Chaldea

This upcoming conference on Astronomy and Civilisation is part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy series of events. It will be held August 10th-13th in Budapest, Hungary. The conference has as its goal the exploration of the connections that exist between the natural sciences, astronomy, and civilization — interdisciplinarity at its best.

The conference will include sessions on various topics spanning areas as diverse as physics, human cognition, art, astronomy, and religion. For those who wish to submit a paper for consideration, the call is open until May 30th, 2009.

More information may be found here.

[Edited to add that the early registration deadline, including the call for abstracts, has been changed to June 15, 2009, and the deadline for registration is now July 1, 2009. Thank you to Attila Grandpierre for this information.]

While this is decidedly closer to the popular culture pole, I thought that news of a relevant upcoming film might be of interest to many of you. Entitled Agora, it’s the story of the Pagan astronomer and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, daughter of Theon, who lived and died according to her beliefs and ideals. The film promises to be quite the epic, with both ample exposition of fifth century Christian-Pagan relations and — I would imagine — some ancient astronomical content. Either way, it certainly seems promising.

This is my personal admission: I smell like charred bonfire. But I do have a good reason.

On Wednesday, I woke up early to make it to a local Birkat Ha-Hammah ceremony. It was cloudy and rather cold out, so I wasn’t sure that it was going to be possible to bless the sun. It simply wasn’t visible. My husband and daughter were still sleeping, so I headed out quietly. There had been a snowfall the night before, and I found it rather incongruous to be brushing snow off of the car immediately before heading off to bless the sun and burn leavening (hametz) for Passover.

When I arrived at the first location (there were at least two ceremonies being held nearby) nobody was there, and the sun was still covered with clouds. I looked in the general direction of the east and began to recite the blessing on the sun anyway. But a few words into the blessing, the clouds parted, and I could clearly see the solar disk (which I carefully kept in my peripheral vision).

I then drove to another ceremony site, which was the empty field of a synagogue that is currently under construction. A few women and families were just leaving, so there were only five or six men and me in attendance. The bonfire was in a large rectangular metal bin, and was being stoked by volunteers, with wooden planks being added periodically. People would come by, throw pieces of bread, pita, and even a box filled with croissants into the fire, and recite the Aramaic declaration of nullification of hametz. In turn, I also threw in the pieces of bread and pita that I’d brought with me and recited the declaration on behalf of myself and my family.

Most of the celebrants burned their leavened products and then said the blessing on the sun. I chatted with one of them, telling him that the sun had come out, however briefly, during the blessing. To this, he replied, “Yes, the miracle happened here too!” I smiled, and we wished each other a happy Passover.

After thanking the volunteers, I headed off to do some more Passover shopping. I was still thinking about the blessing of the sun. Miracle? Perhaps not the fact of the emergence of the sun itself, but our very relationship to it on earth is certainly a powerful one (whether one subscribes to the rare earth hypothesis or no). Mostly, I think of such moments as numinous, as per Rudolf Otto (Das Heilige). Whether or not one attributes this feeling of awe to a religious force, it is difficult to deny that the sun, moon, stars, planets and other heavenly bodies hold a certain fascination. Even more so when their observation is underscored by religious ritual.

A happy Passover and Easter to those who celebrate them!

Several months ago, I posted about an upcoming rare event in Judaism — that is, the blessing of the sun, or Birkat Ha-Hammah, that takes place once every twenty-eight years, and is based primarily on the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Brakhot 59b.

The event takes place this year on April 8th, in the early morning. Because Passover happens to begin on the evening of April 8th (a truly rare convergence indeed), many morning celebrations will combine the burning of leaven (chametz) and the blessing of the sun.

For those who may be interested, here are a number of relevant links, spanning several perspectives, both confessional and non:

http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=197451

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=S&artid=1165

http://www.blessthesun.org/

http://www.jrf.org/birkat-hahammah

http://www.jewfaq.org/chamah.htm

http://mobile.aish.com/literacy/mitzvahs/Here_Comes_the_Sun.asp

http://www.forward.com/articles/104024/

To quote the immortal bards Gerome Ragni and James Rado, “Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in.”

