Skywatchers, Shamans And Kings Book

According to the jacket blurb, author E. C. Krupp (b. 1944) is an astronomer and the director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. The primary focus of the book, as the title indicates, is the use of the knowledge of astronomy in astrology and its political and social functions in a wide range of cultures-ancient, classical, and living traditional. It ranges from traditional Siberia, native North America, Africa, and Mesoamerica to ancient China, Mongolia, and Egypt. Krupp also includes many black and white photos of the different sites, often those he himself has taken.

For example, in the material on Mesopotamia, he notes that the sacred marriage rite, whose origins he places in 4th millennium BCE, survived as part of "akitu," the New Year festival of Babylon which took place on the vernal equinox. Its purpose was to ensure the continued fertility of the land, animals and people, an "affair of the state, not the heart." Nevertheless, "high responsibility does not pull the plug on great sex." (p 145). He also states that various hymns to Innana, if produced for MTV, would "create a whole new audience for cuneiform."

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