Updated: Apr 10, 2007

Ecliptic & Annual Motion:Part 2: More Archeoastronomy

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Stonehenge (2800 – 1500 B.C.)

Counting Bones

Ishango Bone (Africa) (8600 BC?) possibly is a 6 month lunar calendar

Blanchard Bone (Africa) (30,000 BC?) possibly is a 2 month lunar calendar

Hurston Ridge (Stone Rows)

Kermario, Carnac (Britanny) Stone Rows

Beaghmore, county Tyrone (Ireland)

Discovery of Ancient Chinese Observatory 2000 BC

One of the world's oldest observatories has been uncovered by archaeologists near the city of Linfen in Shanxi province in northern China.

They estimate the remains, in the Taosi relics site, are about 4,100 years old. That would make the Linfen observatory some 3,000 years older than the Mayan observatory uncovered in Central America, which in turn is older than the astronomical observatory built by Ulug'bek in Samarkand in 1428.

What's been found of the observatory is a 130-ft.-diameter semicircular platform made of rammed earth and surrounded by 13 stone pillars within a 200-ft. outer circle. The observatory may have been used to mark the movement of the Sun through Earth's seasons.

Rammed earth was a construction technique in which a mixture of soil and water were molded in forms. The forms then were removed, leaving solid earthen walls up to two feet thick.

The 13 pillars, each at least 13 feet tall, formed 12 gaps between them. Ancient astronomers observed the direction of sunrise through the gaps.

They also were able to distinguish the seasons of the year. The site may have been used to observe stars and the Moon.

Great Serpent Mound, Ohio [1200 BC?] (1,330-foot-long, representation of constellation?)

The oval-to-head area of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the snake’s coils align with the winter solstice sunrise, the autumnal and spring equinox sunrises, and the summer solstice sunrise.

The Nine Ladies

Barbrook I (13 stones)Thom suggests alignment to rising of star Spica

Swinside, Cumbria (52 stones)Thom suggests alignment to winter sunrise

Men An Tol (Cornwall)

Beaghmore, county Tyrone(Ireland)

Egyptian Pyramids, alignments to stars?

Casa Rinconada, NM, alignment to summer sunrise? (1000 AD)

Medicine Wheel (Wyoming, 1800 AD)

El Caracol, Mexico (600 AD?)Alignments to rising of Venus, lunar standstills, and equinoxes

Jaipur Observatory, India (1700 AD)

References

• http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Photo_Archive/England/England_4.htm• http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.355/viewPage/7• http://www.megalithia.com/brittany/carnac/

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