NEWS: Ancient Solar Observatory Discovered

[Guest guest]

|| Om Gurave Namah ||Dear Jyotishas, Attached is an interesting news item. The 13 Towers for 12 gaps, They will indicate division of northern/southern path into 12 parts. This is clear indication of 12 rashi's used in ancient time.

-Warm RegardsSanjay P http://news./s/space/20070301/sc_space/ancientsolarobservatorydiscovered

 

Ancient Solar Observatory Discovered

 

 

Sara GoudarziStaff Writer

SPACE.com

 

Thu Mar 1, 2:30 PM ET

 

 

 

The oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been discovered in coastal

Peru, archeologists announced today.The 2,300-year-old ceremonial complex featured the

Towers of Chankillo, 13 towers running north to south along a low ridge and spread across 980 feet (300 meters) to

form a toothed horizon that was used for solar observations.

Researchers excavated the solar

observatory

between 2000 and 2003. They found buildings-in exact mirror position of

each other-to the east and west of the towers with observation points

for watching the Sun rise and set over the toothed horizon.

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How it works

In addition to the daily east to west motion, our Sun appears to move eastward through the

stars in a path known as the ecliptic

over the course of a year. Also, the

Earth's axis

is not perpendicular to the ecliptic but slanted by an angle of a

little over 23 degrees. The combinations of these positions determine

where the Sun is above our horizon day by day.

At different times of the year one can observe the Sun rise and set

in different spots with respect to our horizon and for different

lengths of time. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, around the

summer solstice-which falls on June 21-the Sun rises highest in the sky

and stays up longer.

As viewed from the two observing points of Chankillo [

image],

the spread of towers along the horizon corresponds very closely to the

range of movement of the rising and setting positions of the Sun over

the year, the authors write in the March 2 issue of the journal

Science.

Once the Sun started to move away from any of its extreme positions, like the

solstices or equinoxes,

the towers and gaps between them provided a means to track the progress

of the Sun up and down the horizon, to within a couple of days

accuracy.

'Chankillo is arguably the oldest solar

calendar

that can be identified as such with confidence within the Americas,'

said lead study author Ivan Ghezzi from Pontificia Universidad Catolica

del Peru.

Tree-ring samples dated these structures back to the fourth century B.C.

'Many indigenous American sites have been found to contain one or a

few putative solar orientations,' Ghezzi said. 'Chankillo, in contrast,

provides a complete set of horizon markers and two unique and

indisputable observation points.'

How Weather Changed History

 

Other discoveries

At the end of a 131-foot-long corridor in the building to the west

of the towers, the researchers found pottery, shells, and stone

artifacts in an area possibly for commoners who participated in rituals

linked to solar observations.

Previous studies showed that the

Incas-South American Indians who established an

empire

that once ranged from northern Ecuador to central Chile from 1100 to

the 1530s-had built sites to mark solar observations by 1500.

In comparison, the earliest portion of

Stonehenge-megalithic ruins in southern England purported to correlate with the rising and setting of the Sun and the

Moon-is said to have been completed around 3000 B.C.

The new finding, however, puts Sun cults in the Americas at an earlier date than the Incans.

'Chankillo was built approximately 1,700 years before the Incas

began their expansion,' Ghezzi said. 'Now we know these practices are

quite a bit older and were highly developed by Chankillo's time.'