Posted on 03/29/2022 6:37:28 AM PDT by Red Badger
Long before the Incas rose to power in Peru and began to celebrate their sun god, a little known civilization was building the earliest known astronomical observatory in the Americas.
While not quite as old as sites like Stonehenge, these ancient ruins, known as Chankillo, are considered a "masterpiece of human creative genius", holding unique features not seen anywhere else in the world.
Based in the coastal desert of Peru, the archaeological site famously contains a row of 13 stone towers, which together trace the horizon of a hill, north to south, like a toothy bottom grin.
1920px ThirteenTowersOfChanquilloFromFortress The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo. (David Edgar/Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
Apart from this remarkable structure, known as the Thirteen Towers, the ruins of the observatory also include a triple-walled hilltop complex called the Fortified Temple and two building complexes called the Observatory and the Administrative Center.
Completed over 2,300 years ago and abandoned in the first century of the common era, the site has remained a mystery to travelers for centuries.
Only when official excavations began at the turn of the 21st century, did archaeologists realize what they were looking at.
A row of ruined towers seen from above
Aerial view of the towers.
Against a barren desert landscape and in broad daylight, the hilltop stone structures, which span roughly 300 meters (980 feet), don't look like much. But it's another story at dawn and dusk.
As the Sun rises in the east, an orb of light emerges somewhere along the ridge of towers. As the year proceeds, so too does the position of the sunrise, almost as though the light is flossing the toothy horizon.
On the summer solstice, for example, the sunrise emerges to the right of the rightmost tower. Whereas on the winter solstice, the sunrise emerges to the left of the leftmost tower.
The Towers of Chankillo were so carefully placed, that when an onlooker stands at a specific observation point below the ridge, they can predict the time of year within two or three days based just on sunrise or sunset. The observation point looking west towards the ridge – this is the Observatory structure – uses the sunset. At what's thought to be the east observation point, all that's left is the incomplete stone outline of a room, but it's in a symmetrical location and would have used the sunrise.
The September equinox, for example, is defined when the Sun sets between the sixth and the seventh tower, as captured in the image below.
Screen Shot 2022 03 28 at 2.46.41 pm The September equinox sunset. (World Monuments Fund/Youtube Screenshot)
The ancient civilization that designed the solar observatory is barely known, but it would have been one of the oldest cultures in the Americas. In fact, this culture predates the Inca culture, which also excelled at astronomy, by more than 1,000 years.
Because the Chankillo ruins attributed to this civilization are based in the coastal desert between Peru's Casma River and the Sechin river, the original builders are now known as the Casma-Sechin culture.
Similar to the Incas, this civilization would probably have considered the Sun a deity of some sort. The staircases leading up to each tower strongly suggest the site was once used for rituals.
According to archaeological excavations, the observatory was probably built sometime between 500 and 200 BCE. Then, for some reason, the site was abandoned, and the towers fell into disrepair. In their heyday, archaeologists say the structures would have been plastered yellow, ochre or white and painted with graffiti or fingerprints.
VIDEO AT LINK.....................
Even when stripped of decoration and falling apart, however, the remains of these stone towers still faithfully record the days of the year. Conservation efforts are now under way to uphold the accuracy of the ancient calendar.
In 2021, the Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex officially joined the UNESCO World Heritage List for its outstanding craftsmanship and its insight into the worldview of ancient societies.
"Unlike architectural alignments upon a single astronomical target found at many ancient sites around the world, the line of towers spans the entire annual solar rising and setting arcs as viewed, respectively, from two distinct observation points, one of which is still clearly visible above ground," reads the UNESCO description.
"The solar observatory at Chankillo is thus a testimony of the culmination of a long historical evolution of astronomical practices in the Casma Valley."
You can read even more details about this observatory at the Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy.
Great article!
Most of science is observation. In ancient times this was accomplished with the naked eye. People ALWAYS watched the skies; it’s known that that’s how animals migrate - and know when to migrate - i.e., by positions of the sun and stars. Following animal migrations would make one more aware of the odd, sometimes hidden factors that drive animal behavior.
Someone was bound to figure it out sooner or later!
