Close on The Setting of the Pleiades
In Antiquity there were so many chronological systems with which the passage of time could be measured that it really should have been a relief for historians and chroniclers to fix the Western calendar definitively with the date on which Jesus of Nazareth was born.
Before that decisive moment, Olympic Games or other similar religious festivities, foundations of cities, years in which a certain monarch or magistrate remained in power, events of international importance like the fall of Troy or mythological episodes like the Universal Flood had been used to fix the inexorable passage of time.
Even if it’s true that many of these dates could be discussed because there are several traditions resulting, in part, from the temptation of the historian to put together different historical episodes in a same chronological moment, what we cannot denay is the passage of time itself.
Even today, where, thanks to pollution, the climate is generally much more stable (at least in the Mediterranean) and warming is a global constant on the planet, it is an unquestionable fact that it is colder in winter than in summer (at least in our latitudes and hemisphere).
In Antiquity, in spite of all the existing eras and the different methods to measure time, the seasons would be much more marked and they looked at the sky to know things that now we know thanks some applications of our handphones. The Sunset of the Pleiades was an astronomical phenomenon that marked the beginning of the harsh winter and is one of the few chronological references of astronomical character that we have for Hannibal’s epic journey against Rome.
Therefore, we borrowed this astronomical and chronological reference, not so much to talk about the time in Antiquity, but to note what events the Academy has in the future and to evaluate some of the most important of them.
It won’t be a place only to comment on our busy schedule but rather to describe these events and, as long as we take part in them, define our participation and how they were. It isn’t our intention to give to us some special importance or propaganda, so if you organize any event related to Archeology or Ancient History, contact me to find a spot in our agenda of scientific events.
Come with me to a hidden place, without light pollution or too much stress, to see what the future holds for the past.
Before that decisive moment, Olympic Games or other similar religious festivities, foundations of cities, years in which a certain monarch or magistrate remained in power, events of international importance like the fall of Troy or mythological episodes like the Universal Flood had been used to fix the inexorable passage of time.
Even if it’s true that many of these dates could be discussed because there are several traditions resulting, in part, from the temptation of the historian to put together different historical episodes in a same chronological moment, what we cannot denay is the passage of time itself.
Even today, where, thanks to pollution, the climate is generally much more stable (at least in the Mediterranean) and warming is a global constant on the planet, it is an unquestionable fact that it is colder in winter than in summer (at least in our latitudes and hemisphere).
In Antiquity, in spite of all the existing eras and the different methods to measure time, the seasons would be much more marked and they looked at the sky to know things that now we know thanks some applications of our handphones. The Sunset of the Pleiades was an astronomical phenomenon that marked the beginning of the harsh winter and is one of the few chronological references of astronomical character that we have for Hannibal’s epic journey against Rome.
Therefore, we borrowed this astronomical and chronological reference, not so much to talk about the time in Antiquity, but to note what events the Academy has in the future and to evaluate some of the most important of them.
It won’t be a place only to comment on our busy schedule but rather to describe these events and, as long as we take part in them, define our participation and how they were. It isn’t our intention to give to us some special importance or propaganda, so if you organize any event related to Archeology or Ancient History, contact me to find a spot in our agenda of scientific events.
Come with me to a hidden place, without light pollution or too much stress, to see what the future holds for the past.
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