List of archaeoastronomical sites by country

This is a list of sites where claims for the use of archaeoastronomy have been made, sorted by country.

Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte recently edited a book on heritage sites of astronomy and archaeoastronomy that provides a list of the main archaeoastronomical sites around the world.^[1]

Armenia

• Zorats Karer (aka Carahunge), archeological site claimed by many to have astronomical significance.

Australia

• Ngaut Ngaut oral tradition says these engravings represent lunar cycles.^[2]
• Wurdi Youang, a stone arrangement with possible solar alignments^[3]

Brazil

• Calçoene (called "Amazon Stonehenge")

Bulgaria

• Magura Cave, Bronze Age "paintings of staggered black and white squares could have been used to count the days in a calendar month", possibly indicating the number of days in the solar tropical year.^[4]

Cambodia

• Angkor Wat
• Phnom Bakheng, According to Jean Filliozat of the École Française, the center tower represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the 4 lunar phases each with 27 days.^[5]

Canada

• Petroforms
• Medicine Wheel

Colombia

• El Infiernito, (Spanish for "Little hell"), is a pre-Columbian Muisca site located in the outskirts of Villa de Leyva, Boyacá Department, Colombia. It is composed of several earthworks surrounding a setting of menhirs (upright standing stones); several burial mounds are also present. The site was a center of religious ceremonies and spiritual purification rites, and also served as a rudimentary astronomical observatory.

China

• Puyang tomb, dated from 5000 BP, depicts a mosaic of constellations.^[6]

Egypt

• Abu Simbel, The axis of the temple was positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice a year, on October 20 and February 20, the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, who always remained in the dark.^[7][8]
• Great Pyramids of Egypt
• Nabta Playa

Finland

• The so-called Giants' Churches (Finn. jätinkirkko), which are large, from ca. 20 m to over 70 m long rectangular or oval stone enclosures built in the Neolithic (ca. 3000-1800 BC), have axis and doorway orientations towards the sunrises and sunsets of the solstices and other calendrically significant days. E.g., the Kastelli of Raahe, which is one of the largest Giants' Churches, had its five "gates", i.e. wall openings oriented towards the midsummer sunset, the winter solstice sunrise, winter solstice sunset, the sunrises of the mid-quarter days of early May (Walpurgis, Beltaine) and August (Lammas), as well as the sunrise 11 days before the vernal equinox in 2500 BC.^[9][10]

France

• Carnac stones

Germany

• Goseck circle
• Glauberg
• Magdalenenberg (disputed)^[11]

Guatemala

• Tikal
• Uaxactun

Honduras

• Copán Ruinas
• El Puente

Indonesia

• Borobudur
• Prambanan

India

For a full list see the chapter on India in the ICOMOS book edited by Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte.^[12][13] These sites include:

• Brahmagiri
• Hanamsagar
• Udayagiri
• Sun temples of Varanasi
• Vijayanagar
• Jantar Mantar
• Gyarah Sidi

J.M. Malville and Rana P.B. Singh have done much work on the archaeoastronomy of sacred sites in India.^[14][15]

Iran

• Persepolis
• Naqsh-e Rustam

Ireland

• Brú na Bóinne, AKA Newgrange, once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the chamber for about 17 minutes and illuminates the chamber floor.^[16]
• Knowth
• Dowth
• Loughcrew
• Carrowkeel
• Mound of the Hostages
• Drombeg stone circle, at the winter solstice, the sun sets into a v formed by two distant overlapping hills and makes an alignment with the altar stone and the two main uprights. Due to the nature of the site and the western hills, local sunset is c. 15:50.
• Beltany stone circle

Israel

• Rujm el-Hiri, ancient megalithic monument in the Golan Heights.

.

Italy

• Alatri
• Nuraghe

Kenya

• Namoratunga

Korea

• Cheomseongdae, ancient observatory in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea.

Republic of Macedonia

• Kokino Situated 1030 m above sea level on the Tatićev Kamen Summit near Kumanovo.

Malta

• Megalithic Temples of Malta
• Mnajdra

Mexico

• Calakmul
• Cantona
• Casas Grandes
• Chichen Itza, the caracol is theorized to be a proto-observatory with doors and windows aligned to astronomical events, specifically around the path of Venus as it traverses the heavens.^[17] El Castillo the main pyramid also has archeoastronomy features.
• Coba
• Dzibilchaltun, Spring equinox, the sun rises so that it shines directly through one window of the temple and out the other.
• Ikil, Hierophany where the sunrise on the day of the solar zenith transit aligns with the summit of Ikil Structure 1 as viewed from an observation point within Ikil Cave 1.^[18]
• Izamal
• Mitla
• Monte Alban, zenith tube
• Palenque
• La Quemada
• El Tajín
• Teotihuacan, the pecked-cross circles as survey-markers
• Tulum
• Uxmal, Venus alignment of the "Governor's Palace"
• Xochicalco, zenith tube
• Yagul

Netherlands

• Funnel Beaker Culture megalith graves ("hunebedden") in the eastern Netherlands might be oriented on moonrises.^[19]

Pakistan

• Lahore Fort

Peru

• Buena Vista
• Chankillo
• Cusco
• Machu Picchu
• Nazca Lines
• Choquequirao
• Ollantaytambo

Portugal

• Almendres Cromlech
• Anta Grande do Zambujeiro
• Dolmen of Cunha Baixa

Romania

• Sarmizegetusa Regia

Russia

• Arkaim

Syria

See section "Golan Heights" above.

