Pásztor Emília (szerk.): A fény régészete. A természetes fény szerepe az őskori ember életében - Bajai dolgozatok 20. (Baja, 2017)
Előszó
Welcome to the Reader Welcome to the Reader „Manisareed, the weakest of nature, but he is a thinking reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush: a vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than what kills him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage that the universe has over him, the universe does knows nothing". Pascal, the great French mathematician, physicist, theologian and philosopher famously spoke these striking and thought-provoking words: indeed we are weak, vulnerable, concluded land, swaying breath of wind, but blessed with the ability of thinking. Thinking is as much as to remember, to imagine, to be curious, to learn, to doubt, to dare to think and decide. This enables us to know the world, and by the knowledge of the culture, transform our world. Aid: knowledge and belief, they cannot create unlimited opportunities, however, carefully expand in space and time. We get a picture of space, far from us, never seen phenomena and events, as if we would have lived through it. Time: recall expanded to extend the ancient past, or the infinite future or to look for a link between the creation of the visible and invisible. During the writing of this book, entitled The Archaeology of Light, the authors were guided by the desire to awaken professionals, less interested in science, to direct their attention to the authors' new research methods and outcomes. Emília Pásztor and Judit P. Barna spent nearly a decade investigating the late Neolithic circular ditch systems of the Carpathian Basin; 7000 year old archaeological artefacts, ethnographic objects of past centuries decorations, initiation of shamanic rituals and have developed their theory that become internationally known and recognized. Unlike traditional archaeological approaches to the interdisciplinary methods (archaeology, astronomy, archaeoastronomy, ethnography) the celestial bodies and the phenomena in the sky that could have affected what the ancient peoples' thoughts on the world, in terms of knowledge and shaping of the environment were studied. Additionally how this effect appeared and lived on as an elemental force and decorative art form from the Bronze Age, through to the ethnographical 19-20 century materials of culture and contemporary arts. Thinking of the reed man, who remembers, learns, imagines, doubts, believes, and provides proof of creation. He paves the road leading to the scientifichistorical results of the ethnographic, archaeological and archaeo-astronomical theoretical research carried out by Emília Pásztor and co-curators Judit P. Barna, Andrzej Rozwadovski, Jaromir Kovárník and Peter Tóth presented in this volume. N. Kovács Zita 10
