The diachronic study of orientations: Mérida, a case study

González-García, A. César; Costa-Ferrer, Lourdes

doi:10.1017/s1743921311012828

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…3) The orientation of Merida A case of special relevance here is certainly that of Emerita Augusta (modern Merida, Spain) (Gonzalez Garcıa andCosta-Ferrer 2011, Gonzalez Garcia andMagli 2013). The town was indeed probably founded in the same year of Aosta, 25 BC (Mateos Cruz 2001).…”

Section: ) Orientations Of Late Republican/julian Townsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

Bertarione¹,

Magli²

2015

CAJ

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Augustus' propaganda founded the ruler's power on a series of references to the sky: Caesar's comet, which helped establishing the divine nature of kingship, the completion of the calendar's reform celebrated in the Campus Martius' meridian, and Augustus' association with the Capricorn, the zodiacal sign of the winter solstice. A variety of proofs coming from texts, works of art and numismatics show the key role of such a "power from the stars". We present here new archaeological and archaeoastronomical evidences coming from Augusta Praetoria Salassorum (modern Aosta), founded around 25 BC after the victory of Augustus' army on the Salassi. An emergency excavation along the Aosta's Roman walls has indeed brought to light a block in situ on a corner of one of the towers which carries several reliefs -including a plough and a spade -apparently related to the town's foundation ritual. As a consequence, we carried out a complete analysis of the original urban plan of Aosta and of its relationship with the sky and the landscape, taking into account the complex natural horizon of the Alps in which Aosta's valley is nested. The results show that the town was oriented in such a way as to pinpoint Augustus' "cognitive" relationship with the "cosmic" signs of renewal.

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Section: ) Orientations Of Late Republican/julian Townsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

Bertarione¹,

Magli²

2015

CAJ

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“…Although some of the first publications on this topic (Le Gall 1975;Peterson 2007) refused to accept the existence of any intentionality behind the orientation of Roman towns, a number of later studies suggested the presence of well-defined patterns of orientation in different regions across the Roman Empire (Orfila et al 2014;Richardson 2005). Furthermore, astronomy-based explanations for the orientation of many of the settlements in the studied samples were proposed by a number of authors (González-García and Costa Ferrer 2011;. If this was so, how did Roman surveyors achieve these astronomical designs?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Furthermore, a number of studies also suggest that the main streets of several Roman towns could have been laid out according to some celestial phenomena, both in the Iberian Peninsula (e.g. Costa Ferrer and González-García 2011; and in other regions of the Roman Empire (e.g. González-García and Magli 2015;Rodríguez-Antón et al 2016a, 2016b.…”

Section: A Possible Link Between Uariationes and Astronomical Positionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeoastronomy in the Roman World

Magli¹,

González-García²,

Aviles³

et al. 2019

Historical &Amp; Cultural Astronomy

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Several works have tried either to demonstrate or reject the notion that the orientation of the main axis of a Roman city was deliberate since its choice might add an extra sacred dimension to the entire urban space Magli 2008). There exist ancient texts that support the hypothesis of the existence of astronomical orientations, such as those of Frontinus (De Agrimmensura, 27) or Hyginus Gromaticus (Constitutio,I). In the case that these precepts were fulfilled: how to achieve it? Besides the astronomical hypothesis, some scholars have pointed to the use of a geometrical technique: the uaratio (Orfila et al. 2014). By this, the short sides of a regular triangle that are in ratios of integer numbers (for example 1:2, 2:3) are laid along the cardinal axes. In this work we present a comparison of the orientation of 81 Roman towns in the Iberian Peninsula, measured in situ, with uaratio angles with aspect ratios up to 12:12. By this exercise we want to discern whether the orientations were astronomical, purely geometrical, or if geometry could have fostered astronomical aims by using selected and well-known angles to trace lines that fitted the desired astronomical purposes. It is then, an attempt to shed more light to the issue of the orientation of Roman towns by combining two hypotheses that, in contrast to what it might seem, could be complementary but not contrary.

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The Pillars of the Earth and the Sky

Belmonte

González–García

2015

JSA

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Some cities were built with the idea of establishing cosmic order. The sky used to be a very important component of the landscape that has been lost completely in our modern, overcrowded, and excessively illuminated, cities. However, this was not the case in the past. Astronomy actually played a most relevant role in urban planning, particularly in the organization of sacred spaces which were later surrounded by extensive civil urban areas. Today, archaeoastronomy approaches the minds of our ancestors by studying the skyscape and how it is printed in the terrain by the visualization and the orientation of sacred buildings. The Sun was indeed the most conspicuous component of that skyscape and was the primary focus within a large set of very unique cultures of great historical significance. In particular, in this review paper, we will study and compare the case of four ‘solstitial’ cities: Thebes, Hattusha, Carthago Nova, and Petra, capitals of Egypt in the Middle and New Kingdoms, the Hittite Empire, the Carthaginian dominions in the Iberian Peninsula and the Nabataean Kingdom, respectively. We will briefly analyse solar aspects of the religions of these cultures and will scrutinize their capital cities, showing how their strategic geographical position and orography were of key importance. We will also look at how solar benchmarks, and related hierophanies, played a most relevant role in the orientation and/or location of some of their most significant monuments. We will finally incorporate a frame of analysis for these data in order to come to our conclusion that different Mediterranean societies where solar cults or symbolism are strongly substantiated display common characteristics in the orientation and location of these cities connecting them with solstitial orientations.

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The diachronic study of orientations: Mérida, a case study

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

Augustus' Power from the Stars and the Foundation of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum

Archaeoastronomy in the Roman World

The Pillars of the Earth and the Sky

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