A rock carving discovered in Arizona might depict an ancient star explosion seen by Native Americans a thousand years ago, scientists announced today. If confirmed, the rock carving, or “petroglyph” would be the only known record in the Americas of the well-known supernova of the year 1006.
The carving was discovered in White Tanks Regional Park just outside Phoenix, in an area believed to have been occupied by a group of Native Americans called the Hohokam from about 500 to 1100 A.D.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
If confirmed, this discovery supports the idea that ancient Native Americans were aware of changes in the night sky and moved to commemorate them in their cultural record
or they just saw something pretty (or strange) in the sky and drew a picture to remember it.
Yes. Pretty safe bet that they did not say: "Holy shit! A star just blew up 2 zillion light years away!"
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Yes. Pretty safe bet that they did not say: "Holy shit! A star just blew up 2 zillion light years away
i lived down in tucson for about 5 years and didn't get to the white mountains very often. knowing some things about the indian tribes there i wwould say it is safe to venture that they still don't know much about the stars or keep track of them.
i just get tired of the many asumptions that are made with each new discovery especially whenthey have no corroborating evidence to back up the claim. archaeology is rife with this kind of mentality and i feel it is done to influence the pattern of the investigation and not so much that it is true.
Gil Esquerdo, a research assistant at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, re-created the night sky of 1006, incorporating a recent photograph of the mountain ridge south of the petroglyph site into the foreground.
"The relative placement of these two figures on the rock, if you compare with what was visible in the sky at the time, is remarkable," Barentine said.
Not only is the star oriented properly with respect to Scorpius, but a crack in the rock may represent the ridgeline above which the supernova appears. Bostwick says it is common in Hohokam petroglyphs for the artist to incorporate natural features of the rock into a design.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Native Americans were keen observers of the heavens. As a regional example the Anasazi constructed Chaco Canyon which boasts many astronomical alignments. This of course would have been impossible had they not studied the motions of the heavenly bodies for many years. It is absurd to think that any peoples would not observe an event in the night sky that produced 1/4 the light of a full moon (and would have produced that amount of light for days if not weeks). This is especially true in the crystal clear skies of the American Southwest night sky. Never have i seen the Milky Way clearer than the time I spent Arizona.
There is one point in the article this thread links to that I have a major question about. It says:
The Hohokam petroglyph depicts symbols of a scorpion and stars that match a model showing the relative positions of the supernova with respect to the constellation Scorpius.
The astronomical sign of Scorpius is of Mesopotamian origin. To imply that a North American petroglyph featuring a scorpion had anything to do with this Middle Eastern zodiac constellation is a silly stretch. If the proof of this claim rests on that evidence alone...I have a hill with a pyramid under it to sell to you.
Freethinker wrote: 'The astronomical sign of Scorpius is of Mesopotamian origin. To imply that a North American petroglyph featuring a scorpion had anything to do with this Middle Eastern zodiac constellation is a silly stretch. If the proof of this claim rests on that evidence alone...I have a hill with a pyramid under it to sell to you."
But Scorpio actually looks like a big scorpion. I think it's the most
"realistic" of the constellations. (I mean, Ursa Major doesn't look alike a bear at all.) And there certainly are scorpions in the SW deserts.
Take a look at the simulation:
However, I also just looked at thephoto of the petroglyph and couldn't make out the constellation.
i just get tired of the many asumptions that are made with each new discovery especially whenthey have no corroborating evidence to back up the claim. archaeology is rife with this kind of mentality and i feel it is done to influence the pattern of the investigation and not so much that it is true.
I give you Exhibit A for exactly that kind of jumping to conclusions!
The secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, thinks the final coffins may contain the remains of the pharaoh's mother, whose identity is unknown, and not the wife of Tutankhamun, the boy king who died at the age of 18.
They don't even know if there is anything at all in the coffin. But Zahi loves to stir up a little drama.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
