Beyond Earth (ATWG) - Chapter 20 - The Meaning of the Heavens to Humankind Throughout History by C Garbos and R. Garbos

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Chapter 20

The Meaning of the Heavens to Humankind through History

By Cheryl and Raymond Garbos

Introduction

Today words like "outer space," "the heavens," and "the cosmos" conjure up images such as Sputnik; astronauts Yuri Gagarin,Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom; huge Saturn rockets thrusting the Apollo astronauts toward the moon; the blazing exhaust of Shuttle launches; 77 year-old John Glenn making his second trip into outer space; and humans living on space stations. These events are an integral part of life in our century, but they are only a handful of the instances of humankind's experience of outer space. In fact, humans in all times and places have been looking to the heavens for millennia, so before we look to the future we take a few moments here to shine a light upon our past.

We are aware that writing about human history requires us to select just a few examples from a vast number of possibilities, and therefore reflects our personal point of view. Two authors had a major impact on our decisions: John Michell's definitive book, A Little History of Astro-Archaeology (10) takes an intriguing look at humanity and its relationship to the heavens, examining the link between astronomy and archaeology. In addition, the works of Joseph Campbell add a mythological and spiritual dimension to our exploration. (5) (6)

Most important, it is not our intention to present history as a recitation of facts, but rather as the story of an exciting and often perplexing adventure. Surprisingly, humans all around the world have adopted similar practices with respect to the wonders of the sky, even when they were thousands of miles and hundreds or even millennia of years apart. Hence, the dates we have included are a means to compare the timing of these unusual facts. We have used the modern dating convention of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era).

Mythology and Evolution

Michell tells us of two historical world views which illuminate our understanding of humanity's experience of the heavens. "The modern view, informed by the theory of evolutionary progress, is of civilization as a recent and unique phenomenon [with humans becoming ever more developed over time]. Against this is the older orthodoxy of ancient philosophers who believed that civilization proceeds in cycles, from primitive settlement, through the development of agriculture and technology, to empire, decadence and oblivion." (10) He believes that the view of continual human evolution does not exclude the idea that human civilizations advance and decline, with human capabilities often lost for a time only to be found again under new circumstances.

Our lives are integrally woven with myths and spiritual concepts, as Joseph Campbell makes very clear: "Getting into harmony and tune with the universe and staying there is the primary function of myth." His teachings hold that myths are not fiction, but rather the stories that we live by. "In them we are not talking about a search for the meaning of life, rather we are searching for the experience of being alive." In an evolutionary view, Campbell also argued that "truth comes from the ground of my being, the unconscious [or, as Jung put it, the "collective unconscious"] that I have inherited from all that has come before me." (5) (6)

Another underlying thread of human evolution is the balance between spirituality/mythology/ religion, and science. Religion codified the spiritual into specific attitudes and practices, but as science developed the balance between what is not seen (faith) and what is seen (science) became a struggle. The relationship between religion and science was sometimes harmonious, and at others filled with tensions and even total separation among belief systems. We have found that our understanding of the heavens is at the center of this debate.

Early Humanity

We begin our story with early humankind. There is a great deal of debate as to when our ancestors can really be considered "human." The definition of humanity centers around attributes such as the ability to stand erect (roughly 3.2 million years ago), the making of tools (500,000 years ago), the ability to speak, and/or the degree of cognitive ability.

Various strains of hominids spread throughout Africa, Europe and the Near East, as early as 3 million years ago, all by 1.8 million years ago. While Western education's focus on Europe and recent American has often ignored developments in the Far East and in earliest America, human fossils have been found in China that are over 3 million years old, and there is evidence that the earliest Americans crossed a land bridge connecting Siberia with Alaska between 70,000 and 11,000 years ago, long before the "discovery" of the Americas by Europeans.

