A Sunderhuasi, a typical Chachapoyan dwelling.
Ping for later read.
Peru Finds Ancient Burial Cave Of Warrior Tribe (Chachapoyas, white-skinned aka "Cloud People")
A separate odd stone structure is an 8 pointed star with the longest 4 points pointing EXACTLY to north, south, east & west.
I wonder WHEN it was pointing "Exactly" to the cardinal directions.
One of the more interesting ways to determine how old a culture is, is if they have a solar observatory. Such an observatory needs only three markers. The equinox marker in the middle, and the two solstice markers on either side of it.
The distance between these three matter, because the axis tilt of the Earth is considerably less than it used to be. This long-term shift is known as "the precession of the equinoxes." This change isn't measured in relation to the sun, but rather to the other stars in the sky. Every 26,000 years the Earth's axis goes through a cycle of pointing to different parts of the sky.
Concurrently, on Earth it seems that the yearly axis shift becomes less and less.
In human terms, this would mean that the two solstice points will have moved closer together in our present day, and knowing how much shift happens every year, we can tell when the observatory was originally built.
bump
Thanks. Very fascinating.
bump..
extremely fascinating! i was a latin american studies major at the U of Pittsburgh 28 years ago and never heard of this civilization. but this piece says Kuelap was just discovered 35 years ago. so it makes sense that they wouldn't exactly be in the textbooks back then.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
Gods, Graves, Glyphs PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Most interesting.
Bump for later
Looks like we missed a few things in World History class in high school.
Thanks, blam. This is an excellent article, and a very intriguing place.
Ah, those Vikings....
Rare Skeleton, Jewels Found In Bolivia Pyramid (Tiwanaku)
Lots of photos on this thread.
Interesting comments on the fair skinned people.
Among the Maya, albinos hold special status as ‘hijos del sol’ (children of the sun).
Perhaps that’s who these people were.
This seemed to be off, so I checked. After conversion from sq km to sq miles, Peru has 496,226 sq miles. The 5 States have 589,009 sq miles. Even after substracting Washington State, the remaining four States are still bigger by 10,000 sq miles. Peru is still bigger than I thought it was.
A Sunderhuasi, a typical Chachapoyan dwelling.