Mesoamerican Archaeology

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:10 am

You better not stop posting WA. We need you around here.

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:10 am

We missed you last time WA, don't make a habit of it.

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 12:03 pm

Thank you. I am humbled by such kind words. To be honest, I might as well just come out of the closet (so to speak) and say it, aside from all the depressing details of being forced to move home, one regular poster had just gotten on my wick one time too many, continuing to be snidey and abusive despite my efforts to remain polite and tolerant. Every time I came back he was still there with the tiresome little

after every bloody comment and it got so depressing just to see that I ended up staying away in order not to allow myself to become further irritated. I'm happy for people to have unusual theories so long as they don't start getting personal about it with anyone who dares to hold a different view. Or even one that makes more f****** sense.
Anyway, said person has gone now (and no doubt feels suitably pompous about it, along the lines of 'the fools weren't ready for my ideas' - so everybody's happy) and this board has returned to its previous pacific state.
Still missing Charlie Hatchett though. Anyone heard from him?

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:12 pm

I think we all miss Charlie WA. The forum is like an extended family, down to the odd awkward member (any one got them?) but you still miss them.

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:11 am

I was hoping someone might get this thread back on topic (mainly so I'll feel less guilty about digressing myself, I suppose), but whilst it isn't I might as well add - anyone know what's going on with Starflower? She hasn't been around for a while either.

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:53 am

I have a question for you WA.
Were the pyramids and plazas polar aligned, star aligned, or both?
I seem to recall both being mentioned. Star alignment following Venus I believe.
Does this mean competing religions? Or different gods being important at different times? Or one king having a favorite god while another may have a different one?
Didn’t one site locate the rising (or setting) of Venus at the solstice?
I always think of marking the solstice with Sun worship, but I don’t recall that the Sun was worshiped in Mesoamerica.
The Moon more so.

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:41 am

kbs2244 wrote:I have a question for you WA.
Were the pyramids and plazas polar aligned, star aligned, or both?
I seem to recall both being mentioned. Star alignment following Venus I believe.
Does this mean competing religions? Or different gods being important at different times? Or one king having a favorite god while another may have a different one?
Didn’t one site locate the rising (or setting) of Venus at the solstice?
I always think of marking the solstice with Sun worship, but I don’t recall that the Sun was worshiped in Mesoamerica.
The Moon more so.

Oh crap.

That's trickier than I'd like to admit. So far as I know (and I'm sometimes muddy on this matter) both, sort of. I think polar aligned sites were calibrated (?) to the pole star which (unless I'm on drugs and don't realise it) is a bit off of true north (the figure 15 degrees comes to mind, though I could be wrong). As for Venus - probably, I know they were extremely familiar with the Venus cycle and a major Deity cluster (Ehecatl-Quetxalcoatl) was identified with the planet. The Plaeides were also of some importance, particularly with regard to the new fire ceremony conducted once every 52 years. Sorry - I'm not much help with regards to specific alignments of buildings.
Now onto firmer ground.
Competing religions. Yes, in a sense. It's probably truer to say that whilst most Mesoamerican religions shared similar concepts, the interpretation of those concepts varied from region to region, even from one valley to the next. Despite impressions to the contrary, it's not easy to really state that there was anything resembling a single unified belief system across the country, despite the shared elements. Even the calendars differed from one region to the next.
Sun worship? Absolutely - Huitzilopochtli was regarded as an incarnation of the sun and he was pretty big in Tenochtitlan at least. The ages of the world were described as suns and were thus similarly afforded a degree of reverence. Lunar worship I'm not so sure about, although most of the various Goddesses had lunar characteristics, as did Tezcatlipoca, whose cult was similarly widespread.

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:28 pm

The image shows the northern sky from Mexico City, 250ce.

Notice the celestial pole is quite low to the ground from this latitude. Also, notice that Polaris (end of handle of Ursa Minor) is at 79* 34' making it 10 degrees from the pole at the epoch (shown here directly above the pole for clarity). There was no pole star at that time as Polaris is 10 degrees off.

(the software which produced this chart is Cartes du Ciel - a freebee on the web and quite good for these kinds of quick visualizations)

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 8:30 am

I've a feeling I already mentioned this but anyway... leafing through George Kubler again. The Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan and the slightly later one at Cholula were both aligned to the annual zenith setting of the sun on June 21st. Just about all of the maps show sites lined up at what looks like the same degree shy of true north, so I'm guessing it was pretty common to start off the foundations of a ceremonial centre with reference to Polaris.

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:55 am

See, this is why you ask questions!
So, I had the Sun and Moon worship flipped?
And Polaris was close enough to True North for them?
And in aligning with Polaris, they were really getting things to be square with the Sun?
If they had competing religions, were any of the differences so great as to compare with the religious warring that went on in the Western World? Would this one of the reasons for the ongoing wars and evidently vicious treatment of captives? To please their god?
(After all, we Westerners weren’t above a little cruelty in the name of our god.)

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:51 pm

I'm not really following this conversation. No matter where you are in the world and no matter which epoch you were alive (in recent geologic time) the sun rises due east and sets due west on the equinox. The positions of the rise and setting during the two solstices is a function of latitude as I've mentioned previously. At the equator, these points would be 23.5* north of due east/west and 23.5* south of due east/west and even greater at other latitudes. If alignment with polaris produces as a consequence, alignment with a solstice rise/set, it would be a lucky accident of time and place.