Campbell suggested that the criteria by which early hominids could be called "human" is "the birth, you might say, of the spiritual life such as no animal would ever have invented." The evidence shows that hominids with brains roughly the same size as our own were making tools around 500,000 BCE, and at these early sites humans buried members of their clans and kept caches of cave bear skulls which suggest the worship of animals. Campbell believed that these were the first signs of not just intelligence, but also mythological thinking.

Picture a cave dweller seeing the frightening power of a lightning strike, yet picking up a resultant burning branch and realizing that he had found a wonderful tool, fire, which could be harnessed for warmth and cooking. We might call this intelligence. Or imagine a cave woman walking out under the stars and seeing a shooting star. In an experience like our own, she might look with awe at the expanse of the heavens above and come to the profound recognition that there must be a power or powers greater than ourselves, an experience we might call spirituality. These were huge cognitive steps for humankind.

Animistic, polytheistic religions were among the earliest belief systems. Early on, Earth, air, fire and water were considered major powers, and these were soon joined by deities for any power which the people wished to influence or appease: gods and goddesses of rain, thunder, the stars, the sun and the moon, and many more. As early as 15,000 BCE naturalistic religion was especially strong among hundreds of Native American tribes in both North and South America. One of the most stunning aspects of the Native American experience is their star stories, 900 years before similar myths were created in the valley of the Euphrates, and more than 14,000 years before the Greek and Roman constellations. Hundreds of tribes gave us thousands of these stories explaining the mysteries of the heavens such as this one, which explains not only the existence, but also the human relationship with the star-filled heavens.

There was a man who went around each night carefully placing the stars in the sky. One night he fell asleep during his rounds, and his constant companion, a wolf, took the man's star bag and shook it out, scattering stars haphazardly throughout all the heavens. From then on the man spent his evenings lighting individual stars in the places where they had landed.

Many different civilizations that existed over a wide expanse of time created the same deities, but gave them different names. In Egypt major gods and goddesses included Re (god of the sun), Amon (or Amun, the creation deity; sometimes combined Ra as Amon-Ra, creator of all the gods), Horus (god of the sky), Khensu (god of the moon), Osiris (god of Earth and vegetation). Nut (goddess of the sky and heavens) is usually pictured arched over her husband Ge (god of Earth). The Sun is a good example of the variety of names given a common deity in different cultures: the Sun is Amun-Re in Egypt, Helios in Greece, Apollo in Rome, Tezcatlipotca among the Aztecs, Ansa to the Hindus, and Shen Yi to the Chinese.

Burial Practices

Burial sites, artifacts, and rituals are crucial in virtually every culture throughout history, and many show the connection between life, death, and the heavens. Forms of burial changed over time and from culture to culture, but all expressed one theme: the desire to approach the gods in an appropriate way so that a dead person could attain life after death.

The mound was a common burial form. The earliest ones appeared in the Americas around 7900 BCE, and vary in function from graves for the common people to burial sites for clan leaders, and later, even higher officials such as kings. These mounds were the preferred place of burial in the Americas at some places until 100 CE. They were certainly abundant—around 20,000 Native American mounds have been identified in Wisconsin alone.

The first mounds do not appear in Europe and Asia until 3100 BCE, exemplified by the well-preserved mound at Newgrange in Ireland. As is typical of burial mounds, there is long tunnel with graves along each side, and a primary grave at the far end. Especially noteworthy is that Newgrange is among the earliest examples of a connection between graves and the heavens. A "roof box"—an opening over the mound's entrance—is aligned so that the sun shines through the box on the winter solstice all the way to the primary grave at the other end of the mound.

A different approach to mound burials is found at Stonehenge in England. It is not a burial site, but the center point of more than 350 graves of different types spanning more than 1000 years. A henge, unique to the British Isles, is generally a circular pre-historic enclosure with a surrounding ditch. Some of the standing stones point to spring and fall equinoxes, but most are aligned with the summer and/or winter solstices. Exactly how sites such as Stonehenge were used is still a mystery, but clearly they addressed humankind's connection with the heavens, and may also have served as agricultural calendars. Figure 20.1 is a photo we took recently when we visited Stonehenge, a painting on the entrance wall to the park which shows what Stonehenge may have look like with all the stones in place.

