In the new authoritative study of the growing discipline of archaeoastronomy, Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy, Professor Guilio Magli asks, "Was it an attempt to reproduce the sky on Earth? To bring down the power of the stars to where they could see it, worship it, and use it?" Magli examines the role of astronomy in antiquity and provides a clear, up-to-date survey of current thinking on the motives of the ancients for building fabulous and mysterious monuments all over our planet. He uses astronomy as a key to understanding our ancestors' way of thinking. Its challenge, he says, is "predicting the past."
The motives of ancient civilizations have often been misconstrued, maligned, or even dismissed. Magli shows the limitations of orthodox archaeology in relation to astronomically based artifacts and examines what led the ancients to construct such magnificent structures as the city of Teotihuacan in the Mexico Valley, the Ceremonial Center of Chaco Canyon in the United States, the Avebury stone circle in Great Britain, and the great pyramids in Egypt.
Through Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy, readers are taken on a 'world tour' of many fascinating and enigmatic places on almost every continent, in search of traces of astronomical knowledge and lore of the sky. Then, the author discusses the fundamental ideas that he believes led to the construction of the giant monuments. Finally, Magli revisits one place in greater detail – Giza – in an attempt to provide proof for his ideas on the mindset of ancient cultures.