MONUMENTS TIED TO THE SKY:
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND ITS GLOBAL HERITAGE

On Thursday 10th December 2009 at 6.30pm in The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EL

We would like to invite you to this year’s ICOMOS-UK Christmas Lecture and Wine Reception, in association with The Royal Institution of Great Britain:

The lecture will be given by Professor Clive Ruggles, Chair of the International Astronomical Union ’s Working Group on Astronomy and World Heritage.

In today’s brightly lit world it is all too easy to forget just how overwhelming the dark night sky would have been to human societies in the past—a prominent part of the observed world that was impossible to ignore.

The objects and cycles seen there were vital to people striving to make sense of the world within which they dwelt and to keep their actions in harmony with the cosmos as they perceived it.

The Thirteen Towers, Peru

For the archaeoastronomer, certain ancient monuments provide tantalising glimpses of long lost beliefs and practices relating to the sky, although they have to be interpreted with considerable caution.

In this lecture Clive Ruggles, Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester, will describe some major new discoveries made in recent years, focusing on his own ongoing work in Peru, Polynesia, and prehistoric Europe.

Clive is Chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Astronomy and World Heritage, which is working with UNESCO and ICOMOS to help identify, protect and preserve the most outstanding manifestations of global cultural heritage relating to the sky. Clive is also President of the Prehistoric Society, and President of IAU Commission 41 (History of Astronomy).  His books include Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy, edited with Gary Urton (Colorado, 2007), Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth (ABC-CLIO, 2005), and Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland (Yale UP, 1999).

Admission (including wine and mince pies after the lecture) is £15 for ICOMOS-UK or The Royal institution of Great Britain members.
Admission for non-members is £18 and for students it is £10.

We do hope you will join us on the 10th December, 

For more information and a booking form please contact:

Camilla Massara
Events Co-ordinator
International Council on Monuments & Sites UK

Tel 020 7566 0031
E-mail: camillamassara@icomos-uk.org