Figure 20.1 Stonehenge

Of course, Egyptian burial practices are the most familiar to us. The Great Pyramids at Giza were built between 2551 and 1472 BCE as the burial sites of some of the most powerful Pharaohs. A priesthood regularly brought food and sacrifices to the tombs for the Pharoahs’ use in the afterlife. The sides of the Great Pyramids were aligned perfectly with the cardinal points: north/south and east/west. Recently in one of the large pyramids a small opening was found with a shaft which may have pointed to a specific star where the pharaoh's spirit might travel. Evidence like this has convinced us that the stars were considered an important part of the Pharaohs' life in the hereafter.

However, pyramids are by no means unique to Egypt. The oldest mummies in the world, and some of the most sophisticated ones anywhere, come not from the Nile Valley but from Chile. Emerald Mound, the second largest ceremonial earthwork in the United States, was built more than two centuries before Columbus sailed into the Caribbean. There and elsewhere in the Americas, terraced temple-pyramids, often with shrines to their gods and goddesses on top, were common and were built over a wide span of history. They served as tombs for the people's leaders and places for religious ritual.

Around 300 BCE pyramids to the sun and moon were built at Teotihuacan, Mexico's first great city. The base of the Temple of the Sun was only slightly smaller than Khufu's Great Pyramid in Giza. Mound burial sites built by many different Native American tribes were located in dozens of places spanning the period from 2390 to 1425 BCE. Later civilizations such as the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incans built the same sort of terraced pyramids. There is evidence that these plazas were the site of human sacrifice meant to appease the god. Prime examples are the Mayan Tomb of Pakal in Mexico (built around 675 CE), the Monk's Mound, largest of hundreds of pyramids in the complex at Cahokia IL, USA (950 - 1050 CE), and the Great Temple of the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City (c. 1325 CE).

18,000 years ago the Upper Cave Men of China were also burying the deceased members of their clans with artifacts such as food and clothing for use in the afterlife. . One of the most fascinating and grandest burial sites in the world is at Mount Li, built in 210 B.C.E as the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuangdi, who lived in such fear of death that he employed 300 astrologers. The emperor's concern for the afterlife and his incarnation drove him to build a tomb which is, in fact, an entire mountain. The writings of China's first historian, Sima Qian, tell us that the tomb was designed to reproduce the universe below ground. The great waterways of China and the ocean were represented by mercury, which was made to flow mechanically. Heavenly constellations were depicted on the ceilings. Trees and grass were planted to represent the Earth, and a full city was created with temples, halls, and administration buildings. In one pit of the tomb, 6000 terracotta soldiers made up the emperor's army, including chariots and horses. Though not as grandiose as the Tomb at Mount Li, the Chinese continued to build tombs in hills for their emperors all the way to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644 CE.

Evidence from many of the monuments built by ancient peoples all over the world, such as the alignment of burial sites with the stars and pyramids reaching far into the sky, indicate the peoples' strong connection with the heavens and their desire to reach beyond themselves and into the future.

The Development of Civilizations

The next major step in human development was the emergence of communities. Between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE a dramatic shift from nomadic Hunter-Gatherer groups to agrarian societies began. The shift happened in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys of Mesopotamia (now Iraq), what we know as the "cradle of civilization," and in Egypt along the Nile. Recent archeology has shown that the agrarian shift also occurred in India along the Indus River and in China on the banks of the Yellow River. Grain crops were cultivated, including wheat, rice, rye, oats and others. By 5,000 BCE maize (corn) was being cultivated in Mexico along the Rio Grande.

