DISCOVERY OF A SUN TEMPLE AT CAHUACHI.
(incorporating the Works of Professor Helaine Silverman)
ABSTRACT. News Release No. 2, Part 2.3 reported the Great Ceremonial Centre of Cahuachi was at the locus of a number of major azimuthals resulting from the pre-planned placement of the Line Centres matrix (Figure 1, News Release No. 2, Part 2.3); this discovery led to the hypothesis that some point on the eastern flanks of Cahuachi must house an Observatory or Temple. Strategically placed, the logical candidate for our hypothesis was Excavation Unit 19, termed the Room of the Posts, by its discoverer, Professor Helaine Silverman. (Figure 16. Cahuachi: South Coast of Peru. Silverman 1988).
ROOM OF THE POSTS and LOWER EASTERN ROOMS.
The following descriptive material is taken from Cahuachi:
Non Urban Complex on the South Coast of Peru.
(Silverman 1988).Unit 19 of the Cahuachi complex is a small mound located on the western side of the central portion of the site. Excavation revealed a series of low, walled rooms on the upper terraces of Unit 19. At the base of Unit 19, on its eastern aspect, an architectural area, named by Prof. Silverman, Lower Eastern Rooms. LER is a series of long narrow rooms of unknown function. Construction of the LER is solid with neatly plastered walls, white-washed in one section. The foundation upon which the LER was raised is true, prepared clay floor, laid down in several layers; such layered flooring is very rare at Cahuachi. A dedicatory offering of maize underlay the eastern wall.
At the base of Unit 19 a quite unique feature was discovered; a feature which Prof. Silverman very appropriately called the Room of the Posts. (ROP). The Room is quite large, around 10.5 x 12.32 meters, with well made, heavily plastered adobe walls, the south west one of which was engraved with of images of rayed figures and pan-pipes.
Off centre, on the western side are three rows of three well preserved hurango wood posts standing upright. Along the western wall another row of three hurango wooden posts align approximately N-S; the northernmost is carved to a smooth, flat tapered form. A deep niche is set in the eastern wall, in front of which are two small depressions, much like post holes. In the centre of the room there is a damaged, very low clay platform, apparently, originally square or rectangular. In its centre is a shallow depression. There are also four shallow depressions cut into the floor surface.
The ROP was thought to have been constructed sometime between Nasca 4 (AD. 350) and Nasca 8 (AD 650 +) whence the room became ritually entombed in clean sand. 16 whole pots and hundreds of Nasca 8 sherds as well as other items were deposited as offerings in the sterile fill. Doorways, passageways and staircases were also deliberately filled and covered over in time.
The large round shallow depressions in the ROP received offerings as exemplified by a cache of hurango pods found in one of them. The low, prepared clay platform in the centre of the room is indicative of a special purpose and the central depression suggests that part of the function was to receive offerings. The striated side walls of the shallow depressions indicate that libations were poured into them over the long term. One, in fact, contained a cache of hurango pods. Ten unworked pieces of the sacred Spondylus shell were found in the sand filling of the niche and two other pieces in one of the two little circular ‘post holes’ just in front of the niche.
RESEARCH METHOD.
Geometriglyph overlays (News Release No. 2) established that the Room of the Posts and Lower Eastern Rooms combination of architectural features, depressions and posts clearly delineated 16 major azimuths. Each azimuth was carefully measured on Silverman’s basic plan and compared with published ephemeris for the latitude of Cahuachi. (Aveni 1972). Figure 1 leaves no doubt that the architecture within the ROP and LER was constructed specifically to accord with annual solar, lunar and Pleiades cycles. Also the risings of Arcturus, Capella, Castor, and Spica.
TABLE 1 - AZIMUTHALS COINCIDENT WITH SUNRISE EVENTS.It is clearly evident from Table 1 - apart from three Lunar alignments - azimuthals are concerned with Sunrise; each event occurring as the Sun cycles from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice, and back again. Strangely, there appears to be no azimuthal pairing for the Jan/July, 1st/2nd pass.
ROOM OF THE POSTS AS A SHADOW CLOCK;
Archaeologist, William J Veall, (also author of the Nascodex web-site) discovered as the Room of the Posts is a restricted length, walled enclosure, the High Priests were, perhaps, unable to use Posts effectively as ‘foresights’ to determine the arrival of a sunrise event, but the open air, low walled room, could very conveniently and extremely accurately operate as a Shadow Clock. Space does not permit a full analysis in this News Release, so here is just one example of how a High Priest would prepare for the arrival of a particular Festive Event.
