Bust of the British archaeoastronomer Michael Hoskin (1930) at the Alcazaba in Antequera, Spain
Michael Hoskin (born on February 27, 1930 in London, UK) is an archaeoastronomer and professor emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. In Spain his work is linked to the Dolmens of Antequera, following the publication of the book "Tombs, temples and their orientations: a new perspective on the Prehistory of the Mediterranean (2001)", in which he investigates the orientations of some 3000 megaliths of which 2000 are studied on location by himself. While the canonical orientation of of all of them is of a celestial nature towards the part of the horizon where the sun rises at the equinoxes and solstices, its measurements show that, from this large sample, only Menga and El Romeral present a terrestrial orientation towards elements of the landscape, in what is known as a phenomenon of landscape monumentalisation. Their discovery of the anomalous of the terrestrial orientations of the Menga dolmen (towards the Peña de los Enamorados) and the tholos of El Romeral (at the Sierra de El Torcal) has been used as the scientific basis to put the Dolmen Site of Antequera on the list of candidates to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.
Size: 3840px × 5760px
Location: Alcazaba, Antequera, province of Malaga, Andalusia, Spain, Southern Europe
Photo credit: © DE ROCKER / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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