observatory site linked with series of spaces and installations. After
receiving the dormant cinder cone in 1977, Turrell converted Roden Crater into a
different site, that is containing tunnels and apertures that open onto the sky, capturing
light directly from the sun in daylight hours, and the planets and stars at night.[2] Roden
Crater belongs to a tradition of monumental structures that have been built by artists,
rulers, and priests, ancient and modern. Above-ground observatories for specific celestial
events include Maeshowe in Scotland (which predates the pyramids), Newgrange in
Ireland, and Abu Simbel in Egypt. Remains of ancient sites that resemble ‘handmade
volcanoes,’ large mounds with a depression at the vertex, are also scattered around the
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world. These include Herodium near Jerusalem and Old Sarum in England. In the
sixteenth century, the great astronomer Tycho Brahe pioneered ‘naked eye observatories,’
of which the eighteenth-century Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is perhaps the best example.
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. During
planning and construction phase of Roden Crater, Turrell consulted with astronomers
including E.C. Krupp, Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and the late
Richard Walker, an astronomer with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, to calculate
the excavation and alignment of the Crater’s tunnels and apertures. 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. The center feature’s structure that forms an astronomical instrument like
the Jai Prakash Yantra in the celestial observatory at Jaipur, India. With this instrument,
one can track 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. [11]
Jean Nouvel Resort in Saudi Arabia:
A design concept for Sharaan, were there will be a hidden resort in the rock dwelling of
Alula, an oasis in north-west Arabia. 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
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have minimal impact on nature and on urban landscape. Alula development will have a
balance of heritage with economic potentials.

Problem Statement:
Although there is a lot of discussion about the arrangement of Archeological sites
concerns with celestials and there a deep study of archeoastronomy and history of
architecture, but they are not explained under one umbrella. Archeology and astronomy
in Modern architecture is just being a part of museum or an observatory.
Literature review:
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.
Reference
1. https://www.archdaily.com/950328/jean-nouvel-designs-resort-in-saudi-arabia-
hidden-within-rock-dwellings?ad_source=search&ad_medium=search_result_all
2. http://www.archaeologyexpert.co.uk/archaeastronomy.html
3. https://www.archdaily.com/910086/james-turrells-roden-crater-set-to-open-after-45-
years
4. https://www.coursera.org/lecture/archaeoastronomy/archaeoastronomy-the-
science-of-stars-and-stones-FH2XS
5. http://www.exploreglobe.net/archaeoastronomy-overview.html
6. Francis D. K. Ching, Mark M. Jarzom -bek, and Vikramaditya Prakash (1995)
A global history of architecture second edition
7. https://interactive.archaeology.org/veracruz/?p=174 Momin Muhammad Zaki
8. “Astronomy and Architecture” faculty of architecture Jamia Millia Islamic
university New Delhi, India
9. http://www.space-awareness.org/bg/careers/career/who-archaeoastronomer/
10. https://spacefan.org/the-link-between-astronomy-and-architectures
11. https://www.underluckystars.com/blog/what-is-archaeoastronomy/
12. https://rodencrater.com/celestial-events/