For as long as the sun has risen over ancient stones and temples, people have wondered whether their builders intended them to point toward the heavens. The foundations of archaeoastronomy lie not only in grand theories, but in the careful, grounded methods by which we test those ideas — measuring orientations, tracking celestial motions, and asking what can truly be known from the material record.
This course is an invitation to step into the practical craft of archaeoastronomy: how we take observations, make measurements, and evaluate claims about sky-aligned architecture with confidence and clarity.
Through a combination of hands-on instruction and real-world examples, you will:
- Learn the fundamental methods used by archaeoastronomers, from azimuth measurements to
- Gain the ability to measure simple architectural features yourself and check whether they align with sunrise or sunset at key moments in the year.
- Understand the astronomical principles required to interpret alignments correctly — including declination, solar cycles, obliquity and axial precession.
- Build the confidence to read and critically assess published archaeoastronomical research — so that by the end of the course, you’ll be able to grasp the often obscure terminology and methodology behind the vast majority of academic studies in the field.
- Develop a scientific sensibility that balances curiosity with rigor, separating what the evidence truly supports from what remains conjecture.
By the end of this weekend, you will look at ancient monuments with a new kind of vision — not just as static ruins, but as potential instruments through which past peoples watched and engaged with the sky.
Whether you are an enthusiast of ancient cultures, a student of astronomy, or simply someone fascinated by how people once understood the cosmos, this course offers a solid foundation in the essential toolkit of archaeoastronomy.
