Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth

The openings are little more than niches, which means that they provide restrictive sighting devices. They do look out just above the horizon, which has led numerous researchers to measure alignments and speculate on their precise function. This anomalous and unaesthetic building seems an ideal candidate for an observatory where Maya priests observed the heavens to regulate the calendar.

To the person seeking statistical verification that the tower was used for astronomical observations, the results are disappointing. There are no consistent alignments on the sun, moon, or planets. And while stellar observations might have been important, there are too many possibilities—too many bright stars—to place much credence on any apparent stellar alignments that have been found. Further progress must consider the cultural context. Given the close association of various nearby structures at Chichen Itza with the planet Venus, the claim that two of the three surviving windows were ideally placed for observing the furthest northerly and southerly settings of this planet deserves closer scrutiny. But in view of the total lack of cultural evidence attesting to its use as an observatory, the strong possibility remains that the Caracol had nothing to do with astronomical observations at all.

See also:

Dresden Codex; Kukulcan; Venus in Mesoamerica.

References and further reading

Aveni, Anthony F. Stairways to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great An

cient Cultures, 135–138. New York: Wiley, 1997.

———. Skywatchers, 272–283. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

Krupp, Edwin C., ed. In Search of Ancient Astronomies, 190–199. New

York: Doubleday, 1977.

Carahunge

In a mountainous region of southern Armenia, near the town of Sisian, is an impressive stone setting consisting of over 150 standing stones varying from about one meter (three feet) to 2.8 meters (nine feet) in height. Approximately fifty more stones have now fallen. Of Neolithic date, probably built no later than the third millennium B.C.E. and possibly considerably earlier, the site broadly resembles many better-known megalithic monuments on the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, and particularly in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany. Surrounding a central dolmen is an oval-shaped ring about thirty-five meters (115 feet) in diameter consisting of about forty stones. An avenue runs out from the ring to the northeast, and other rows run north and south.

The site has been interpreted as an astronomical observatory and acclaimed as an Armenian Stonehenge. A distinctive feature of Carahunge is that about eighty of the stones in the north-south rows contained a small cir-cular hole running through their upper section (although only about fifty of these stones survive intact). These curious holes have carefully smoothed edges and are around five centimeters (two inches) in diameter. Some are as much as twenty centimeters (eight inches) deep, opening out into wider depressions carved into each side of the stone. Three holes enter in one side of a stone, turn a right angle and then point directly upwards. An unresolved question is whether the holes, which seem remarkably unweathered if they are indeed prehistoric, were in fact added as a later feature.

A number of Armenian and Russian archaeoastronomers have investigated the possible use of these holes for observations of the sun and moon in prehistoric times. They have established, for example, that three or four of them are directed toward the point of sunrise on the summer solstice and another three or four toward the point of sunset on the same day. Other holes point in a variety of directions, all around the compass. They are also inclined at various angles to the horizontal, mostly up to about fifteen degrees; this means that most are directed toward points in the sky just above the local horizon. These facts raise the serious possibility that the holes were used for astronomical observations, whether contemporary with the construction of the original monument or later. It has even been suggested that the three right-angled holes contained mirrors and were used for zenith observation. To address these issues, a systematic study of the holes that remain in situ, paying careful attention to methodological issues, is urgently needed, because the site is unprotected and threatened by damage from sightseers and looters.

Inevitably there have been other claims—more speculative and less sup-portable—relating to the astronomical significance of the site. One is that it can be astronomically dated to the sixth millennium B.C.E. And direct comparisons with Stonehenge, which few now believe was an observatory, are less than helpful.

See also:

Astronomical Dating; Methodology. Megalithic Monuments of Britain and Ireland; Stonehenge.

References and further reading

Bochkarev, Nikolai. “Ancient Armenian Astroarchaeological Monuments:

Personal Impressions of Metsamor and Carahunge.” In Mare Kхiva,

Harry Mьrk, and Izold Pustхlnik, eds. Cultural Context from Archaeoas

tronomical Data and the Echoes of Cosmic Catastrophic Events. Tallinn:

Estonian Literary Museum and Tartu, Estonia: Tartu Observatory, in press.

Herouni, Paris. “The Prehistoric Stone Observatory Carahunge-Carenish.”

Reports of NAS of Armenia 4 (1998), 307–328. [In Russian.] Vardanyan, Gurgan. Carahunge: Armenia’s Stonehenge.

http://www.carahunge.com/.

Cardinal Directions

If we find monumental alignments pointing due north, east, south, or west, it is tempting to interpret them simply as “cardinally oriented,” but we must be cautious in doing so. Why would such alignments arise?

Where architecture is intentionally aligned toward due north or south, disregarding the exceptional circumstance where this is because some significant place or landmark happens to be located in that direction, then it is astronomical in a broad sense. This is because north-south alignments follow the axis of symmetry of the daily motions of the stars in the night sky as they swing each day around the celestial poles. From some locations, certain important celestial bodies may be seen to “rise” or “set” in these directions, but this can only happen if the horizon is not flat, since all the celestial bodies move along on the level when they are due north or south. In general, north-south alignments relate to the daily motions of the heavens as a whole rather than to any particular celestial body or event. Three very different examples illustrate the reasons for keeping architecture “in tune with the cosmos” in this way: the Great North Road at Chaco Canyon—the so-called Chaco Meridian; the Forbidden City in Beijing; and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

Alignments to the east or west are more problematic. An alignment on equinoctial sunrise or sunset, for example, will be approximately toward due east or west, respectively, but was not necessarily perceived as “cardinal.” Then again, the concept of “east” may be a much broader one. Christian churches are generally conceived as oriented eastwards, for a variety of liturgical reasons that dictated this to be the direction that Christian worshipers should face when praying. However, their actual orientations span a range spreading as much as several tens of degrees away from true east. If we have only archaeological evidence to go on, especially if we have no reason to assume any great precision, then it is difficult to see how we can distinguish an alignment conceived to be “easterly” from one upon the equinoctial rising sun, or indeed upon some other star or asterism that happens to rise in that general direction (such as, in the present day, Orion’s belt).