silvia motta | Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (original) (raw)

Papers by silvia motta

The focus of this work is to define the methodology of planning and of construction of the Templa... more The focus of this work is to define the methodology of planning and of construction of the Templar churches built in Piedmont, in the North West of Italy, in order to define the criteria of the astronomical orientations and of the geometry used by the " masters of work " of the Templar order in the drafting of the project.The Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonis), a religious military order of knighthood, was founded in 1119 A.D.to protect Christian pilgrims travelling towards to the Holy Land and subsequently the order assumed greater military duties during the 12th century. During the Council of Vienne in 1312, Pope Clement V issued a series of papal bulls, including " Vox in excelso " , which officially suppressed the Order, and " Ad providam " , which turned over the most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.One of the most important road travelled by the pilgrims coming from the Northern Europe to Rome,was the " Via Francigena or Romea " , that connected the main places of spirituality of the time, and that consisted of a bundle of routes. A branch descended from the Great St. Bernard, passed through Aosta, Ivrea, Santhia, Vercelli and continued to Pavia and the centers of central Italy, to reach Rome. The " Via Liburnasca " was a connection that linked Turin, and hence the " Passi " of the Val Susa (Moncenisio and Monginevro) with Vercelli, a town crossed by the most well-known branch of the Via Francigena.In this work we present the results of our statistical analysis of the architectural alignments of a group of Templar churches located in Piedmont, someone lying along the " Via Liburnasca " , measured " in situ " by the authors in the spring and summer 2015. Subsequently an appropriate statistical study was carried out in order to infer their distribution function with the aim to perform an appropriate archaeoastronomical analysis.Several statistical methods have been employed. Basic tests have been performed with automatic data classification, in order to find natural clusters. The K-means and the Circular K-means (CK-means),have been tested .We have used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to analyze the orientation data distributions.The architectural alignments that we measured in two Templar churches, applying a rigorous methodology, reveal that the use of astronomical references at the horizon represents the most viable rationale and outlines the existence of orientation patterns that the Templar Knights used for planning their churches, which is connectable with the " Equinoctial Cycle" religious calendar , and the "Solstice Cycle " religious calendar. At present the research is still in progress.

In this paper we outline the results of the archaeoastronomical analysis of a center of religious... more In this paper we outline the results of the archaeoastronomical analysis of a center of religious worship Inca; we investigate the presence and the variety of temple orientation trends. Sayhuite or, Saywite, is an archaeological site located in the Abancay Province, in the Apurímac Region of Peru; it is some 100 km west of Cusco. Sayhuite is regarded as a centre of " sacred space " focusing on the cult of water. It harbours countless architectural remains: terraces, warehouses, fountains ,channels, carved stones, a double-jamb doorway, and a platform. The complex is divided into some sectors, but it seems to be organized into two main districts: the upper district and the lower district. In the upper area the Concacha hilltop, where a large platform contains the Sayhuite monolith, a rock with more than 200 geometric and zoomorphic figures, overlooks the valley below.. The lower district includes carved stones, a cardinally-oriented platform, and east of it is the Third Stone or Pumalike Stone, called Intihuatana, that is suggested to have astronomical purposes.The paper summarizes the results of a recently accomplished systematic study of orientations in this Inca site, taking in account the ritual, central Inca calendar used for the administration of the Inca Empire. The data have been collected in situ, in summer 2011 and summer 2012, by the authors, and they have been analyzed, obtaining notable results. Subsequently an appropriate statistical study was carried out in order to check their astronomical consistency. The statistical analysis was performed using the most recent techniques belonging to the theory of the Circular Data that was demonstrated to be the most suitable way in the archaeoastronomical data processing. These techniques have several advantages with respect to the traditional data processing and the results obtained were remarkable. Statistical test have been applied to verify the confidence level of the results obtained. We have focused our attention on the Inca Sacred symbolism during the analysis of the monuments in the Saywite area and the archaeoastronomical analysis of the Third Stone was carried out with special care trying to find the real symbolic meaning and using of the carved stone. We would suggest that there could be a correlation between the orientation of some structures and the position of celestial bodies in the sky, as the sun, the moon and the stars. A BRIEF HISTORY The archaeological site known today as the Saywiti, or Sayhuite, located about 160 km west of Cuzco in the district of Curahuasi, province of Abancay (Apurimac, Peru), would correspond to a magical-religious ceremonial center of Inca times, related with the worship of water and fertility, agriculture and bound with astronomical observatory features. Malville called it a 'huaca sanctuary', given that the three carved stones on the site, Monolith Main (hereafter abbreviated as MP), Rumi

In this paper we outline the results of an archaeoastronomical analysis of a group of Pre-Inca si... more In this paper we outline the results of an archaeoastronomical analysis of a group of Pre-Inca sites, located along the banks of the Rio Grande, Perù. We recognized at about 40 sites analyzing the high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth Pro. They consist mainly of monumental architectures and platform mounds of which we measured the geodetic azimuth of orientation. Subsequently an appropriate statistical study was carried out in order to infer their distribution function with the aim to perform an appropriate archaeoastronomical analysis. Following the data obtained, we can suggest an astronomical significance of these analyzed sites.

In this paper we outline the results of our archaeoastronomical study dealing with a number of Ma... more In this paper we outline the results of our archaeoastronomical study dealing with a number of Mayan settlements located in the lowlands of Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo (Mexico), in order to try to explain the well-known clockwise misalignments with respect to the astronomical cardinal directions. In this work we present the results of our analysis and propose a solution of this problem. The methodology followed in our study is based on statistical methods as well as on the astronomical computations. In a preliminary research we at first analysed the topographic maps of the Mayan sites checking that the deviation of the main axes of the cities is always rotated by few degrees in a clockwise direction from the astronomical North, but with different azimuths. We have successfully tested various hypotheses on the astronomical criteria applied by the Mayan people in order to build and orient their cities, and we are able to show that exists a strict relationship between the architectural alignments and the astronomical observations of the most important stars in the framework of the Mayan religion.