All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

10,000-Year-Old Telescopes? Ancient Tombs May Have Enhanced Visibility of Astronomical Phenomena

10,000-Year-Old Telescopes? Ancient Tombs May Have Enhanced Visibility of Astronomical Phenomena

Print

Could ancient megalithic passage graves in Portugal dating as far back as 8000 BC have doubled as astronomical observatories? A team of researchers studying the ancient tombs thinks so, and have even suggested that the megaliths provided optical opportunities for the ancient observers, effectively acting as ‘telescopes’ without lenses.

The idea behind the researchers’ speculations is that the passages of the tombs, which show just a small patch of sky on the horizon, would have been dark. Anyone sitting inside them would have had an early view of rising stars. The reduced ambient light in the passages around twilight would have made the stars more visible to the naked eye. Telescopes did not come until much later (1608 AD), but ancient observers may have used the stone constructions to enhance their visibility of astronomical phenomena.

In particular, says undergrad Kieran Simcox of Nottingham Trent University in England, the ancient people may have been trying to get an early glimpse of Aldebaran, a bright red star in the constellation Taurus.

That star might have played a role in moving herds and flocks to higher grazing every summer. It’s possible, the researchers say, that herding the flocks to higher ground may have coincided with the star’s first annual rising in morning twilight. Around 4000 BC, Aldebaran rose for the first time each year around the end of April of beginning of May, “so it would be a very good, very precise calendrical marker for them to know when it was time to move into the higher grounds,” Dr. Fabio Silva of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David told the Guardian.

Earth’s moon occults Aldebaran

Earth’s moon occults Aldebaran (Wikimedia Photo/Christina Irakleous)

Dr. Silva and Daniel Brown, also of Notthingham Trent University, were the advisers for Mr. Simcox’s project.

The passage tombs, which consist of one or more chambers and a corridor covered in earth or stone, are known all over Europe. Prehistoric peoples placed their deceased community members in the tombs between 6000 and 2000 BC, the Neolithic era - some of the tombs feature paintings point to their purpose. Two famous passage graves are Maeshowe in Scotland and Newgrange in Ireland.

The famous passage tomb of Newgrange

The famous passage tomb of Newgrange (public domain)

Inner chambers of the tombs, which are known as dolmens, were graves for the deceased (at least later on), while outer chambers may have been used to conduct death rites or other rituals, the researchers say.

Drs. Silva and Brown told Discover Magazine: “These passage graves exhibit elements suggesting that initiation rituals, also known as rites of passage, might have been conducted within the megalithic chamber.”

Mr. Simcox told Discover that some literature speculates that viewing stars from passage tombs would make them more visible, but the idea needs research. The team intends to do just that—study the rising of faint stars to see if they are more visible from the passages.

The orientation of the tombs suggests that they are aligned to offer a view of Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus.

The orientation of the tombs suggests that they are aligned to offer a view of Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. Photograph: University of Wales Trinity Saint David/Nottingham Trent University.

For many years, researchers and scholars have been speculating whether prehistoric and ancient stone monuments around the world were used for astronomical and calendrical purposes, now they are getting closer to understanding just how they did this.

Top image: Dolmens or passage graves like this one, Anta da Orca, in Portugal, may have been simple star observatories. (Photo by Alta Falisa/Wikimedia Commons)

By Mark Miller

 

Comments

This doesn't sound correct to me either. The mounts may have had a religious purpose, but it is not likely to be for astronomy, they are sealed. I think it more likely that they were used for food storage (my own view). Life is much more fragile at this time, a bad harvest would hugely impact the population. Having sealed store rooms, is a way of preserving food stuffs, the temperature generally colder and regulated throughout the year. Even in medieval times, storage pits were used for refrigeration.

The new grange site is interesting, there is Minoan iconography on the entrance stone. The mythology of Ireland and Britain, suggests waves of invasions through the pillars of Hercules (straits of Gibraltar), this may suggest there is a very ancient trade in metals. Strangely there are lots of these mounds on Islands (producing metals), that may needed to support the miners throughout the year and the ruling house in times of local crop failure.

As John Oakley pointed out, we do seem to have a problem. The nature of this problem, current on these pages and in published funded writings elsewhere relates the fact that there are observeable lights in the sky at night at certain positions with odd buildings on earth, and that these buildings on earth constructed usually for reasons and purposes for which there is evidence, are always aligned to look at certain stars. Or that the passage tombs face the position of the Winter Solstice for arcane and religious reasons, instead of being conveniently situated to give the most light at the darkest part of the year, in the same way we enjoy south facing sunlight and align entire neighbourhoods to benefit , with their solar panels, in this way.

I feel rather that there are certain observations such folk have not ever made, and should be making, before they base entire books costing the destruction of oxygenating forests to print to the detriment of everyone's health as well as our sense of logic, and well, sanity.

These certain observations are, for example that often when observed during its crescent period, that there is a star positioned inside the horns of the crescent moon, and that the 3 wise men were guided by one of these stars that moved towards Bethlehem. So, as anyone does incountries where the heavens are venerated by the believer as a source of, (cough-Illumination!) it might be an idea, and a good one to test these observed phenomena on site yourselves, before concluding anything, and certainly the orientation/fixed star hypotheses. The Truth IS out there: it is certainly not in a book a university paper, or a computer screen, so......

To put it bluntly, this is ludicrous .

I'm just trying to picture this theory. I'm sitting in a passageway all alone, in pitch blackness, I'm in the middle of no-where, wild animals prowling around in the night, heard, but unseen by my eye. I'm completely aware that in the total blackness behind me are a number of dead people, and apparently I want to look at stars coming into view on the horizon? No, sorry, not for me, and probably not for quite a few other people either.

Mark Miller's picture

Mark

Mark Miller has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and is a former newspaper and magazine writer and copy editor who's long been interested in anthropology, mythology and ancient history. His hobbies are writing and drawing.

 
Next article