Sky at Night Magazine is astoundingly good this month, though I’ll admit my opinion might be coloured by the fact my research is mentioned on the front cover. Apart from a page on Delphi, there’s also Pyramids and Stonehenge which you’d expect in any general archaeoastronomy article. However, there are two problems dealt with really well. One is the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus and the problem of how the flooding of the Nile ceased to coincide with the heliacal rising of Sirius. The other is the circumnavigation of Africa.

This is a tale from Herodotus, where he tells of some Phoenician sailors who claimed to have sailed around Africa. The reason Herodotus disbelieves the story is they claim the sun changes position if you sail south, so that it passes to the north. This, naturally, was considered utter nonsense. It is nonetheless true which suggests the story is genuine. There’s additional reason to accept the story as the currents around Africa would make a clockwise circumnavigation easier than travelling down the west coast and back up the east.