The sky is central to the history of human culture in a variety of ways: through calendar systems, including religious calendars, astronomy, astrology, mythology, and representations of the heavens in the arts, in architecture, painting and music. Over the past millennia ideas and practices were developed in China, India, West Asia, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe. These ideas and practices encountered each other and intersected at cultural crossroads. One of these was Istanbul, formerly Constantinople and Byzantium, where this conference will be held.

The conference organisers invite proposals to speak on practices related to the sky and representations of the sky, as detailed above, with an emphasis on their transmission or comparison between cultures.

Topics should have a relevance to the Middle East and east Mediterranean and may include

• The calendar and religious and sacred traditions and texts
• The theory and practice of astrology and astronomy
• Star and constellation myth and imagery
• Astronomy and astrology in architecture and the built environment
• The stars and theories of the soul and the divine

Organizers: Yildiz Technical University, Canolphan Sophia, the Sophia Centre