For those who are in, or close to, Gloucestershire, England, you may be interested in a lecture on archaeoastronomy to be given at the Corinium Museum by Professor Clive Ruggles on Thursday, March 26th, from 7-8:30 p.m.

Dr. Ruggles is an Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester. Among his books are ‘Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth’ and ‘Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy’.

For more information, including contacts and the price of admission, please visit the British Science Association site, located here.

Camilla Kesterton, ‘Census Hopeful’, Oil and metal leaf on MDF and wood, 40 x 30cm, 2007
See more at: http://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk/artists/camilla-kesterton#sthash.3anxx5GP.dpuf

On a note related to my posting of March 3rd, here is a recent article on the BBC News site related to one of the Big Questions that touches upon the realms of theology, cosmogony, and astronomy. Among the respondents is Brother Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican observatory.

Just a quick peek behind the workings of this blog. I’m currently spending much of my time reading materials in preparation for my comprehensive exams. (a.k.a. qualifying exams) For now, as has been the case for a few months, until these exams are completed, I only have a limited amount of time to devote to Chaldea (i.e., I’ll post whenever I can). I thought I’d bring a notable source I’m working with to the attention of others in similar fields.

For those interested in cultural perceptions of the heavens in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, ancient Israel, Persia, Greco-Roman cultures, as well as early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, I highly recommend The Early History of Heaven, by J. Edward Wright. (2000, Oxford University Press)

I first took it out of the library in 2003, but soon found it indispensable, so I bought a copy. It’s a very thorough overview of the important writings and beliefs about heaven and/or the heavens (including heavenly cosmography) in these cultures, and it incorporates archaeological findings as well as textual sources. It is difficult to distinguish between astronomy proper and astral beliefs in many ancient civilizations; this book provides the reader with a solid awareness of the background views of the cosmos in these cultures, thereby setting the stage for later evolutions in cultural astronomy.

Have a good weekend, all!

Both scientific conceptions of the universe and the views of the Roman Catholic church have, of course, changed immensely since the time of Copernicus. The Church has, in fact, come to take special interest in happenings astronomical. In this article, published by the University of Arizona News, we read of Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo’s recent visit to the Steward Observatory to meet with Vatican and UA astronomers. As the article reveals, “the cardinal reports about the Vatican Observatory directly to Pope Benedict XVI.”

On a related note, my thanks to reader Rebecca Kelley for sending along a link to a recent posting to the Uncertain Believer blog. The posting is entitled How Will the Church Respond to Discoveries About the Universe?

[Edited to add: I thought I’d read some rather enlightened comments from the Chief Vatican astronomer Reverend José Gabriel Funes on the question of possible intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and indeed, here is one article in which he discusses the matter, as well as a quote within it exemplifying his views:

“Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can’t put limits on God’s creative freedom,” he said. [. . .] “Why can’t we speak of a ‘brother extraterrestrial’? It would still be part of creation.”]

Fourteenth century Islamic astrolabe, Whipple Museum

This video item from ABC (Australia), complete with transcript, features Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the first Muslim astronaut to travel into space during Ramadan. This led to the need for Muslim scholars to carefully determine the rules that would apply to prayer in outer space, not to mention the ubiquitous question “Which way is Mecca?”

I was especially interested in the reference to Islam’s “golden age” (circa 8th-16th centuries CE) during which Muslim scientists made various vital contributions to the world in the areas of mathematics and astronomy. This, of course, includes the invention of such devices as the astrolabe, pictured above.

For more information on Dr. Shukor, Wired published an earlier story about his career as an astronaut.

Because tempus fugit, here’s some information for those who want to make plans to attend the upcoming 17th annual conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC).

An IYA-related conference, the meeting will be held between October 25th and 31st, 2009 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt.

You can find a list of scheduled speakers here, and the registration section and other important items are listed in the menu to the left. For more information about the SEAC, please visit their homepage.