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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
E. Boutsikas et al. (eds.), Advancing Cultural Astronomy, Historical & Cultural
Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_10
The Stars in Ancient Greece
Robert Hannah
1 Introduction
I first met Clive Ruggles at a conference in Stockholm in 2001, but we had also
recently collaborated, unaware of each other, on a book, The Discovery of Time. We
have since met on a number of occasions, in some far-flung parts of the world: from
his home base in Leicester, to another conference in Peru with an add-on trip to the
towers at Chankillo, and from my home base at the time at the University of Waikato
in Hamilton, New Zealand, where I invited him to give a talk about Hawai’ian
astronomy, to Hawai’i itself, where we both happened to be for different reasons but
where we found a good reason to meet and talk about indigenous astronomies again.
These places happen to represent only a smidgeon of Clive’s wide-ranging knowledge of astronomies around the world, a knowledge that I have had cause to call on
in person and in his many published works over the years. It is a pleasure to be able
to offer a paper to Clive in this collection.
2 The Cycle of the Stars
In this paper I wish to focus on one of the older mechanisms for marking time, the
cycle of the stars, because it still raises questions about our understanding of the
practices of ancient astronomy and the social contexts in which it was conducted.
One great advantage that the stars offer over other celestial bodies is that they
rise and set always at the same points on the horizon for a given location. Where the
Pleiades rise in June, is where they will rise every month of the year for several
R. Hannah (*)
University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
e-mail: roberth@waikato.ac.nz
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
E. Boutsikas et al. (eds.), Advancing Cultural Astronomy, Historical & Cultural
Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_10
The Stars in Ancient Greece
Robert Hannah
1 Introduction
I first met Clive Ruggles at a conference in Stockholm in 2001, but we had also
recently collaborated, unaware of each other, on a book, The Discovery of Time. We
have since met on a number of occasions, in some far-flung parts of the world: from
his home base in Leicester, to another conference in Peru with an add-on trip to the
towers at Chankillo, and from my home base at the time at the University of Waikato
in Hamilton, New Zealand, where I invited him to give a talk about Hawai’ian
astronomy, to Hawai’i itself, where we both happened to be for different reasons but
where we found a good reason to meet and talk about indigenous astronomies again.
These places happen to represent only a smidgeon of Clive’s wide-ranging knowledge of astronomies around the world, a knowledge that I have had cause to call on
in person and in his many published works over the years. It is a pleasure to be able
to offer a paper to Clive in this collection.
2 The Cycle of the Stars
In this paper I wish to focus on one of the older mechanisms for marking time, the
cycle of the stars, because it still raises questions about our understanding of the
practices of ancient astronomy and the social contexts in which it was conducted.
One great advantage that the stars offer over other celestial bodies is that they
rise and set always at the same points on the horizon for a given location. Where the
Pleiades rise in June, is where they will rise every month of the year for several
R. Hannah (*)
University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
e-mail: roberth@waikato.ac.nz