Archeoastronomy and the Pantheon

[Epictetus]

Has there been any serious study into any astronomical significance in the Pantheon's architecture? I've seen claims that the sun through the oculus created a sundial of sorts, but I've never heard of anything in the interior that could obviously be used for timekeeping.

Cassius Dio mentions the dome resembling the heavens, so he seems to have a vaguely similar idea.

[Jona Lendering]

Has there been any serious study into any astronomical significance in the Pantheon's architecture?

The original Pantheon, built by Marcus Agrippa and dedicated to the ruler cult, was part of a grand design. It is exactly south of Augustus' mausoleum, and connected in a giant righy-angle triangle to either the horologium and the Ara Pacis. The significance is not known, as far as I know. So it's not just Dio. The cosmological myth by Plato (Phaedrus 247a-c) also comes to mind.

"The gods see many blessed sights in the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro, along which the blessed gods are passing, every one doing his own work; he may follow who will and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But when they go to banquet and festival, then they move up to the top of the vault of heaven. [...] For the immortals, when they are at the end of their course, go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and they behold the things beyond. But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?"

All this is very suggestive, but it's not the serious study you request. Sorry.

[Epictetus]

I don't know. I get the feeling that something is there. Seven altars = seven planets? Then there are five rows of twenty-eight sunken panels in the ceiling. Perhaps they were there to relieve weight (which makes sense), but do the numbers signify anything? They don't match the number of signs of the zodiac, where the sun passes through the sky. To me it seems like a deliberate order of some sort.

[Jona Lendering]

I don't know. I get the feeling that something is there. Seven altars = seven planets?

That's for certain, the sun in the center. On [url:xzigf2ph]http://www.livius.org/ro-rz/rome/rome_pantheon02.html[/url], I discuss the matter. Rereading that page, I see that the great Mommsen himself published about it. I didn't remember that. Unfortunately, I remember even less where he wrote that... :oops:

[Epictetus]

... and someone else is thinking along these lines. Lindsay Powell posted this link on his Facebook page.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...eveal.html

[Jona Lendering]

I was actually shocked to read it. Stating that the Pantheon is like a sundial is like saying that the pope is Catholic, Obama is American, and Egypt very hot. I have serious doubts about this report: it must be a joke - something like saying "the Roman Empire fell" and look as if the newspapers copy it.

Compare that ridiculous claim that the tomb of Philip was found, last week. The Martyrion has always been known. I visited the place last year.

Archaeological reports are, since the days of Schliemann, full of exaggerations.

[PhilusEstilius]

I think that historians and archaeologists at times try to read in more than is there about a subject, the Pantheon I think is just one of Hadrian's spherical moments for he was more than just an Emperor.
It has been said that he was a musician, doctor. mathmetician, philosopher, poet, painter, sculptor, and above all an architect.

[Epictetus]

Stating that the Pantheon is like a sundial is like saying that the pope is Catholic, Obama is American, and Egypt very hot.

Well, practically anything can be made to work as a sundial as long as it manipulates light in some fashion. A person could use a tree growing freely in their back yard, as long as they pay attention to the shadow. In this case they are suggesting that the Pantheon was constructed the way it was specifically to manipulate light in a particular fashion. That's a bit harder to prove. I have John North's fascinating book Stonehenge, where he shows prehistoric structures, especially megaliths like Stonehenge, could be used to observe events in the heavens. I enjoyed the book, but the simple fact that an object in the sky could be observed at a particular time at a particular angle doesn't mean that the builders tried to make it happen.

[Jona Lendering]

In this case they are suggesting that the Pantheon was constructed the way it was specifically to manipulate light in a particular fashion. That's a bit harder to prove.

True, but at the same time: if you entered the Pantheon, the first statue you saw (at the place of today's altar) was the statue of the sun. Or probably, you didn't see the statue, because the ceiling was gilded. There was light everywhere. The solar cult over here must have been quite spectacular.