| 1. The Lights We See |
| How the sky works and how we use it: Day and night |
| Directions |
| The seasons |
| The year |
| Precession |
| Cycles of planets |
| Cycles of the moon |
| The sky symbolism of Osiris |
| 2. The Skies We Watch |
| "Ancient and prehistoric observatories: "Stretching of the Cord" ceremony (Egypt)" |
| Bronze age inscriptions in China |
| Babylonian astronomical tables |
| "The "Sun Circle" at Cahokia, Illinois" |
| "Kintraw, Scotland" |
| Megalithic lunar observatories |
| Inca skywatchers at Machu Picchu |
| "The Caracol of Chichén Itzá, Yucatán" |
| Gnomons in ancient China |
| 3. The Gods We Worship |
| "Sky gods around the world?why we have them and what they mean: Sun gods, divine planets, and sacred stars" |
| "Gods of rain, fertility, and storm" |
| Sacred kingship?the connection between sky and earth |
| 4. The Tales We Tell |
| "Sky myths and the cycle of cosmic order: Phaëthon, a Greek myth" |
| "The Pleiades and the opossum (Barasana Indians, Colombia)" |
| The Omaha Indian myth of the sacred pole |
| The birth of Huitzilopochtli (Aztec) |
| The retreat of the sun goddess and her return (Japan) |
| 5. The Dead We Bury |
| The celestial components of funerals and tombs and the journey of the dead: The Great Pyramid |
| Royal Tombs of New Kingdom Egypt |
| The tumulus of China's first emperor and other Chinese tombs |
| Burial and the city plan of Cahokia |
| The Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque (Maya) |
| Newgrange (prehistoric Ireland) |
| 6. The Vigils We Keep |
| Shamanism and the celestial travels of the soul: California Indian sun shrines |
| Mystical star treaders of China |
| Tukano Indians and their shamans (Colombia) |
| Medicine wheels of North America |
| Sun priests in the American Southwest |
| "Fajada Butte, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico" |
| 7. The Days We Tally |
| Calendars and the sacred structure of time: Notation and the Ice Age hunters of Europe |
| Stone rings and the calendar of prehistoric Britain |
| Namoratunga II and the calendar in ancient Kenya |
| The three calendars of dynastic Egypt |
| "Calendars, omens, and kings in China and Babylon" |
| The Inca calendar and Inca society |
| Calendar cycles of the Maya and the Aztec |
| 8. The Rituals We Perform |
| Ceremonies that celebrate the sky: The Hopi Indians and the winter solstice |
| "The "Burning of Tara" and the Irish Celts" |
| Imperial ritual in old Beijing |
| The Inca festival of Inti Raymi |
| The Babylonian New |
| "Bundling the Years" in ancient Mexico (Aztec)" |
| "The "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony in ancient Egypt" |
| 9. The Space We Enclose |
| "Astronomy, geometry, and sacred space: Stonehenge" |
| Other megalithic rings in England |
| Scotland's recumbent stone circles |
| Sarmizegetusa?a Thracian temple |
| 10. The Temples We Align |
| Astronomical orientation and symbolism in ancient temples: Casa Rinconada and other kivas (American Southwest) |
| The Skidi Pawnee earth lodge |
| Kogi temples (Colombia) |
| "Alta Vista, Monte Albán, Uaxactún, and Uxmal?celestial alignment in ancient Mexico" |
| Solar sanctuaries of New Kingdom Egypt |
| 11. The Cities We Plan |
| Sacred capitals and the source of world order: Beijing |
| Pueblo Bonito |
| Tenochtitlán |
| Cuzco |
| Teotihuacán |
| 12. The Symbols We Draw |
| How we code the sky and what those messages say about our brains: Mescalero Apache and the four-pointed star |
| Cross glyphs and pecked crosses from ancient Mexico |
| "The Aztec "Calendar Stone" |
| The serpent of equinox sunlight at Chichén Itzá |
| "Irish rock art, Knowth" |
| A honeycomb mural from prehistoric Turkey (Çatal Hüyük) |
| Babylonian boundary stones |
| Winged suns from Mesopotamia and Egypt |
| Horizon symbols and astronomical observation |
| The UFO?a modern sky symbol |
| 13. The Universes We Design |
| Cosmology and why we do it: The Desana Indian cosmos (Colombia) |
| The bell-shaped universe of the Warao (Venezuela) |
| Greek cosmologies |
| The sky and earth in ancient China |
| "The heralds of modern cosmology?Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton" |
| The hierarchical universe of ancient Mexico |
| Hubble's redshift and the expanding universe |
| Bibliography |
| Index |