The sacred orientation in the romanesque of the Val d’Aran
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/ic.7229Keywords:
archaeometry, Gisemundus, sacre orientation, romanesque, Val d’AranAbstract
This study presents a review and synthesis of various research works examining the orientation of the twenty-four Romanesque churches in the Val d’Aran, using archaeometric methodology. The results show that most of them were oriented towards the East in accordance with the liturgical treatises of the time. One group of them does this by observing the sun’s appearance on the horizon on the dates of the equinoxes. Another group follows an east-west orientation, with a methodological precision of (91,12º ± 2.15º). The region’s topography does not allow for alignment based on direct solar observation (E-W), so the churches were plotted using a geometrically based system. It is not possible to specify which were their instrumental tracings; inherited from Vitruvius, Higinio Gromático, Gerberto de Aurillac, but they could have been carried out with the most precise method: that of Gisemundo preserved in the nearby monastery of Ripoll (ACA 106).
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