One of the most fascinating Egyptian myths is the story of Isis and Osiris. Osiris, a god of the underworld and earthly god of vegetation, was so hated by his brother Set (or Seth, god of chaos and evil) that Set cut Osiris into pieces and scattered him across all of Egypt. Isis, wife of Osiris, goddess of fertility and motherhood, was so disturbed by this that she gathered all the parts of Osiris' body and breathed new life into him. The power of this myth is in its relationship to the life of the Egyptian people. Isis, in her fertility role, discovered the grains of oat and barley and Osiris was the god who taught the people how to plant their seeds. Osiris was killed at the end of the planting season, the time of dormancy of crops, and resurrected after the annual inundation of the Nile when new crops were planted. So, Isis and Osiris explained a new wonder, agriculture, and were worshipped by the people of Egypt with the hope of gaining divine support for their crops.

Although we recognize that the shift to an agrarian society marks the beginning of a great deal more science to come, this is a time when spirituality, much of it based on observation of the heavens, was much more prominent than science. Put another way, the ancients would not have recognized anything like our idea of "science." They believed that things like rain or cultivation of the soil were controlled by and were gifts from the gods. So the "science" of the time, the beginnings of agriculture, was fully subsumed within worship.

However, more detailed observations of the heavens began creating another shift in human understanding. Through experimentation, humankind developed the science of astronomy. Observations of the heavens and aspects of life on Earth led to specific spiritual ideas. Goddess-centered worship was among the earliest, one that continues to modern times. In addressing the mystery of the origins of human life, the ancients recognized the importance of childbearing and saw that the rhythm of life was tied to the cycles of women's menstruation and the moon. So, it is thus no surprise that the earliest calendars were lunar.

Very early, in 5000 BCE, the Egyptians developed a calendar with a year that was regulated by the moon and the sun, consisting of 12 cycles of 30 days each (months), a year of 360 days. The development of such calendars was another great leap forward, enabling them to anticipate with some certainty when rivers flooded each year, depositing rich soil on their banks. Both the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians quickly learned to take advantage of the life force of these rivers by using irrigation. Calendars could help them prepare to plant, and the ability to predict annual events became critical as people around the world established civilizations along the banks of major rivers.

Sometime between 3200 and 2800 BCE the calendar was developed in Mesopotamia, and then copied by the Greeks. Their year was divided into 12 months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset. These were among early "observational calendars" determined by priests who watched the sky so that they could declare the first day of the new month.

Around 2500 BCE the equinoxes and solstices were discovered, leading to calendars that were based on both the moon and the sun, or on the sun alone. The problem with these early calendars was that the total number of days they marked fell short of an actual year, so various schemes were invented to compensate for this discrepancy. Around 2000 BCE the Babylonian's calendar added an extra month every four years, while others attempted to correct the discrepancy by adjusting the duration of some months. In 46 BCE in Rome, the Julian calendar of 365.25 days was introduced with an extra day in February every four years, and it is basically the calendar we have today. Other cultures took longer to accept this model because it meant moving from an observational calendar which was under the control of state religions, to a scientific one.

In most places, astronomers joined priests as the keepers of the heavens. Science and religion lived in harmony, though support by the state opened the field for more discoveries and a better understanding of the heavens.

Tombs, Palaces, Temples and Colossi

Throughout antiquity there was major investment of human capital to build not just pyramids, but also palaces, temples, and colossal figures that had both astrological and religious significance. Notable monuments such as the Great Sphinx at Giza (c. 2500 BCE), the four colossal statues of Rameses II in the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, Egypt (c. 1285 - 1265 BCE), the Colossal Stone Heads of the Olmec on the Gulf Coast of Mexico (1200 - 600 BCE), the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece (one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, c. 430 CE), the Colossal Buddha of Bamiyan in Afghanistan (7th century CE), and the huge Easter Island (Rapa Nui) statues in eastern Polynesia (1000 - 1500 CE) are just a few examples. These monuments usually required that huge blocks of stone be moved, usually over great distances. Quarrying, moving, and shaping the huge stones, and then putting them in place, required large crews of workers. How these amazing structures were built, and how they have survived for thousands of years are, to this day, great mysteries of human engineering.

