First published in 1933, Sun Circle belongs to Gunn's most creative period. A story of love and awakening set in a time of critical upheaval during the dawn of Scottish history, Breeta's people are the ancient, newly Christianized Pictish tribes living in remote Northern Scotland in the 9th century. Assailed by the pagan Vikings from across the sea, the clash of Christianity and paganism, of old and new, of Viking and Pict, is a conflict from which the Scottish nation is forged.

Why is there life on earth? How did Saturn get its rings? Which planet is biggest, which one's hottest--and which has a cloud named Scooter? Take a trip into outer space to learn about the asteroid belt, Martian volcanoes, dwarf planets, and other fascinating facts about our universe.

Includes sections for both Kemetic Reconstructionist and Tameran Wiccan practice.

From utilitarian arrowheads to beautiful stone effigy pipes to ornately-carved shell disks, the photographs and drawings in Sun Circles and Human Hands present the archaeological record of the art and native crafts of the prehistoric southeastern Indians, painstakingly compiled in the 1950s by two sisters who traveled the eastern United States interviewing archaeologists and collectors and visiting the major repositories. Although research over the last 50 years has disproven many of the early theories reported in the text—which were not the editors' theories but those of the archaeologists of the day—the excellent illustrations of objects no longer available for examination have more than validated the lasting worth of this popular book.

Everyone knows their own star sign, but how many can identify the constellations in the night sky and the stars that form them? Here is a beautiful illustrated book offering a factual, astronomical guide to the Zodiac and the celestial phenomena in which the Zodiac tradition is rooted. Illuminated by Christina Balit's dazzling illustrations, this book will appeal to horoscope-devotees, star-gazers and everyone fascinated by the reality behind the myths, whatever their age.

Hirshfeld's Astronomy Activity and Laboratory Manual is a collection of twenty classroom-based exercises that provide an active-learning approach to mastering and comprehending key elements of astronomy. Used as a stand-alone activity book, or as a supplement to any mainstream astronomy text, this manual provides a broad, historical approach to the field through a narrative conveying how astronomers gradually assembled their comprehensive picture of the cosmos over time. Each activity has been carefully designed to be implemented in classrooms of any size, and require no specialized equipment beyond a pencil, straightedge, and calculator. The necessary mathematical background is introduced on an as-needed basis for every activity and is accessible for most undergraduate students. This learn-by-doing approach is sure to engage and excite your introductory astronomy students!

Between AD 900-1600, the native peoples of the Mississippi River Valley and other areas of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States conceived and executed one of the greatest artistic traditions of the Precolumbian Americas. Created in the media of copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood, and incised or carved with a complex set of symbols and motifs, this seven-hundred-year-old artistic tradition functioned within a multiethnic landscape centered on communities dominated by earthen mounds and plazas. Previous researchers have referred to this material as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). This groundbreaking volume brings together ten essays by leading anthropologists, archaeologists, and art historians, who analyze the iconography of Mississippian art in order to reconstruct the ritual activities, cosmological vision, and ideology of these ancient precursors to several groups of contemporary Native Americans. Significantly, the authors correlate archaeological, ethnographic, and art historical data that illustrate the stylistic differences within Mississippian art as well as the numerous changes that occur through time. The research also demonstrates the inadequacy of the SECC label, since Mississippian art is not limited to the Southeast and reflects stylistic changes over time among several linked but distinct religious traditions. The term Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere (MIIS) more adequately describes the corpus of this Mississippian art. Most important, the authors illustrate the overarching nature of the ancient Native American religious system, as a creation unique to the native American cultures of the eastern United States.