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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Archaeoastronomy by Politecnico di Milano

4.5
stars
1,341 ratings

About the Course

Archaeoastronomy is the “science of stars and stones”. It is an interdisciplinary science in between architecture, archaeology, and astronomy. It studies the relationships between the ancient monuments and the sky, in order to gain a better understanding of the ideas of the architects of the past and of their religious and symbolic world. The course provides the first complete, easy introduction to this fascinating discipline. During the course, many spectacular ancient sites of archaeology – such as Stonehenge in England, Giza and Karnak in Egypt, Chichen Itzá in the Yucatan, Macchu Picchu in Peru and the Pantheon in Rome – will be visited and the fascinating events occurring there in special days of the year (such as solstices, equinoxes, or the day of the foundation of Rome) will be shown and explained. The course also provides the necessary background on Astronomy with the naked eye and a general introduction to the role of Astronomy in religion and in the management of power among ancient cultures....

Top reviews

ID

Mar 2, 2019

Amazingly made MOOC. Perhaps it feels a bit short in comparison to some of the others, but the material is well presented and the suggested readings give plenty of opportunity for further learning.

DG

Nov 27, 2021

I really enjoyed this archaeoastronomy course. Professor Magli demonstrated outstanding knowledge of the subject, and was so generous in sharing his expertise through videos of worldwide locations.

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376 - 400 of 415 Reviews for Archaeoastronomy

By David K

Jan 8, 2022

helpful and comprehensive, I learned alot

By Kelly L S

Sep 2, 2020

Very interesting but hard!!

By Anne H

Jan 22, 2018

Brief but extremely complex

By Christopher F

Dec 27, 2019

Great introductory course.

By Harshit S

May 6, 2020

Nice learning experience!

By Richard K

May 26, 2017

interesting perspective

By Litty C

May 21, 2020

informative.

By Amairani R F

Apr 10, 2019

muy bueno

By Yasin A

Nov 26, 2020

سهر غوت

By Shirley G

Jan 14, 2021

(1) Week 1 was entirely too hard for a beginner. That week and throughout the course, he introduced terms and did not define them. And, wow, in Week 7, when he got into mathematical formulas and had these symbols I had never seen before, I could not follow it at all. Two terms he used frequently were azimuth and declination. I didn't even know what azimuth meant until Week 7 when I decided to look it up on the Internet. If I had known earlier, some things might have made more sense. I looked up declination but couldn't figure out what it was, even with the definition.

(2) The tests were a joke! I have taught social studies classes, grades 7-12, for 25 years and taught Earth Science at a university for 4 years. I know how to create a good test of the material I wanted my students to know. These course tests seemed to pick out the most obscure part of the lesson, not the important points. And you never did find out the right answer if you missed one.

(3) I'm sorry, but he was difficult to understand. I'd read the transcript first and then watch the video with captions, but his inflection and mispronunciation still made it difficult to follow.

(4) I did like the photographs and the way it looked like he was actually standing at the sites. That was cool.

I have taken several online courses through Coursera and other places, but I did not enjoy this one at all. I had an in-person 3-day workshop on Archeoastronomy years ago at Kampsville, Illinois, and really liked it, so I was looking forward to this course. But it did not live up to my expectations.

By Carlos P

Jun 29, 2021

Valoro sobre todo, el esfuerzo del curso en mostrar la importancia que le daban los antiguos a las "cosas del cielo" y su estrecha relaciòn con la arquitectura. Pero creo que el curso profundiza poco en el análisis de cada una y en como se utilizan las modernas herramientas, tanto de campo como informáticas para llegar a las conclusiones que establece. Un ejemplo seria el software Stellarium que es una maravilla, es gratuito y puede transformarse en una herramienta de enorme ayuda para la disciplina. Lo digo por que actualmente estoy haciendo una investigación de la meseta de Giza y lo utilizo a diario, así como otros programas que aceleran los procesos de deducción sobre los datos de campo.

By Jay G

Nov 13, 2017

Very interesting information. I am going to pursue this field and it was good to learn first hand what to expect. However, I found both the Speaker and viewpoint very biased. There comes a time when the world has to realize that People of Color belong in it. In history, and in the beginning of time. Sorry, we did not just evolve when Europeans enslaved us. And our names were not Toby or slaves. This is something that was done to us, not who we are or ever were. We were and continue to be of a highly race of people, damaged and trodded upon by European thinking. Especially, its constant need to write us out of history. Therefore, this very informative class suffered two stars.

