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.
Yeah, ignorance is not the same as stupidity.
It is not at all as complicated as you are describing. One can stand in front of the same large rock and observe a mountain range at different times of the year and make note of where the sun rises or sets along that range. Doesn’t matter how that range is as long as you observe it from the exact same place in front of that static rock.
One year of observation will set the static pattern and visual marker points along that range for Summer solstice and winter solstice as long as the sun is visible. Count days, divide, and make notes of all the points in between those two points on the range. You now have an accurate natural timepiece observable from that particular rock.
I did that with our local mountain ranges here. And from the same static observation point it is right on the money all year long. I moved or built nothing. Just observed and made mental notes from that one spot.
Correct.
And we still have our share of idiots.
This problem goes way back.
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1850)
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
Another version https://www.gutenberg.org/files/636/636-h/636-h.htm
Astronomical!
.
Star Gazers were the First YouTubers.
Here is one for you. Using our mountain ranges here I can also aim new satellite dishes precisely at the satellites on the horizontal alignment. Only have to adjust the vertical to be right on it. Accrued observation notes is all it takes.
The archaeological site contains a row of 13 stone towers, known as the Thirteen Towers.
Catchy name.
Luckl number!..............
If the stick was lined up with the sunrise, it would be laying on the ground. However, an ancient civilization might have noted that the the tip of the shadow from a vertical stick stuck in the ground followed a straight line throughout a sunny day on either equinox, while following curved lines during a sunny day at other times of the year.
But if the ancient civilization could do that accurately enough with a stick in the ground, why did they spend the time and effort to build all the Towers of Chankillo to do the same thing?
No there’s 14 positions so 28 total dividing 365 days makes about 13 days to reach the next notch. It’s all explained in the video I posted.
Probably starts with natural objects. Folks noticing that when you stand here the sun rises behind that tree on a day when this other stuff happens. Then eventually they start working things out probably with sticks, or piles of small stones. Get it worked out and make the more permanent towers. This kind of stuff was the work of years. But the tribes who pulled it off knew stuff, like when the migratory birds were coming, the right time to plant, and thrived.
“If the stick was lined up with the sunrise, it would be laying on the ground.”
I mean putting a stick in the ground between the sunrise and a fixed observation point, like these towers are laid out. In that case, you would end up with a line of sticks similar to the line of towers.
“But if the ancient civilization could do that accurately enough with a stick in the ground, why did they spend the time and effort to build all the Towers of Chankillo to do the same thing?”
They probably got along just fine with sticks for a few decades until a really strong wind came along and blew the sticks away. Then they realized they might need something more permanent than sticks.
The statement isn't very accurate. I live in a house that has a view of the sunsets from my porch. After just one or two years It was easy to find where the end towers would be placed by just watching the sunsets from my porch. Since the towers seem to be evenly spaced, it would then be just a matter of spacing them between the end points.
However, the sun doesn't move across the horizon at an even pace. The distance changes very slowly at each end point, and most quickly at the solstices in the middle. The towers would have to be spaced accordingly to make up for this. That would make the tower spacing very complicated without algebra and geometry.
How were goats, horses, and dogs domesticated? It was these ancient peoples who gave us these extraordinary gifts that we have discounted for centuries. As Texas Fossil and I touched on earlier Fajada Butte in Choco Canyon Throws cold water on the sticks in the ground theory when it is an eighteen to nineteen year cycle of the moon risings. Those people had mathematics excellent communication, and a way to record observations for people who followed them and a great tradition of scientific intelligence. They might not align with our politics or religion, but they were pretty awesome in the results they got.
“The distance changes very slowly at each end point, and most quickly at the solstices in the middle. The towers would have to be spaced accordingly to make up for this.”
They also observed the moon. Making note of where the sun sets on a full moon would accurately give you the next monthly tower location in between those end towers.
Something to consider is the time frame. These were probably the accrued observations and knowledge of several generations passed down. They didn’t just go out with a slide rule and build these in the correct places in just a few weeks. They had time to observe and adjust until more accurate before building them permanent.
That’s a good point about the moon. It would also explain why they had both east and west observation points - a full moon rises at sunset, and sets at sunrise, and a new moon does the opposite.
Yep, I can imagine they also followed the planets and their favorite constellations. So one can get pretty accurate with just careful observation of several natural factors combined. But as you mention, once documented this can then progresses into more complicated math and formulas that can be shared as a standard. And we know it did, The later South American cultures were highly skilled at working with complicated math and formulas.
But I would like to share an observation displayed in this thread, and it happens all the time and is common. For some reason we tend to try to theorize and search for that one influence and factor to explain these things. When in reality it could actually be several factors in combination, or there could even be an unseen lost variable we will never find. I have to be honest and admit I sometimes get caught up in that frame of mind myself and have to back up, regroup, and look at it again for other variables I had not considered.
And it is natural, we just tend to do that. Take for example these towers and their alignments. These have probably been looked at and researched for years now but no provable connection was made with the solar solstices and equinoxes until they adjusted the current alignments to what they actually would have been back then, because back then the earth’s axis was totally different from now.
So until they threw it into a computer model and reversed the clock back to what the alignments actually were back when they were built, they didn’t align with anything and made no sense. That was the unconsidered factor and variable until someone decided to take that into account. Then it all fell into place and they aligned correctly. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.