Andean archaeoastronomy
in full, pre-Incan effect
Archeologists working high in the Peruvian Andes have discovered the oldest known celestial observatory in the Americas -- a 4,200-year-old structure marking the summer and winter solstices that is as old as the stone pillars of Stonehenge.
"The observatory was built on the top of a 33-foot-tall pyramid with precise alignments and sightlines that provide an astronomical calendar for agriculture, archeologist Robert Benfer of the University of Missouri said.
"The people who built the observatory -- three millennia before the emergence of the Incas -- are a mystery, but they achieved a level of art and science that archeologists say they did not know existed in the region until at least 800 years later...
"The 20-acre site, called Buena Vista, is about 25 miles inland in the Rio Chillon Valley, just north of Lima. “It is on a totally barren, rock-covered hill looking down on a beautiful fertile valley,” said Benfer, who presented the find last month in Puerto Rico at a meeting of the Society for American Archeology. The site is remarkably well preserved, Benfer said, because it rains in the area only about once a year.
"As the team mapped out the site, Benfer observed that a person standing in the doorway of the temple and gazing through a small, flap-covered window behind the altar is aligned with a small head carved onto a notch of a distant hill. The line had an orientation of 114 degrees from true north, pointing southeast.
"Benfer does not normally deal with archeoastronomy, the science of ancient astronomy, so he contacted a childhood friend, Larry Adkins of Tustin, and asked him what that angle signified.
"Adkins, a physicist who is retired from Rockwell International and who now teaches astronomy at Cerritos College, told him 114 degrees pointed the way to sunrise on the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, Dec. 21, the longest day of the year."
via Magpie
"The observatory was built on the top of a 33-foot-tall pyramid with precise alignments and sightlines that provide an astronomical calendar for agriculture, archeologist Robert Benfer of the University of Missouri said.
"The people who built the observatory -- three millennia before the emergence of the Incas -- are a mystery, but they achieved a level of art and science that archeologists say they did not know existed in the region until at least 800 years later...
"The 20-acre site, called Buena Vista, is about 25 miles inland in the Rio Chillon Valley, just north of Lima. “It is on a totally barren, rock-covered hill looking down on a beautiful fertile valley,” said Benfer, who presented the find last month in Puerto Rico at a meeting of the Society for American Archeology. The site is remarkably well preserved, Benfer said, because it rains in the area only about once a year.
"As the team mapped out the site, Benfer observed that a person standing in the doorway of the temple and gazing through a small, flap-covered window behind the altar is aligned with a small head carved onto a notch of a distant hill. The line had an orientation of 114 degrees from true north, pointing southeast.
"Benfer does not normally deal with archeoastronomy, the science of ancient astronomy, so he contacted a childhood friend, Larry Adkins of Tustin, and asked him what that angle signified.
"Adkins, a physicist who is retired from Rockwell International and who now teaches astronomy at Cerritos College, told him 114 degrees pointed the way to sunrise on the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, Dec. 21, the longest day of the year."
via Magpie
Andean archaeoastronomy
in full, pre-Incan effect
mr damon, 03:30
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