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I'm not sure why this story was deemed significant enough to have it included in LiveScience, but here it is:Did Ancient Sicilians Build Temples to 'Fit In?'Notice that the researcher is an "archaeoastronomer" - the first time I've heard of such a profession. Anyway, I question the conclusion made by the researcher about the Sicilian Greeks using orientation as a means of "fitting in":
"If you were a Greek living in the Greek homeland, you knew you were Greek. The Greeks in Sicily were Greeks living at the edge of their world. They may have felt they had something to prove," said Salt, who noted that most temples in Sicily were also built on a larger scale than those in Greece proper.
Where's the evidence? I'm not seeing any here, and it seems to me that there could have been any number of reasons why they were oriented toward the east. To me, one of the strongest possibilities has to do with the time of the day that Greek temples in Sicily were used. Since the temples would not have have had any windows, natural sunlight would have provided the best illumination for the interior. This leads to further questions about different situations that the mainland and colonist Greeks may have influenced local religious rituals, but at least it's more plausible than simply trying to psychoanalyze an ancient group.
Here is the definition I found at Archeaoastronomer.com
Archaeoastronomy's goal is to understand how skywatchers of the past fashioned and refined systems for regulating their primitive calendars and for memorializing celestial events, both cyclical and unique. Often they relied on sunlight and shadow plays striking and passing across targets and designs aligned with Equinox, Solstice and Cross Quarter sunrises and sunsets
Sounds like some kind of flaky psudo-science to me. They are supposed to be able to get into the minds of people dead for 1000+ years? I highly doubt their speculation is anything more than that.
I saw an article lke this about a month ago and didn't know what to make of it. Still don't. I dunno, maybe they are faced a certain way because of weather/wind patterns?
I would guess that there is some religious significance in the way they are faced. That is often the case with religious structures. Mosques always face Mecca. Roman Catholic Churches always have the altar on the east side of the building. Maybe that is too much of an Occam's Razor type suloution for an archeaoastronomer though.
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