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The Great Year: From Ancient Observation to Modern Science
Paperback
Series: The Ancient Worlds and Sacred Cosmologies
Ancient History GeneralAstronomy & Space
ISBN13: 9781764592956
Publisher: Peta Oakes
Published: Mar 30 2026
Pages: 238
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.65 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
The Great Year explores one of the most profound cycles in nature: the slow turning of the heavens through the precession of Earth's axis.
Measured not in ordinary years, but in vast celestial motion, the Great Year describes the gradual shifting of the equinoxes through the constellations. Traditionally estimated at approximately 25,920 years and refined by modern astronomy to around 25,770 years, this cosmic rhythm has been observed, interpreted, and transmitted across cultures for millennia.
This volume traces the development of the Great Year from its observational foundations in Mesopotamia through Greek and Roman thought, and across the cosmological systems of India, Mesoamerica, and China.
Bringing together history, astronomy, and philosophy, the book examines how ancient cultures recorded long term celestial change, how these observations were preserved and transformed, and how they were later explained through Newtonian physics and refined by modern scientific measurement.
Disciplined and evidence based, The Great Year is not a work of speculation, but of continuity.
From ancient observation to modern science, the turning of Earth's axis remains one of the clearest expressions of time on a cosmic scale.
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