Angkor Wat -- Cambodia
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Angkor Wat, Cambodia
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Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this
image of Angkor Wat
on
April 12, 2004.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Created as a constant reminder of a greater cosmic order,
Angkor Wat shows several apparent solar alignments with a nearby mountaintop
shrine. A person standing at Pre Rup, six kilometers away, could watch the
sun set over Angkor Wat at winter solstice. A person standing in the
southwestern corner of the temple could watch a rising sun through the
eastern gate during the summer solstice.
Source
>>
Casa Rinconada -- New Mexico, United States
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Casa Rinconada, New Mexico,
United States |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's
IKONOS satellite took this image of Casa Rinconada in Chaco Canyon on
September 7, 2004. Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Casa Rinconada, built between 1070 and 1110 AD, sits on an
isolated hill about one-half mile across the canyon from Pueblo Bonito. One
of the six great community kivas in the area, the structure is about 20
meters across and four to five meters deep. A 1970s survey of the area found
this site to have precise solstice and equinox alignments. The main axis of
the kiva is aligned through doorways on both the north and south sides.
Modeled on a perfect circle, niches in the interior form an east-west line.
Scientists who measured the alignments of these features found the accuracy
of the north-south alignment to be within 45 arc-seconds or three-quarter of
a degree while the error in the east-west alignment is only eight
arc-seconds. Solar alignments occur on the winter and summer solstices when
sunlight entering the kiva falls upon one of six irregular niches. From a
given niche, the sun framed in the narrow window could be seen.
Source >>
Chichen Itza -- Mexico
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Chichen Itza, Mexico |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of
Chichen Itza on
March 5, 2001.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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In a spectacular show of shadow and light, a shadow
representing the Feathered Serpent god Kukulkan slides down the northern
stairway of Chichen Itza during sunset of the equinoxes and then vanishes.
The square, stepped pyramid, built by Mayans in about 1000 to 1200 AD also
has axes that orient with the rising point of the sun at the summer solstice
and setting point during the winter solstice. Many think the pyramid also
serves as a calendar. Each of the four faces of the pyramid has a stairway
with 91 steps. With the addition of a shared step forming a platform at the
top, this totals 365, the number of days in a year. The stairways also
divide the nine terraces on each side into 18 segments, representing the 18
months of the Mayan calendar.
Source >>
Dzibilchaltun -- Mexico
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Dzibilchaltun, Mexico |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of
Dzibilchaltun on
February 17, 2001.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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The highlight of Dzibilchaltun, or "Place of Stone Writing," is
watching the equinox sunrise through a door of the Temple of Seven Dolls.
The Mayan city, first built in 300 BC, was occupied when Spaniards
discovered the city.
Source >>
Easter Island -- Chile
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Easter Island,
Chile |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of eastern Easter Island on
December 6, 2003.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Called the Navel of the World, Easter Island is home to over a
half-dozen volcanoes and more than 880 statues called moai (pronounced
mo-eye). Ranging from just a few feet to more than 30 feet tall, the
enigmatic statues weigh up to 150 tons. They were hewn from volcanic
material from quarries on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano sometime
after 300 AD. While nearly all of the moai face toward the interior of the
island, seven moai at Aku Akivi, not shown in the image, face towards the
ocean and a point on the horizon where the sun sets during the equinox.
Explorer, Captain James Cook gave the island its modern name in 1774.
Source >>
Machu Picchu -- Peru
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Machu Picchu,
Peru |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of Machu Picchu on September 8,
2003.
Photo credit: GeoEye
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One of the most famous Incan cities in the world, sun
alignments are found throughout Machu Picchu. Many features, including the
Sacred Plaza, The Temple of Three Windows and The Intihuatana platform,
align with the summer solstice azimuth of 65-245 degrees. Scientists believe
these alignments were primary considerations in the construction of the
shrines. A shaft of light, shining through an east-facing window, reportedly
illuminates The Torreon, or Temple of the Sun, during the summer solstice.
The city was built between 1460 and 1470 AD at an altitude of 8,000 feet.
Source >>
Mayapan -- Mexico
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Mayapan,
Mexico |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of Mayapan on
September 19, 2001.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Mayapan, reaching its zenith around 1200 AD, represents one of
the largest assemblages of Mayan ruins in the Yucatan and is one of the few
walled Mayan cities. The largest pyramid is the Castle of Kukulkan, made as
a smaller replica of the Castle of Chichen Itza. Mayapan also is home to
many circular buildings, or observatories. The Mayas astronomical knowledge
helped them predict the exact time of solar and planetary events and aided
in the creation of precise calendars.