The first guy who figures it out says, “Here is where the Sun stops its journey and begins to come back - in a few months the plants wills start putting forth shoots. Let’s put some markers here.” Someone fashions a little window so that on that particular day, the sunlight will shine straight through or maybe there already is one. First it’s like a religion and then it’s science - only for those who know about it - and then everyone takes it for granted.
Over the ensuing years the placement of said markers becomes more sure, so that even the average dweller within that civilization becomes aware of things that were formerly hidden. They may not know what the Sun is or where it came from, but they can see easily enough what it does. Over time, more people come along and fill in the blanks of knowledge and we don’t need markers anymore - we know ahead of time what those special dates are. (And they’re still very important, regardless of how advanced our technology gets.)
I almost went on a motorcycle trip to Chaco Canyon once but it fell through and so I have never been there. :( Now it sounds like you can’t go there at all.
Yes. Agree. And agree that it was very important to know when to plant. And it is now. It does change, year to year.
“Anasazi”
Yes. the “Ancient Ones”.
I first read about it in a magazine I subscribe to, Science 80.
It was a good mag to begin with, then got off track chasing idiots money and forgot about science. I quit subscribing because of that crap.
Agree, and well put!
“how did they previously predict the time of year accurately within two or three days to know where to carefully place and build the towers that would enable them to predict the time of year within two or three days?”
You ask such embarrassing questions!
But it’s a good question. If you knew there was a periodic event how would you go about determing more accurately and repeatedly the point in time of the maximun and minimum of the event?
Thanks for link.
I looked at same site but did not look carefully at the synonyms.
Our local thieves fit in some of the descriptions.
Star Gazers had it going on
Long before we give them credit.
The “Three Wise Men” still
Fascinate me.
Our town was relatively graffiti free until the last couple of years and it’s now everywhere, makes our town look like third world trash hole.
Every vacant building or blank wall is a target for these ‘artists’ who think their trash is art and they have a ‘right’ to create it on someone elses property............
13 towers confused me until
I thought 12 notches for
The signs of the “Zodiac.”
.
That’s a BINGO!
Very bad statement of where we are.
I’ve seen it. And it just adds to the induced confusion and chaos the #ComDem’s are using.
This is all about destroying freedom in the world, especially in the USA.
Far worse than the Nazi’s in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
“Star Gazers had it going on
Long before we give them credit.”
True... Way back. And structures were not required either. Just a local mountain ridge when standing in the same spot. :)
Well, I imagine you start out just putting a stick in the ground or something each day lined up with the sunrise. Then after 365 days you notice that the sun is rising in the same place you put the first stick. After that the rest is easy.
I knew kids like that in school they all turned out to be democrats or inmates.
They learned from observation.
People who think those who came before us were stupid are terribly wrong.
History of sundials go way back.
https://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sundial.htm
Now, what is the chance that savages on the other side of the world from the Old World would divide their year into the same number of months as the rest of the world?
If they used a Lunar Month as their divisor, then it’s logical............
Well made video. Answers many of my questions.
Not only would the natural ridges and outcroppings have had to be just as accurately aligned, but for either the natural or manmade structures, as the article noted, the onlooker has to be at a "specific observation point" for the time of year prediction to be accurate.
It seems implausible that along with some natural, but accurately shaped and positioned, ridges and outcroppings there was coincidentally also a specific natural sunset observation point from which one could obtain an accurate prediction of the time of year (solstices, equinoxes) to within two or three days
And still the question remains - how was this ancient civilization able to know that these natural ridges/outcroppings and observation point were accurate time predictors of an equinox or solstice worthy of duplicating with manmade structures?
“If they used a Lunar Month as their divisor, then it’s logical”
13
You can discover all sorts of things that way. Noon, solstice and equinox, calender cycles (eg leap years), radius of the the earth, calendars. Combine it with water clocks, lunar observations, and tide measurements and you can discover all sorts of things to theorize about. Add straight edges and a compass and develop nomograms and slide rules and higher math. All with Stone Age technology.
It’s even an opportunity to develop the scientific method, but that’s a leap.
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