|
Young World
Ancient solar observatory
R. KRITHIKA
The importance of sun worship in the Inca civilisation has been well documented. Records tell of towers that would mark the sun's position at certain times but so far no such tower was found. But now archaeologists from Yale and University of Leicester have discovered an ancient solar observatory at Chankillo, Peru, which marks the sun's position throughout the year. The archaeologists claim that this is the oldest solar observatory in the Americas. According to Ivan Ghezzi, lead author of the paper that appears in Science, "In this case, the 2,300- year-old solar observatory at Chankillo is the earliest such structure identified and unlike all other sites contain alignments that cover the entire solar year. We knew that Inca practices of astronomy were very sophisticated and that they used buildings as a form of `landscape timekeeping' to mark the positions of the sun on key dates of the year, but we did not know that these practices were so old."
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
|
