Abstract
It is quite common, when reading popular books on astronomy, to see a place referred to as “the oldest observatory in the world”. In addition, numerous books on archaeoastronomy, of various levels of quality, frequently refer to the existence of “prehistoric” or “ancient” observatories when describing or citing monuments that were certainly not built with the primary purpose of observing the skies. Internet sources are also guilty of this practice. In this chapter, the different meanings of the word observatory will be analyzed, looking at how their significances can be easily confused or even interchanged. The proclaimed “ancient observatories” are a typical result of this situation. Finally, the relevance of the concept of the ancient observatory will be evaluated.
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Acknowledgments
Clive Ruggles and César González García contributed their comments for the improvement of the manuscript. The Armenian astronomer Elma Parsamian is acknowledged for offering the contact with Dr. Tokhatyan, who kindly provided the photograph for Fig. 9.7. This work is partially financed under the framework of the projects P310793 “Arqueoastronomía” of the IAC, and AYA2011-26759 “Orientatio ad Sidera III” of the Spanish MINECO.
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Belmonte, J.A. (2015). Ancient “Observatories” - A Relevant Concept?. In: Ruggles, C. (eds) Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_9
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