Could one of you post a site plan with north indicated, give me the estimated date of construction and I will try to illustrate where the solstice angles were in relation. Then we can have an idea if there is possible validity to the alignment idea.

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 7:04 pm

Checking some wiki references on Teotihuacán, it says the avenue is aligned precisely at 15.5* east of north and the following image confirms it: http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=19.692476 ... 16&l=0&m=s

Safe to say, I think, the sun rise or set on June 21 was NOT aligned to the main avenue. Nevertheless, some other feature such as the diagonal edge of the pyramid of the sun may be, but this seems a bit contrived to me. The 15.5* south of east alignment may reveal something. This weekend I will do some calculations and make some maps and look for the obvious, but I am not inclined to go searching for weird star alignments. Pleaides is out, Sirius is out, and since Venus is close to the sun it seems unlikely - but let's see what is there. In addition I will research what some archaeoastronomers are saying. I will assume a date of about 200ce which should be close enough for government work.

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:13 am

kbs2244 wrote:And in aligning with Polaris, they were really getting things to be square with the Sun?

Oddly, I'd never considered this, but it makes perfect sense.

kbs2244 wrote: If they had competing religions, were any of the differences so great as to compare with the religious warring that went on in the Western World? Would this one of the reasons for the ongoing wars and evidently vicious treatment of captives? To please their god?

Ah. Perhaps I overemphasised the disparate nature of the overall religious system - more variations on a theme than competing, despite the conflicting elements (usually found in the origin myths). As I understand it, each city believed itself to be the centre of the universe and yet was quite happy for others to hold the same belief so no great conflict there - common with pantheistic premoral (ie - descriptive rather than prescriptive) religions (such as this) there's not much of that "one true faith" ideal we see today, which is why alien Gods could be happily welcomed into the pantheon without anyone getting all uppity, notably Jesus who (heh heh) enjoyed brief popularity as the God of cows, metal and money in Western Mexico. Obviously that didn't go down too well with the Christians. To be honest, I think it's more useful to regard these Gods as powerful ideas than as Gods in the Abrahamic sense. Without writing an essay, the warring and generally widespread popularity of high spirited violence was largely economic/territorial, although if any loftier motive can be attributed to it, it's less to do with cultural differences than a general idea of conflict or struggle as the force by which life goes on. I've a feeling the Vikings might have had similar ideas. The treatment of captives is another essay in itself, although it should be pointed out that for all the cruelty, captives (in Tenochtitlan) were treated well prior to sacrifice and usually drugged out of their heads when the moment came - probably more for practical than humane reasons admittedly - ie - the problem of leading several hundred blokes all hell-bent on escape up the steps of a temple without anything disrupting the proceedings.

Forum Monk wrote:

Safe to say, I think, the sun rise or set on June 21 was NOT aligned to the main avenue. Nevertheless, some other feature such as the diagonal edge of the pyramid of the sun may be, but this seems a bit contrived to me. The 15.5* south of east alignment may reveal something. This weekend I will do some calculations and make some maps and look for the obvious, but I am not inclined to go searching for weird star alignments. Pleaides is out, Sirius is out, and since Venus is close to the sun it seems unlikely - but let's see what is there. In addition I will research what some archaeoastronomers are saying. I will assume a date of about 200ce which should be close enough for government work.

Ah. 15. Thought so. Well, 15.5 anyway. It could be coincidence but I think the pyramid of the sun being aligned to the sun's zenith at equinox might well be deliberate, and of greater significance to the Teotihuacanos than the alignment of the avenue. Having said that, I'm sure I read that said avenue had a different alignment but was altered early on in the city's history for reasons unknown. Inevitably I can't find that reference at present, so who knows.
Stars and maths aren't quite my thing but I'll be interested to see what you find out, FM.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:28 am

http://english.eluniversal.com/2007/10/ ... 5519.shtml

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez granted USD 500,000 to back the diggings in the millennial city of Tiwanaku, dating back to 10 centuries, reported Thursday Bolivian President Evo Morales.

As quoted by AFP; Morales gave the local mayoralty the money sent by Chávez, who, according to the Bolivian ruler, had promised to back the site when he appeared on TV and radio show "Aló, Presidente" in May 2006.

"Companion Hugo Chávez undertook to support the diggings with USD 500,000," Morales said.

Tiwanaku, or Tiahuanaco, is one of the most ancient cultures in South America. It lasted 15 and half centuries, from 400 BC to 1175 AD. It was the capital city of a huge Andean state that stretched across nowaday's territories of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

This is great news. Tiahuanaco is the most mysterious city in South America. It's been described as the most astronomical city in SA. The latest scientific studies say Tiahuanaco has been abandoned like so many meso and SA cities following climate disasters, but has been reoccupied at least 5 times by different cultures. For that reason, it has been impossible to get a good grasp of it's original culture.

It has been said by those who studied it most in the early days of it's modern exploration, that it was a port city on Lake Titicaca, which is now some 11 miles away. Min and I looked at this in the FOTG thread but the literature says little to validate these claims. Monk, I look forward to anything interesting that you might turn up in your astronomical search. I wish we had had your expertise then.

Leona Conner · Post by **Leona Conner** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:37 pm

If memory serves me (after all it has been several decades since I've been there) all the roads, buildings, etc, at Teotihuacan are aligned to 15 degrees 25 minutes east of north, my minutes may be off a couple as it could be 23 or even 27 so I guess 25's the mean. I was told this by a local the first time I visited, so when I went back a couple of years later I took a compass and sure 'nuf he was right.