Sweden

• Ale's Stones
• Gotland grooves

Switzerland

• Columna Jovis

Turkey

• Göbekli Tepe

United Kingdom

• Ballochroy
• Callanish Stones
• Maeshowe, it is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber, a rough cube of five yards square held up by a bracketed wall,^[20] is illuminated on the winter solstice.
• Prehistoric Orkney
• Stonehenge
• Woodhenge

United States

• America's Stonehenge in New Hampshire
• Anderson Mounds, Anderson, Indiana.
• Bighorn Medicine Wheel
• Cahokia, large Mississippian culture site with numerous solar and other alignments
  • Mound 72, summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned burial mound
• Casa Malpaís Archaeological Site, Springerville, Arizona. Summer solstice at noon and sunset.
• Chaco Canyon, cardinal orientations, meridian alignment, inter-pueblo alignments
• Chimney Rock Archaeological Area, near Pagosa Springs, Colorado
  • The 3-Slab Site^[21] atop Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, which marks the solstices.
• Cliff Palace^[22] in Mesa Verde National Park
• Crack Cave at Picture Canyon (Colorado) in Comanche National Grassland
• Emerald Mound and Village Site, Lebanon, Illinois
• Haleets on Bainbridge Island in Washington state
• Hovenweep Castle^[23]
• Holly Solstice Panel in Hovenweep National Monument
• Moorehead Circle, timber circle in Ohio
• Octagon Earthworks^[24]
• Serpent Mound
• Skystone near Naches Trail in Washington state
• Wally's Dome^[25] in Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico)

See also

• List of colossal sculpture in situ
• List of Egyptian pyramids
• List of megalithic sites
• List of menhirs
• List of Mesoamerican pyramids
• List of Roman bridges
• List of Roman domes
• List of statues
• List of statues by height
• List of tallest statues in the United States
• List of world's largest domes
• New Seven Wonders of the World

References

1. Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte (ed.), Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy. ICOMOS and IAU, Paris, 2010.
2. Australian Aboriginal Astronomy at the CSIRO site. Accessed on 2009-08-02.
3. Norris, R.P.; Norris, P.M.; Hamacher, D.W.; Abrahams, R. (2013). "Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal stone arrangement with possible solar indications". Rock Art Research. 30 (1): 55–65.
4. Stoev, Alexey; Maglova, Penka (2014), "Astronomy in the Bulgarian Neolithic", in Ruggles, Clive L. N., The Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, New York: Springer, pp. 1377–1384, ISBN 978-1-4614-6140-1
5. Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Southeast Asia: A Past Regained (1995) p.93-4
6. Zhentao Xu; David William Pankenier; Yaoting Jing (2000). East Asian Archaeoastronomy: Historical Records of Astronomical Observations of China, Japan and Korea. CRC Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-90-5699-302-3.
7. Alberto Siliotti, Egypt: temples, people, gods,1994
8. Ania Skliar, Grosse kulturen der welt-Ägypten, 2005
9. Okkonen, J. & Ridderstad, M. 2009: Jätinkirkkojen aurinkosuuntauksia; in Ei kiveäkään kääntämättä, Juhlakirja Pentti Koivuselle, pp. 129-136.
10. Tähdet ja Avaruus, Ursa astronomical assosiacion's magazine 4 / 2009 p.15
11. Rohde, Claudia: Kalender in der Urgeschichte. Fakten und Fiktion, Rahden 2012
12. Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte (ed.), Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy. ICOMOS and IAU, Paris, 2010.
13. Subhash Kak, Archaeoastronomy in India. arXiv:1002.4513v2
14. J.M. Malville and L.M. Gujral, Ancient Cities, Sacred Skies. New Delhi, 2000.
15. Rana P.B. Singh, Cosmic Order and Cultural Astronomy. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
16. http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/illumination.html
17. Anthony Aveni, Stairway to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great Ancient Cultures (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997) 135-138 ISBN 0-471-15942-5
18. http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/latest-news/maya-zenith-passage-vin/
19. Langbroek M., Huilen naar de maan. Een verkennend onderzoek naar de orientaties van Nederlandse hunebedden. P.I.T. 1:2 (1999), 8-13
20. A History of Britain, Richard Dargie (2007), p. 12.
21. http://www.hao.ucar.edu/education/archeoslides/slide_14.php
22. http://www.hao.ucar.edu/education/archeoslides/slide_18.php
23. http://www.hao.ucar.edu/education/archeoslides/slide_5.php
24. Newark Earthworks
25. http://nmspacetrail.com/sites/02wallys/index.html