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Chanquillo
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<h2 id="the-thirteen-towers-solar-observatory">The Thirteen Towers solar observatory</h2> <p>The regularly-spaced thirteen towers of Chankillo were constructed atop the ridge of a low hill running near north to south, forming a "toothed" horizon with narrow gaps at regular intervals. To the east and west investigators designated two possible observation points. From these vantages, the 300m long spread of the towers along the horizon corresponds very closely to the rising and setting positions of the sun over the year,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a> albeit they are not all visible. On the winter solstice, the sun would rise behind the leftmost tower of Chankillo and rise behind each of the towers until it reached the rightmost tower six months later on the summer solstice, marking the passage of time.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a> The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo could be the earliest known observatory in the Americas. Inhabitants of Chankillo would have been able to determine an accurate date, with an error of a day or two, by observing the sunrise or sunset from the correct tower.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16"><sup>16</sup></a> A contemporary site in Chincha Valley, Peru, of the late <a href="/facts/Paracas_culture/jp5QxJ2R">Paracas culture</a>, which also marked the solstice, has recently been examined.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17"><sup>17</sup></a> </p><p> The towers had been known to travellers for 200 years but were not determined to be an astronomical site until 2007 by Iván Ghezzi and Clive Ruggles.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18"><sup>18</sup></a></p>Panorama of Chanquillo <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Acaray/nrgNf8P7">Acaray</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/List_of_archaeoastronomical_sites_by_country/DbP2EFwA">List of archaeoastronomical sites by country</a></li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chanquillo. <ul><li><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q13Pz-R8OuE">3D reconstruction of the site</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.jqjacobs.net/peru/chankillo.html">Chankillo, Peru, Ancient Solar Observatory?</a></li> <li><a href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6408231.stm">Towers point to ancient Sun cult, BBC</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455">Giant Solar Calendar Measures Time, BBC</a></li> <li><a href="https://jqjacobs.net/andes/coast.html">Early Monumental Architecture on the Peruvian Coast</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080513180534/https://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/07-03-01-03.all.html">Yale University article: Peruvian Citadel is Site of Earliest Ancient Solar Observatory in the Americas and slide show </a></li> <li><a href="https://fotostacja.pl/galeria/Podroze/Peru_2010/020_Chankijo_z_lotu_ptaka.jpg.php?locale=en_US">View from the air on the Chankillo site </a></li> <li><a href="https://gigapan.com/gigapans/163784">High-resolution image of the Thirteen Towers</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f9xzq">Wonders of the Universe, Prof. Brian Cox, BBC</a> (may be region locked to UK only)</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Peru 1:100 000, La Caleta Culebras (20-g). IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional - Perú). <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Jenkins, Dilwyn (2003). The Rough Guide to Peru. Rough Guides. p. 295. ISBN 9781843530749. <a href="9781843530749" target="_blank">9781843530749</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Pozorski, Shelia; Pozorski, Thomas; Pozorski, Thomas George (2006). Early Settlement and Subsistence in the Casma Valley, Peru. University of Iowa Press. p. 95. ISBN 9781587294624. <a href="9781587294624" target="_blank">9781587294624</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Gerster, Georg (2005). The Past from Above: Aerial Photographs of Archaeological Sites. Getty Publications. pp. 197. ISBN 9780892368754. <a href="9780892368754" target="_blank">9780892368754</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>"SITIO ARQUEOLOGICO CHANQUILLO" (in Spanish). MINCETUR. Retrieved 2017-06-01. <a href="https://ficha.sigmincetur.mincetur.gob.pe/index.aspx?cod_Ficha=2454" target="_blank">https://ficha.sigmincetur.mincetur.gob.pe/index.aspx?cod_Ficha=2454</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Pozorski, Shelia; Pozorski, Thomas; Pozorski, Thomas George (2006). Early Settlement and Subsistence in the Casma Valley, Peru. University of Iowa Press. p. 95. ISBN 9781587294624. <a href="9781587294624" target="_blank">9781587294624</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>Ghezzi, Ivan; Ruggles, Clive (2007). "Chankillo: A 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru". Science. 315 (5816): 1239–1243. Bibcode:2007Sci...315.1239G. doi:10.1126/science.1136415. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17332405. <a href="/wiki/Bibcode_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Bibcode_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>Ghezzi, Ivan (2006). "Religious Warfare at Chankillo". In Isbell, William H.; Silverman, Helaine (eds.). Andean Archaeology III. Springer US. pp. 67–84. doi:10.1007/0-387-28940-2_4. ISBN 9780387289397. <a href="9780387289397" target="_blank">9780387289397</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>DK (2010-06-21). Space: A Visual Encyclopedia. Penguin. p. 209. ISBN 9780756666286. <a href="9780756666286" target="_blank">9780756666286</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>Ghezzi, Ivan; Ruggles, Clive (2007). "Chankillo: A 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru". Science. 315 (5816): 1239–1243. Bibcode:2007Sci...315.1239G. doi:10.1126/science.1136415. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17332405. <a href="/wiki/Bibcode_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Bibcode_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:11"><p>BBC/Open University documentary, Broadcast March 2011, Downloadable demonstration of Towers at sunrise. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:12"><p>Collyns, Dan (28 July 2021). "'No parallels': 2,300-year-old solar observatory awarded UNESCO World Heritage status". The Guardian. London, United Kingdom. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2021-07-28. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/chankillo-oldest-solar-observatory-in-the-americas-awarded-unesco-world-heritage-status" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/chankillo-oldest-solar-observatory-in-the-americas-awarded-unesco-world-heritage-status</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:13"><p>Ghezzi, Ivan (2006). "Religious Warfare at Chankillo". In Isbell, William H.; Silverman, Helaine (eds.). Andean Archaeology III. Springer US. pp. 67–84. doi:10.1007/0-387-28940-2_4. ISBN 9780387289397. <a href="9780387289397" target="_blank">9780387289397</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:14"><p>BBC/Open University documentary, Broadcast March 2011, Downloadable demonstration of Towers at sunrise. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:15"><p>"Archaeoastronomy". <a href="https://hila.webcentre.ca/projects/chankillo/" target="_blank">https://hila.webcentre.ca/projects/chankillo/</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:16"><p>"Chankillo". <a href="https://www.wmf.org/project/chankillo" target="_blank">https://www.wmf.org/project/chankillo</a> <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:17"><p>Stanish, C.; Tantaleán, H.; Nigra, B. T. & Griffin, L. (2014). "A 2,300-year-old architectural and astronomical complex in the Chincha Valley, Peru". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111 (20): 7218–23. doi:10.1073/pnas.1406501111. JSTOR 23774157. PMC 4034249. PMID 24799703. S2CID 21842863. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034249" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4034249</a> <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:18"><p>Atwood, Roger. " "Solar Observatory at Chankillo, Peru." Archaeology. Volume 61 Number 1, January/February 2008. https://www.archaeology.org/0801/topten/solar_observatory.html. <a href="https://www.archaeology.org/0801/topten/solar_observatory.html" target="_blank">https://www.archaeology.org/0801/topten/solar_observatory.html</a> <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>