Aveni Anthony. Star Stories. Constellations and People

Yale University Press, 2019. — 207 p. — ISBN 978-0-300-24128-0Before smartphones, we had books; before books, we had images on cave walls or in sacred temples, their messages enhanced by spoken words now lost. Th e sky, too, has long been a canvas for telling stories about the meaning of life. Early hu-mans looked for hidden likenesses between the domains of heaven and earth—hoping, with the celestial imagery they en-visioned, to marry the unfamiliar above to their quotidian lives below. Our contact with the sky humanized us. It encouraged us to use our imaginations to tell stories about who we are.
Like nothing else in the natural world, the heavens were pristine, perfect—the ideal place for the gods to reside. Celestial time rolled on in endless cycles, portending our fate. What better way to peek around time’s corner into the future? What could be a better medium for creating tales with moral significance than the silent, dependable courses of the stars, coming and going with the seasons—constellations that heralded births and deaths, reminded us of times of war and prosperity, and memorialized our personal loves and adventures?
Star Stories focuses on the cultural diversity inherent in cosmic storytelling. Constellations and star groups, conceivedby a host of ancient and contemporary cultures, will set the stage for a deep discussion of how nature (climate, environ-ment, latitude) and cultures (from hunter-gatherers to empires) have inspired humans to create a wide variety of narratives using patterns in the sky. These stories, from countless generations that came before, are also now ours to ponder and share.