By Radek C

Mar 25, 2020

Nice lecture but your obsession regarding so-called "pseudo" science ruins it. I have visited almost all the sites you were talking about personally (Egypt, Peru, Bolivia, Cambodia...) and I have to say that, in many cases, official archeology cannot hold water.

Archeology itself is very inaccurate science especially when looking at ancient civilizations. It is creating theories that usually cannot be properly proved or are backed up by inexact and misinterpreted radiocarbon dating.

I hope that archaeoastronomy will help archaeologists to open their minds and change their views on history, namely the dating of stone monuments.

By Sylvie B

Aug 13, 2020

Mixed review. General impression; think of it as touring very popular touristic sites with a well-paid professor providing more in-depth knowledge than the typical, local less well-paid tour guide. Positives: high quality visuals, short duration, useful information for trip planning, no multiple choice answers (which is very handy for the extremely difficult quiz on week 7). Negatives: bad enunciation of words ending in "ed", questionable audio quality, uneven content between weeks (week 7 is unnecessary and extremely diff

By Kate G

Apr 23, 2017

This course has amazing information in the lectures, but it is difficult in the video lectures to pick out what bits of information are going to be relevant in the quizzes, you will have to re-take quizzes a number of times, no matter how well you are taking notes. Also the very last section is entirely made of a rushed-maths lesson, and a quiz based on that rushed maths lesson that is VERY difficult. I would highly recommend this for anyone who already knows basic Astronomy Math, and caution anyone who doesn't.

By Angel B

Jan 2, 2018

I initially really enjoyed this class. I just feel that the last week felt tacked out. The same care was not given to it that was given to the other ones when it came to lectures et al. And talking about the moon and venus, I feel this could have been handled in similar ways to the other sections of the course to make it palpable, a visceral experience of the information instead of just bleating back info from articles.

By Irene V

Apr 19, 2021

Difficult for a beginner, but still very interesting. There needs to be a glossary of terms and definitions used in the course. This would make it easier to understand many of the formulas. The mathematical formulas in module 7 are too complex for this course and they did not seem relevant to the material and the exam, unless you are a true math geek. ( Just my opinion.)

By Jinisha L

May 21, 2018

The content was really good,especially unraveling the astronomical connection behind monumental architecture around the world. However, as a layperson the astronomy part was difficult to understand. So you will have to go through that part multiple times. I even enlisted the help of an astronomy enthusiast to further break things down for me.

By Desiree A

Nov 20, 2020

The material is very interesting, I enjoyed learning about alignments and monuments through videos and lectures. However, Week 7 introduced a number of mathematical concepts which could have been taught and integrated into videos in the previous weeks. The quizzes were also very hard and required doing research on my own.

By Julia S

Jul 20, 2020

The information was really cool, but I had a hard time understanding the professor at points. I used subtitles most of the time, but then when week 7 hit there were no more videos, and I think it would have been more beneficial to have videos in that week to talk about the mathematical concepts in the readings.

By Hally O

Jun 17, 2021

Somewhat superficial. I know I am not versed on this subject but it was taught as an overview with very difficult quiz questions not covered in the lectures. It was very difficult without the book but I didn't want to spend the money and time because I am just interested.

By Jillian L K

Mar 4, 2020

Very interesting information about the connection between ancient monuments and the alignment with astronomical constellations. The instructor had a very heavy accent and was difficult to understand, however he seemed very well versed in Archaeoastronomy.

By juan v g

Nov 23, 2021

Bastante interesante el curso, sin embargo en el cuestionario final me parecio algo confuso debido a que mis nociones de astronomia (equinoccios, solsticios, azimuts, etc) no son algo que maneje con soltura

By Joy S

Sep 5, 2017

Should be a fascinating subject. Ancient peoples knew a lot about the stars and placed structures so as to observe them in various ways. Instructor has an extremely strong accent. Almost need subtitles.

By Rhiannon H

Jun 25, 2018

A good course but I needed a better understanding of the basic astronomy before starting, the archaeology sections by comparison were easy so and could have been more complex