Skyscapes

PREFACE

Meaning and Intent in Ancient Skyscapes – An Andean Perspective

J. McKim Malville

The Search for Meaning

The papers in this volume deal mostly with prehistoric archaeoastronomy in the Old World, for which there is little or no ethnographic or ethnohistoric material that can assist in the interpretation of findings. This lack was initially contrasted with the situation in Mesoamerica for which there was rich ethnographic information and led to the distinction between Old World and New World archaeoastronomy, initially codified by Aveni (1989) as green (European) versus brown (American) archaeoastronomy.

That distinction is less cogent today, as archaeoastronomy in the Americas has expanded into areas and time slots where there is also a lack of ethnographic material, such as Cahokia (Illinois), Chaco Canyon (New Mexico), and Peru. For example, the archaeologist Steve Lekson (2008) has vigorously argued that the Chaco Canyon culture was an unsuccessful experiment, which was abandoned by the ancestors of today’s Puebloan peoples, and therefore one cannot use Puebloan ethnography to understand the nature of Chacoan culture. In the case of Peru, millennia of pre-Inca Andean culture lie far beyond the reach of the Spanish Chroniclers and their writings. The ethnographic record is similarly mute and one must rely upon thorough investigations of the archaeological record to probe cultural context and meaning.

An ever-present question in cultural astronomy and archaeoastronomy is why were events in the heavens so powerful and meaningful to ancient cultures that they caused the investment of energy and wealth in the construction of stone structures aligned to astronomical phenomena. The ethnographic approach known as thick descriptions of human behavior, championed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973, 1983), can help us in our search for meaning contained in ancient skyscapes. Thick description emphasizes the emic (as opposed to etic) significance of social action and seeks an explanation. Applied to archaeoastronomy, thick descriptions should lead to using astronomical markers as signifiers of processes and meaning within that culture. As Geertz (1983, 58) comments, The trick is to figure out what the devil they think they are up to. Thick description is clearly a task, at least as delicate, if a bit less magical, as putting oneself into some else’s skin. Geertz’s (1983, 50).

To reach an understanding of those cultural processes that manifest as astronomical alignments, we need a multi-disciplinary approach. Limiting ourselves only to astronomy will never fully reveal the cultural complexity of a site. Not only must we work with our archaeologist colleagues, but we need to collaborate, when possible, with cultural anthropologists, linguists, ethno-historians, and even paleo-hydrologists. Furthermore, archaeoastronomers need to investigate multiple aspects of the archaeological record, even if they do not contain obvious astronomical elements. In his introduction to the proceedings of the Oxford IX conference in Lima (Peru), Ruggles (2011, 7) alludes to this kind of a holistic research programme: … the archaeoastronomer not only has to focus on broader cultural questions but also has to have sufficient genuine interest in these broader questions not to become demotivated if the data start to produce non-astronomical answers. In a recent paper Silva has mirrored this by arguing for a stronger archaeological and cultural contextualization of archaeoastronomical work, something he called skyscape archaeology (2014, 25).

Different Ontologies

Meaning and intent embedded in ancient skyscapes may reveal a totally different understanding of reality, a different ontology. The so-called ontological turn in anthropology can provide new tools in our search for meaning (Henare et al. 2007). It involves a movement away from the assumption that there is one world, but many worldviews, to multiple worlds that are fundamentally different from each other. Such a program should not be shocking to astronomers and physicists, who regularly deal with phenomena in quantum mechanics that are absolutely impossible to understand on the basis of our everyday reality (Barad 2007; Pickering 1984). Quarks, time dilation, strings, curved space-time, and black holes lead to universes that are often shockingly different from our everyday world. Unless physicists had been willing to abandon classical physics, we would today face a huge collection of totally unexplainable phenomena.

The remainder of this preface will illustrate how an understanding of a different ontology, such as the Andean concept of a huaca, can help assess and feed into the interpretation of the archaeological record and the ancient skyscapes of prehistoric Peru. It is to be hoped that this approach can be similarly useful in the interpretation of the prehistoric skyscapes in the Old World.

Andean Huacas

The sculptural modifications of natural rocks in the Andean world, known as huacas, appear to demonstrate the presence of a different ontology (Fig. 0.1). According to our understanding of huacas, coming from the ethnohistoric record, these are objects that blur the distinction between animate and inanimate, people and things, living and non-living (Bray 2009, 2014). Huacas were thought to speak, hear, and communicate, both among themselves and with humans. They possessed extraordinary powers to effect change and provide advice as oracles. In their capacity as nonhuman persons, they were clothed and fed, consulted for advice, fought over, and kidnapped by enemies. Young women were married to stone huacas, who then had sons and daughters.

Fig. 0.1: The carved Huaca of Piedra Cansada near Cusco.

Most of the huacas were associated with flowing water, which played a role in bringing them to life through the process known as camay (Bray 2009; Salomon and Urioste 1991; Malville 2009). Camay was a profoundly biological metaphor, in which moving water brought life out of inanimate matter embedded in the earth, such as a seed. The hydrological cycle, as envisioned by Andean myth, started from snow, glaciers, rain, and mist. Water moved across the earth into the ocean, where it was carried aloft by the celestial llama constellation and returned to the land. For agricultural communities the sun would have been recognized as an equally necessary agent of animation. While this process is distinctly an Andean myth, it is not unreasonable that agricultural communities around the world would have imagined that the combination of flowing water, earth, and sun resulted in the animation of previously inert matter.