Source >>
Stonehenge — United Kingdom
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Stonehenge,
United Kingdom |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS
satellite took this image of Stonehenge on
March 27, 2002.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Possibly the world's most recognized ancient observatory,
Stonehenge's ring of stones was built more than 5000 years ago on a
wind-swept hill near Salisbury, United Kingdom. Recent theories support
construction in about 2000 BC by a late Neolithic people known as the
Beakers. Their addition to the project included adding a double ring of
stones inside the original earthen henge. More than 80 "bluestones," some
weighing up to four tons, were transported several hundred miles from
quarries in Wales. Controversy surrounds some of the possible stellar
alignments at Stonehenge, but on the longest day of the year, the summer
solstice, the rising sun does appear behind the "Heel Stone." As the sun
rises, the shadow cast by the Heel Stone creeps up the length of rock and
into the heart of the five interior "sarsen" pillar stones.
Source >>
Teotihuacan — Mexico
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Teotihuacan,
Mexico |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS satellite took this image of Teotihuacan on
October 12,
2001.
Photo credit: GeoEye |
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Rising 20 stories above the central Mexican highlands, the
pyramids of Teotihuacan (pronounced tay-oh-tee-wah-con) were central to
Toltec learning and culture. The city, about the size of ancient Athens and
Rome, was abandoned about 1500 years ago. Using an advanced understanding of
mathematics, geometry and astronomy, the Toltecs built the largest pyramid,
"The Pyramid of the Sun," with an alignment to coincide with the two days
(May 19th and July 25th) when the sun would be directly over the top of the
pyramid at noon. This would also create an alignment to the east toward the
rising sun and to the west for the setting sun. This pyramid has a base only
10 feet shorter on each side than the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
Source >>
Uxmal — Mexico
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Uxmal,
Mexico |
Click for full size Image
GeoEye's IKONOS
satellite took this image of Uxmal on August 8, 2002. Photo credit: GeoEye |
|
Founded in about 500 AD, Uxmal (pronounced "oosh-mahl") was the
most powerful site in western Yucatan. Many of the buildings rely simply on
well-cut stones with no mortar. Astronomical alignments at Uxmal surround
the planet Venus. The orientation of the long Palace of the Governor acts as
a sighting with other buildings at Uxmal pointing to the southernmost rise
location of Venus, which occurs once every eight years.
Source >>
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Credits
The Ancient Observatories:
http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery-ancient-observatories.html
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RELATED LINKS (on our website)
Subject Related Books
|
Worth a Look
International explorer,
archaeologist and author
Jonathan Gray has traveled the world
to gather data on ancient mysteries. He has penetrated some
largely unexplored areas, including parts of the Amazon
headwaters. The author has also led expeditions to the bottom
of the sea and to remote mountain and desert regions of the
world. He lectures internationally.
"Dead Men's Secrets" by Jonathan Gray is 373 pages
of discovering ancient technology and lost secrets. Do not miss his new books that followed "Dead Men's Secrets":Book 1 –
"The Killing Of... PARADISE PLANET"
lays out stunning evidence of a
once-global paradise, with a temperature-controlled climate, idyllic
landscape and long-lived human giants… but a super culture ready to wipe
itself out. The world BEFORE the Great Flood of 2345 BC
Book 2 –
"SURPRISE WITNESS"
shows what happened DURING that great Deluge
- the cosmic calamity that ripped the Earth to shreds and wiped out the
original Mother Civilization. Not only were the antedeluvian people
buried, but their technological achievements were destroyed, including all
form of machinery and construction. The skeptic may shout himself hoarse. But this event surely happened. We have evidence that is more substantial than for any other event of
history.
Book 3 –
"The Corpse CAME BACK!"
Now comes the fast moving, fascinating
story of the settling down of Planet Earth AFTER the Flood, and its effect
upon human history.
To order visit this page:
Jonathan Gray
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Hamlet's Mill
Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly
use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed
separately. But what came before the Greeks?
What if we could prove that all myths have one common origin in a celestial
cosmology?
What if the gods, the places they lived, and what they did are but ciphers for
celestial activity, a language for the perpetuation of complex astronomical
data? Drawing on scientific data, historical and literary sources, the authors
argue that our myths are the remains of a preliterate astronomy, an exacting
science whose power and accuracy were suppressed and then forgotten by an
emergent Greco-Roman world view.
This fascinating book throws into doubt the self-congratulatory assumptions of
Western science about the unfolding development and transmission of knowledge.
This is a truly seminal and original thesis,
a book that should be read by anyone interested in science, myth,
and the interactions between the two.
|
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating
the Origins of Human Knowledge
And Its Transmission Through Myth
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|
|
Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret
Knowledge and Ancient Mysteries
The mysterious
architecture and artifacts, and the enigmatic characters from ancient
history are the special focus of renowned European archaeologist, Brian
Haughton.
His new book, Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret
Knowledge and Ancient Mysteries, quenches our thirst for insight into
ancient times.
Read an
article by Brian Haughton >> |
Hidden History:
Lost Civilizations,
Secret Knowledge
and Ancient Mysteries
by Brian Haughton
|
|
US
| UK
The
Cosmic Code
Zecharia Sitchin
|
US
| UK
The Destruction of
Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the
Legendary Civilization
Frank Joseph
|
US
| UK
From Atlantis to the Sphinx
Colin Wilson
|
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