As modern architects and engineers analyze the engineering processes and logistics required to build such structures they have become more and more impressed with the commitment and organizational skills their building required. Despite the development in scientific understanding behind these engineering practices, the major focus was still on their mythical and religious significance, which continually pointed to the heavens. So many of these monuments were aligned to the cardinal points, particularly at the equinoxes and solstices, that a new discipline has been created, "Astro-Archeology."

The Cycle of Civilizations

Over thousands of years, civilizations in Mesopotamia and elsewhere rose and fell. They were controlled by powerful leaders who not only raised conquering armies, but also codified laws, supported the development of writing, and established trade routes for their surplus goods. Stone and hardened clay tablets tell us of developments in mathematics and astronomy that helped these societies to become strong, sophisticated civilizations.

As one civilization reached its peak and began to disappear, another took its place and began its own rise to power. The people of earlier civilizations died off, were killed or became a part of the new civilization. . Sometimes the monuments of older cultures were destroyed, sometimes they were left to become the ruins of the march of time, and sometimes new civilizations took them over and made them fit the circumstances of the new civilization. So, we look at the development of humankind we see a continual ebb and flow into new circumstances. Yet everywhere there was continual improvement of human skills and understandings We particularly see evidence of this in the edifices that have been left behind, but how is it that nearly identical monuments were built centuries apart in places that were oceans away from one another? Perhaps the fact that all of humankind lives beneath the same sun, the same moon, and the same stars explains this to a certain degree, but it does not explain how such strong similarities in types of monuments and worship came to be. Could it be that human need for a connection to the great beyond is so strong that it evoked the same ideas from the shared mythos of intelligent human life?

The Quest for Science and Religion

Joseph Campbell notes that, "Myths are the "masks of God' through which [humans] everywhere have sought to relate themselves to the wonders of existence." (6) In his view, this is a "Hero's Quest." In ancient times, the quest for meaning centered on spirituality, which was often codified as religion. Also, as we have seen, many monuments were associated with aspects of the heavens, both for worship and as practical ways to determine the seasons of the agricultural year. Our desire to develop currencies, enumerate trade goods, and, of course, to understand the heavens next drove a continual effort to improve the sciences. Notably, the Babylonians collected detailed planetary records, established a base 60 mathematical system that was used in navigation and time (degrees, minutes, seconds), and predicted the first recorded solar eclipse (763 BCE). The Indians and Chinese recorded the first known comet. In Africa, the Ishango people of Zaire used lunar phases for seasonal measurements, and the Mayans made astronomical inscriptions for agricultural purposes.

The coexistence of spirituality/religion and science in mid-antiquity was possible because the state supported both. Science, usually overseen by priests, was considered a part of the religious world view. However, with the development of the Greek and Roman empires from about 500 to 300 BCE, we see a major change evolving. Although they still had huge pantheons of gods at the center of their lives, government became more secular and individuals other than religious leaders began making significant advances in science and mathematics. Religion and science were still in alignment with the state, but advances in mathematics and astronomy began to chafe at the constraints of established religion. Pythagoras (circa 580-500 BCE), known for the Pythagorean theorem, actually led a group, that today we would consider a cult, complete with secret symbols and handshakes. They assigned significance to integers as a way to connect mathematics to a higher spirituality: #1 - reason, #2 - man, #3 - woman, #4 - justice, #5 - marriage (#2 man + #3 woman), #6 - creation, etc. Pythagoras also believed that the circle was perfect, and that God made the seven known planets (including the moon and the sun) that moved in circular, concentric orbits around the circular Earth. Meton of Athens (circa 440 BCE) calculated that the sun and moon moved in a 19 year period, which lead to the ability to predict eclipses.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was also one of the first to propose that the universe was eternal, that the Earth was spherical, and that it was the center of the universe. Aristotelian theory also provided "scientific" proof that there is a god. It was believed that since heavenly objects could not move by themselves, and since the planets move around Earth, they must be moved by God, who must therefore exist. The Earth, being at the center and not rotating, was considered critical to the unique relationship between the gods and humans: the universe was created for humans, who therefore must be at its center. This geocentric view became the dominant view of the universe for almost 2000 years. Figure 20.2 shows this early Earth-centered view of the universe, in which the stars were thought to be located on a sphere beyond the outer-most planet.

