Ancient Observatories - Timeless Knowledge

Ancient cultures attempted to track the motions of the Sun and Moon, measure time, and relate their world to the world above (and below) through glorious and enigmatic structures they built. This document highlights a collection of sites, prehistoric and otherwise, that include artifacts related to tracking the Sun and often the stars. This is not an exhaustive list, just a sampling. Because few written records exist, we can only surmise from the evidence what purpose these sites might have served for their builders.

To the peoples who built these structures, the complicated and cyclic nature of movements of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars represents a kind of perfection unattainable by mortals. The regular occurrence of sunrise and sunset, moon rise and set, could have provided the ancients with a dependable and orderly sense of time, a stable pillar on which to anchor their thought and behavior and integrate it into their view of the skies above. The sky god’s return to a particular alignment was the time to plant the crops, that the rains would soon come, or that tit was time to prepare a particular ceremony to appease or thank the gods. We cannot overestimate the importance of predicting and following seasonal change among these early peoples.

Our forbearers followed their sky gods’ movements attentively. By marking their appearance & disappearance with great care, they combined religious worship with practical knowledge. The cycle of planting and harvesting crops was regulated by celestial events; important days of celebration and festivity were marked in a celestial calendar. After generations they learned to predict particular celestial phenomena, such as eclipses, well in advance. Understanding what happens in the sky is the basic prerequisite for appreciating other people’s conception of the heavens. What are the significant sky events the ancients may have watched?

The collection includes a) information on various archaeoastronomy sites related to the Sun, listed in chronological order; b) examples of rock art that track solar times and dates; c) an article on how ancient northern mariners might have navigated by “sunstone” (calcite or other crytals); and d) an article informing readers how solstices and equinoxes work.