ABSTRACT: Churches have played a major role in society and are very specific to their religion. The very direction one faces during worship is significant. So, is it safe to assume that the orientation of a church would also be significant? Is it possible that early architects understood astronomy which allowed them to specifically pinpoint an orientation for their ancient buildings? Also, are there astronomical inferences that can be derived from said orientations? Determining and surmising first whether the practice of actively orienting religious buildings took place can be a significant and interesting research starting point. Our project will incorporate archeoastronomy techniques to analyze the orientation of early Christian churches in Israel and Palestine. The orientation and alignment will be determined based on the azimuth, horizon altitude, and solar declination. To aid in these discoveries, online resources and databases will be consulted. The scope of the buildings will be limited to churches with a prothesis chapel in the Holy Land. Existing archaeological plans and coordinate systems will be compiled and analyzed to determine commonalities between the different religious structures. Both churches and monasteries will be considered in this analysis. The angle of each church will be measured, and the degree of orientation will be determined by measuring coordinates from Google Earth imagery. The churches will then be analyzed based on their type, time, and location to determine whether their orientation was intentional or considered during the time of construction. It can be assumed that the orientation of the church was significant and considered during construction. Religion is often very rigid and specific in practice. It can be inferred that the orientation which greatly affected construction would be considered. The orientation would affect the location of each of the rooms within the floor plan, which would place significant importance on the orientation of each church or monastery.

CITATION: Yah-ho Ng, Kent Miller, and Brandon Ro, “Discovering Ancient Sacredness: Exploring the Astro-Architectural Orientation of Christian Churches in Israel and Palestine.” Poster presented at the 2024 Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters annual conference, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, March 23, 2024.