Astronomical orientations of the megalithic stone circles of Brahmagiri

dc.contributor.author	Kameswara Rao, N
dc.date.accessioned	2007-04-13T11:26:22Z
dc.date.available	2007-04-13T11:26:22Z
dc.date.issued	1993-03
dc.identifier.citation	BASI, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp 67-77	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/2248/1478
dc.description.abstract	The megalithic stone circles at Brahmagiri which have been dated as 900 BC show clear astronomical orientations. The site lines from the center of a circle to an outer tangent of another circle points out to the directions of the sunrise and moon rise (full) at the time of solar and lunar solstices and equinox. Site lines towards the maximum azimuthal elongation of the then circumpolar star beta UMi (which also happens to be the brightest star near the pole) indicates that the time of the establishment of these Megaliths is earlier than 600 BC, may be between 900 to 600 BC. The megalithic people were probably aware of the 18.61 year period of the moon's solstice in addition to keeping track of the sideral day, the season and the year.	en
dc.format.extent	899584 bytes
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Astronomical Society of India	en
dc.subject	Megaliths - the seasons	en
dc.title	Astronomical orientations of the megalithic stone circles of Brahmagiri	en
dc.type	Article	en