Figure 20.2 Earth-centered Universe

Scientific discovery continued around the world. In 352 BCE, the Chinese reported the solar event that is now know as a supernova and created star maps that were used for several hundred years. As more and more observations of planetary motions were made, it was discovered that they were not in Earth-centered concentric orbits. Aristarchus of Samos (c. 280 BCE, almost 2000 years before Copernicus and Galileo) was one of the first to propose a heliocentric or sun-centered universe. Another Greek, Eratosthenes (276-194 BCE), is believed to have calculated the circumference of the Earth as 250,000 stadia by using shadows from the sun taken at two different locations on the same longitude. Although his calculation was within a few percent of the actual distance, it was generally rejected. At this point, religion and science began to be in significant tension with one another. Sadly, human understanding was often codified as religion, causing a rift between the spiritual and the observed universe.

Astronomer, mathematician, and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 CE) attempted to validate the religious view that God made the earth-centered and, more important, human-centered universe, and to reject the idea of a heliocentric (sun-centered) universe by proposing the idea of an eccentric solar motion, by which the planets moved in small circles on larger circular orbits. Ptolemy rejected the calculations of Eratosthenes, and drew a world map with Earth's circumference at around 180,000 stadia, about 25% smaller than the actual distance. Many believe that Columbus had access to Ptolemy's map, which may have influenced his incorrect expectations about the length of his voyage.

In the early centuries of the Common Era, religion itself made radical shifts. Although Greece and Rome maintained huge pantheons of deities, the newly predominant religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were monotheistic. In 300 CE, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, which then became the state religion of the Roman Empire. God was thought to reside just beyond the stars where humans could not communicate with him directly. To communicate with God, people had to pray through an angelic hierarchy representing the seven known planets, starting with the nearer cherubim and seraphim and ending with the farthest, the archangels. Ptolemy's Earth-centered universe became imbedded not just in the Christian faith, but also as the major world view which dominated European thinking until the sixteenth century.

Meanwhile, the Chinese developed a mechanical clock in 725 CE, block printing in 868, and around 800 CE, the "House of Wisdom" was established in Baghdad, a learning center that included a functioning astronomical observatory.

The Black Plague decimated Europe in what is now known as the Dark Ages, extending from the mid thirteenth century to the end of the fourteenth century, leaving the Middle East and Asia as the world's centers of education and science. Buddhist philosophy posited that the universe is periodically destroyed and recreated, while Islamic and Chinese cultures also continued to pursue science. As science became more precise, the gap between religious and scientific world views widened.

The end of the Black Death in Europe brought the beginning of the Renaissance, and soon a scientific revolution emerged. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) again proposed a heliocentric theory of the universe, but Protestants and Catholics alike strongly rejected this idea, claiming that the Bible's many references to the Earth-centered nature of the universe proved their views.

Galileo Galileo (1564-1642) used the newly invented Dutch telescope to observe the moons of Jupiter and concluded that the Copernician heliocentric theory was correct. Persecuted by the Church, he claimed that the Bible should not be taken literally and that religious leaders should accept scientific proof. His challenge to both the authority of Scripture and of the leadership of the Church led the Church to the denounce science as an evil profession. In 1616, the Church ordered Galileo to abstain from promoting the heliocentric theory, and eventually he was forced to confess his ideas as errors. In 1633 he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life.

