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Book: The Imagined Sky

Chapter: Introduction

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.22673

Blurb:

The sky has a voice in all cultures. This voice is complex and contains great diversity in both time as well as space. It carries conversations within cultures on religion, science, and mythology, as well as considerations of human images, dreams, and aspirations. These streams of knowledge are transmitted from one generation to another by text, image, oral tradition, physical mapping, and painted description through which today we can recognise similarities and differences between cultural and intellectual contexts. This volume, a collection of essays, written by some of the most noted scholars in their fields, represents an array of approaches to the sky, from the Sun’s movement mirrored by the pilgrimage routes of Neolithic Britons around Stonehenge, through sky cartography reflected in European frescoes, to a contemporary recognition of sky imagery that has continued to persist in various forms since its potential roots in the Palaeolithic period.

Chapter Contributors

  • Darrelyn Gunzburg ([email protected] - darrelyn) 'University of Bristol and University of Wales Trinity Saint David'