Priest – Astronomers stationed at the relevant Line Centre (News Release No. 2, Figure 1 – Part 2 . 3) could give advance warning of the approach of say, Winter Solstice. The High Priest would enter the Sun Temple beforehand to await heliacal rising of the Pleiades (Figure 1: G –E) signalling Solstice Sunrise is imminent. At sunrise the sun’s shadow casts a perfectly straight line from post C, over the centre of Depression 3, across the swept clean, hard clay floor, to strike post G in perfect alignment.
Models show that at the chosen distance between posts the shadow line was absolutely clean cut, extremely accurate and sensitive to the extent that one could see the sun’s shadow approach, align and then pass across gnomon G; the close wall behind reflecting its precise and minute movements. The Shadow Clock left the High Priest in no doubt the exact moment of Summer Solstice – the Day of the Feast of the Sun had arrived.
From a preliminary analysis, it appears that the High Priests were only concerned with three Lunar observations: the Full Moons of the Max. Most Southerly Moonrise, Min. Most Southerly Moonrise and the Equinox Full Moon, each easily observed at night from G – M and L – M and G – Q, respectively. Heliacal risings, tracked in advance by Priest – Astronomers stationed on the Line Centres matrix, would give advance warning to the High Priests in the Sun Temple to take up the appropriate observation stations at Posts A – B – E – F or D.
Readers can follow from Figure 1: the Summer Solstice Sunrise (DSSR) as it passes across the Altar to alight upon the strangely tapered Altar Post, N, or trace the Equinox rays passing over the wall cavity to align precisely between the two frontal Posts, over the Altar and on to gnomon G, or perhaps, the Anti - Zenith Sunrise as it enters the ROP, passes over Depression 2 on its way to G.
RELATIVE CHRONOLOGY
Precession of the Equinoxes limits the life of all ‘horizon’ targets. There are, of course, other astronomical factors which preclude direct dating of the ROP solely by astronomical extrapolation, for example, Posts, Depressions or Projections may be first or second ‘fix’ features. There are also archaeological variables; for example, the ROP cannot be reliably dated from just surface artefacts, even though the date of the artefact may be known.
The Room of the Posts, as presented to Nascodex is at least a “snap shot in time”. We therefore, decided to treat the ROP scenario as contemporaneous and run a chronological check. All azimuthals eminating from the ROP and the LER, (D), were compared against historical ephemeris (Aveni 1972). Azimuths generally fell into the latter part of the Early Intermediate Period of precolumbian ‘Nasca’ - about the beginning of Nasca 8; a date which sits comfortably with that proposed by Prof. Silverman for the 16 whole pots and multitude of Nasca 8 sherds found in the sterile fill. Using SKYMAP PRO software we then fine - tuned all 16 azimuths into sunrise events which collectively gave a ‘best fit’ target date of AD 699.
CONCLUSION
Discovery of a Sun Temple at Cahuachi is a very important step forward and supports Silverman’s persuasive argument that the Ceremonial Centre exhibits very little trace of true Urbanisation, (i.e. there is no evidence for large areas of permanent domestic occupation) but ample evidence in iconography on ritual textiles and painted ceramics, ritual paraphernalia like panpipe fragments, coloured feathers, shells, and offerings of maize and fruit, animal sacrifices, sufficient to define Cahuachi as a periodically occupied Shrine of Pilgrimage (Silverman 1988) and, of course, a Sun Temple was an essential requisite to support the ritual function. Our research confirms the probability that the Room of the Posts operated as a Temple of the Sun during Early Nasca 8 and perhaps, in its present form, witnessed the demise of Cahuachi.
Note: The complete article together with a full analysis of the Sun Temple will be published shortly. Notification will appear on our web-site (www.nascodex.org).
Nascodex acknowledges the Works of Professor Helaine Silverman (Professor of Anthropology, and Chair, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana) in this News Release and express grateful thanks for granting permission to reproduce the Plan of the Room of the Posts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Aveni A.F. 1972 Astronomical Tables Intended for Use in Astro – Archaeological
Studies. American Antiquity. 3. 531 – 540.- Kendall. Ann. (1973) Everyday Life of the Incas. Batsford. (Chap. 9 pp 197 – 200).
- Silverman . H. 1988 Cahuachi: Non-Urban Cultural Complexity on South Coast Peru
Journal of Field Archaeology. 15. (4): 403 - 30.- Silverman H – Proulx D.A. (2002) The Nasca. Blackwell Publishers.
- Zuidema R.T. (1982) Catachillay: The Role of the Pleiades and the Southern Cross and Alpha and Beta Centauri in the Calender of the Incas. Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics. Ed. A.Aveni & G. Urton . pp 203 – 30 New York. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 385.
- Software. SKYMAP PRO.
Subject matter has full copyright protection under Reference INPI 244661. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission from Nascodex.
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