Publisher's Synopsis
This issue of Culture and Cosmos contains a range of articles spanning the journal's remit - Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. César Esteban explores theoretical issues in archaeoastronomy, drawing on his personal experience as an astrophysicist who has engaged with archaeology and arguing for the importance of landscape archaeology within archaeoastronomical research. Ronald Hutton's paper takes an entirely different perspective. As a historian, Hutton examines the extent to which modern historians have projected their assumptions on to the past, finding, for example, evidence for the worship of a mother Goddess in British megalithic culture. Esteban is an astrophysicist and Hutton is a historian but they share an insistence on critical rigour and a rejection of comfortable assumptions. Nick Kollerstrom represents the history of astrology, examining Galileo's connection with an apocalyptic astrological text. Clive Davenhall explores an equally curious footnote in the history of modern astronomy: the activities of the German showman Dr Katterfelto, who claimed to have made astronomical discoveries from his balloon. Lastly we include an interview with the distinguished print-maker and painter Geoff MacEwan, following an exhibition of his work inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy at the Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford. -Dr Nicholas Campion