There was now a clear break between scientific and religious views of creation and the universe, between science through which the physical world was studied, and faith through which the "heavens," the spiritual world, were revealed. The heliocentric theory was eventually accepted by the Christian Church, but it was not until 1992 that Pope John Paul formally acknowledged that Galileo had been treated improperly by Catholicism.

Around the same time as Galileo, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630 CE) determined that planetary orbits were not circular, as Ptolemy had established, but elliptical, and that the duration of planetary orbits was related to their distance from the sun, a far more accurate model of the solar system. The Church reconciled its acceptance of such views by stating that science was a method for describing the physical world, but that the tenets of religion and faith about God's creation were appropriate to describe the spiritual world.

Since then, many people have tried to bridge the growing gap between the science and religion. For example, in 1714 William Derham published "Astro-theology," which argued that the existence of God was in keeping with astronomy.

But major gaps between religion and science have continued since then, and today some still reject basic scientific views. Many Americans believe, for example, that the Earth is thousands of years old, not billions, while others do not see a schism between religion and science, believing that everything in our universe is a product of God's creation. So the dialogue continues, perhaps best exemplified by the debate among those who believe in the "Big Bang," evolution, creationism, or Intelligent Design. Modern secularism has added a new voice to the debate that is now affecting, for example, what is taught in schools about such issues. It seems that we are far from resolving these arguments.

In the future, new scientific discoveries will likely present challenges to our present understanding of both science and religion. For instance, we may find significant life on another planet, or we might detect things beyond "our" universe. Surely such discoveries would fuel new arguments about what is "true." Still, it is clear that the heavens which surround us, and the ideas and images which they continue to evoke in us, will continue to influence our views of the universe.

Campbell noted that, "Myths are the "masks of God' through which [humans] everywhere have sought to relate themselves to the wonders of existence." (5) So we are still on a Hero's Quest, seeking to understand these wonders, to go where no one has gone before, each trying through our individual experiences of the spiritual and the finite to understand our own truths, and to tell our own stories.


References

  • (1) "A Brief History of Astronomy," http://library.thinkquest.org/J002040F/history_of_ astronomy.htm, 2000
  • (2) "A Brief History of China," Retrieved November 2005 from: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/china.htm
  • (3) "Babylonian Astronomy," Retrieved, December 2005 from: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002040F/history_of_astronomy.htm
  • (4) Burton, David M., The History of Mathematics: An Introduction (Fourth Edition. Boston, McGraw-Hill, 1999)
  • (5) Campbell, Joseph, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (San Francisco, Harper & Row Publishers, 1990)
  • (6) Campbell, Joseph, Transformations of Myth Through Time (New York, Harper & Row Publishers, 1990)
  • (7) Cooke, Jean; Kramer, Ann; and Rowland-Entwistle, History's Timeline: A 40,000 Year Chronology of Civilization (New York, Crescent Books, 1981)
  • (8) Grun, Bernard, The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events (New York, Simon And Schuster, 1982).
  • (9) "History of the Americas," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ History_of_the_Americas#Migration_into_the_continents, 2005
  • (10) Michell, John, A Little History of Astro-Archeology (Updated and Enlarged Edition, (New York, Thames And Hudson, 1989) *(11) Scarre, Chris, Editor, The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World: Great Monuments and How They Wer'e 'Built (London, Thames and Hudson, 1999)
  • (11) Schroeder, Gerald L., The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical, Wisdom New York, Broadway Books, 1997) (12) "World History Timeline," http://www.wwnorton.com/ college/history/worldciv/reference/wrldtime.htm (New York, W. W, Norton & Company, 1997)

About the Authors

Cheryl and Raymond Garbos are partners in Math and Science education. Cheryl has a masters degree in theology with emphases on education and ancient history. Ray is an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire and an Engineering Fellow.

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