Bridging the gap between archaeology and archaeoastronomy

Abstract

the chair. Was it indeed comfortable? And how does the alleged significance of the chair for the ‘users’ social and epistemic authority’ relate to the strict hierarchies enforced in 19th-century observatories? As Nasim thematises in Chapter 1, astronomers like George Airy hardly ever sat on the observation chair. Nor did they spread an image of the labouring observer as an energetic scientist. So how do these competing images come together, and how could one be sure that the public chose the one intended? Thus, despite the sharp contrast to the opposed image of a chair-less other, the contours of the image of 19th-century astronomy still begin to blur. Or one wonders what happened when women sat in the observation chair. Did they feel the flow of ‘manly energies’? The book presents few illustrations of women in observatory chairs – and maybe there aren’t many. It would be interesting to know, though, whether they were ever shown reclining, ever shown in scientific action. Would that have altered women’s standing in (scientific) society? Would it have transformed the representational field of the astronomer’s chair? Notwithstanding these questions, The Astronomer’s Chair is an inspiring study, and, indeed, a cultural history, which directs attention to the dense net of far-reaching interdependences and relations that surrounds even the most mundane objects of science.