{"id":7857,"date":"2016-03-29T10:30:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T16:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7857"},"modified":"2016-03-29T14:39:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T20:39:50","slug":"an-ancient-solar-observatory-in-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7857","title":{"rendered":"An Ancient Solar “Observatory” in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sun Dagger<\/a> at Chaco Canyon \u2014 an Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) residential\/ritual\/governmental (?) complex in northeastern New Mexco that flourished during what where the early Middle Ages in Europe \u2014 is well-known among archaeoastronomers, as is the possible solar alignment built into one of the grand kivas nearby at Casa Rinconada.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now another solar “clock” is being claimed at the the ancient Puebloan site preserved at Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona<\/a>, where moving shadows and petroglyphs mark the solstices and equinoxes: an “imaging calendar,” as it is called.<\/p>\n

To quote someone on the Casa Rinconada website<\/a>,<\/p>\n

“The historical accuracy of the alignment may be less important than its symbolic value, especially for those who flock to the site on the summer solstice.<\/p>\n

“Casa Rinconada has become a place where people come to see an alignment. In our culture, we haven\u2019t been taught to relate to the natural rhythm of what the sun and the earth are doing throughout the year. So here\u2019s a place where you can come and see that\u2014not a representation of a solstice, but the actual solstice, as mediated by a building. It\u2019s a wonderful experience.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So perhaps we look at all astronomical alignments in whatever country as wonderful examples of nature religion. Casa Rinconada attracted a crowd during the Harmonic Convergence of 1987<\/a>, when various New Age thinkers, led by Jos\u00e9 Arg\u00fcelles<\/a>, promoted prophecies connected to a planetary alignment: “The convergence is purported to have ‘corresponded with a great shift in the earth\u2019s energy from warlike to peaceful.'”((No doubt you have noticed how much more peaceful the world is.))<\/p>\n

The New Age event was spoofed at a Pagan festival in New Mexico that summer by a dance performance of the “Harmonica Vigins.”<\/p>\n

My view on astronomical alignments was being warped in the 1980s by seminars with Dav\u00edd Carrasco<\/a>, a scholar of Mesoamerican religion who has spent a lot of time working with temple alignments and associated mythology.<\/p>\n

My take-away was that astronomical alignments are mostly about priestcraft and power. Farmers don’t need rows of giant stones to tell them when to plant. Every locale has its indicators: here in the southern Colorado foothills, when the emerging leaves of Gambel oak are thumbnail-size,((“As big as a mouse’s ear,” some people like to say, because it sounds more folkloric.)) the chance of a frost is usually past. (Usually!<\/em>) And I know that the sun sets in a notch on the ridge to the west at the equinoxes, for what that is worth.<\/p>\n

Being able to proclaim the cycles from the temple steps is probably more about showing how “King Jaguar” enjoys of the favor of the gods than anything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sun Dagger at Chaco Canyon \u2014 an Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) residential\/ritual\/governmental (?) complex in northeastern New Mexco that flourished during what where the early Middle Ages in Europe \u2014 is well-known among archaeoastronomers, as is the possible solar alignment built into one of the grand kivas nearby at Casa Rinconada. Now another solar “clock” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,118,127,208,48,179,32],"class_list":["post-7857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-arizona","tag-festivals","tag-indian-tribes","tag-nature-religion","tag-new-age","tag-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-22J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1875,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1875","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":0},"title":"Get Right with Tlaloc","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On a recent trip to look at some Anasazi \/ Ancestral Puebloan ruins in northeast Arizona, I took Craig Childs' book House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest as my guide book. Driving and backpacking from southwest Colorado down into Sonora, Mexico, over a period of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=51","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":1},"title":"Trudging Along with Baskets of Corn","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 15, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"This Denver Post article on carrying corn to Chaco Canyon helps to illuminate the world of Bone Walker and the Gears' other Anasazi novels. (See entry for 28 September 2003.)NOTE: I do not know how long this link will be good, since the Denver Post does not make its archives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":395,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=395","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":2},"title":"Another anniversaryI let my second\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Another anniversaryI let my second \"blogiversary\" go by unheralded, but the local daily paper did annoint me an expert on blogging, thanks to CSU-Pueblo alumna Gretchin Lair.In honor of the blogiversary, here is the obligatory posting about \"weird search engine results leading people to my blog.\" In my case, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=696","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":3},"title":"Megaliths, archaeology, and the ‘stoned age’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In graduate school, I took a couple of classes on Mesoamerican religion taught by Dav\u00edd Carrasco, an scholar of such edifices as El templo major in Mexico City.One thing I came away with was that such structures served often to demonstrate how King Somebody's reign was in sync with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6942,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6942","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":4},"title":"Solstice at Britain’s Newest Long Barrow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"How will the archaeologists of the future explain how barrow (also known as as tumulus) building stopped in the Neolithic \u2014 and then resumed, 5,500 years later? We know this one was built on a solar alignment, because the BBC tells us so. See the barrow under construction here. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"BBC","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/79873614_798736131.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/79873614_798736131.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/79873614_798736131.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6627,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6627","url_meta":{"origin":7857,"position":5},"title":"By Lugh, I Think They’ve Got It","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper in a coffee house on Sunday morning, I turned to the weather\/almanac page and learned something new. The coming weekend marks the ancient Celtic [sic] solar festival of Llamas. That was a divinely inspired typo. Given the prevalence of the subspecies dramaticus in the Pagan\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6627#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"llamas","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/llamas.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7857"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7880,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857\/revisions\/7880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}