The Torreon of Machu Picchu

One of the major huacas of Machu Picchu is the large rock, the top of which is surrounded by the curved wall of the Torreon (Fig. 0.2). The lower portion of the rock contains the sculptured cave, named the Royal Mausoleum by Hiram Bingham. The major water channel in Machu Picchu makes a significant detour toward the vicinity of the Torreon. The nature of the detour suggests intention to animate the huaca, through camay (Malville 2014a; Ziegler and Malville 2013). The cave is illuminated at June solstice by the light of the rising sun, and within it there are niches for mummies, carved non-functional steps symbolic of ascent across the worlds of the cosmos, and elegant stonework. A window of the Torreon allows the sun at June solstice to illuminate the top of the rock, which contains a shaped edge, which is oriented to the sun on that day. Dearborn and White (1982) established that the shaped edge lies within two arc-minutes of the rising position of the sun on June solstice and speculated that the shadow of a string holding a plumb bob suspended in the window would have provided a device for determining the date of June solstice. The shape of the rock and the location of the window does not allow a direct sighting outward of the sun. The use of plumb bob to establish solstice would have been unique in Inca culture. Furthermore, it would have been unnecessary because the serrated north-eastern horizon provides satisfactory markers of the position of June solstice sunrise. An interpretation more in keeping with Andean traditions is that the north-eastern window of the Torreon was not designed for an astronomer-priest to look out, but for the sun to look inward, touch, and animate the rock.

What does it mean? The rock, illuminated by the sun on top with a cave is similar to Machu Picchu’s dominating peak of Huayna Picchu. Both appear to represent a cosmic mountain, axis mundi, and movement across the worlds.

Sun Doors

Near the Torreon there are two double-jamb doorways. One establishes entry into a sacred area, but the other does not fit the accepted interpretations of such doorways. Doublejamb doorways, i.e. doors within doors, had a special importance in the Inca world. They established sacred and restricted areas into which only certain elites could enter. Machu Picchu contains 11 such doorways: four are associated with elite residential areas and six provide entry to restricted sacred areas. A double-jamb doorway some 80 m north of the principal entrance provides an intriguing puzzle. Instead of controlling entry into a restricted space, it faces away from the entrance, toward June solstice sunrise, toward an azimuth of approximately 63.5°, similar to the orientation of the double-jamb doorway of Llactapata, five kilometres to the west of Machu Picchu. The Corichancha of Cusco, also faces June solstice with a similar orientation (Fig. 0.3). A stone lined channel leads from the door of Llactapata toward the sacred plaza of Machu Picchu. Behind that doorway is neither spring nor sacred area, just the hillside. All three double-jamb doorways appear to be structures for the sun to enter, perhaps to illuminate and animate objects that once lay beyond.

Moray

The great sculptured pits of Moray were once interpreted as agricultural research stations built by the Inca to adapt plants to the harsh conditions of the altiplano (Fig. 0.4). The possible differences in temperature and humidity at different levels were thought to correspond to different growing conditions. As an agricultural station, it would have been unique in the Inca world. Recent studies on Moray by the Wright Paleohydrological Institute (Wright et al. 2011) have provided definitive evidence that the basins could not have functioned as an agricultural research station. Due to evaporative cooling on all terraces, there is no significant temperature differences between terraces during the rainy seasons or when it was irrigated. Furthermore, water channels were designed to feed water to drop structures only near the southern end of the basins, and water would have had to flow uphill to reach the northern portions of the terraces.

The precise and elegant terracing of these natural pits suggest they were much more than a research station, but that they were huacas, animated by the act of shaping, flowing water, and illumination by sunlight. Instead of carving a rock that thrust itself into the sky, these basins were carved into the earth. In addition to being huacas, the basins may have functioned as immense ushnus which, in some cases, were holes in the ground into which offerings to Pachamama were poured (Staller 2008). Ceremonies intended to encourage rainfall and bountiful harvests, may have taken place when falling rain or water released from its reservoirs flowed downward into the basins. Stairs symmetrically placed about the water channels provided the means for ritual movement downward and upward. A dramatic public ceremony may also have occurred on the days of the zenith sun, when terraces would cast no shadows, and light of the sun would pass directly into the earth. A resident of the nearby town of Misminay reported the belief that during Inca times the pits were lined with gold and silver plates, which, if true, would have brought the great pits alive with light.

Intent and Intentionality in Prehistoric Peru

The absence of ethnohistory of prehistoric sites does not preclude learning something about intent. Repetition, patterns in the landscape, and redundancies can provide hints of continuities within the culture. Architectural symmetries can be powerful statements about the intent of the builders. Perhaps there has been too much concern for statistical testing of intentionality of astronomical features of prehistoric sites for which there is no ethnohistory (see Silva 2014 for a similar argument in European prehistoric archaeoastronomy). The intent of the people should be more interesting than tests for intentionality of a particular astronomical orientation.

The Casma Valley in Northern Peru was the scene of extensive construction of ceremonial centers with ascending platforms, plazas, and U-shaped structures oriented to the solstices (Pozorski 1987, 2002, 2012). Sechin Alto, contains the largest artificial mound in the Americas with a monumental stairway oriented to June solstice sunrise. Of the thirteen major sites in the valley ten have orientations to the solstice sunrises (four to December and six to June solstice). The most prominent symbolism of these temples is that of ascent upward, movement from earth (or underworld) to the heavens.

One of the most extensively investigated sites is Chankillo, with a fortress, thirteen towers with their stairways, and major alignments to December solstice sunrise by U-shaped ceremonial building and walls. In addition to the possibility of ritual performances in its three plazas at June solstice sunset, the thirteen towers may have served as successively higher platforms, similar to most of the other temples of the Casma Valley. These platforms have stairs on both sides, except for the highest which has a stairway only on its north side, indicating that it was the final destination for upward ritual movement. Ghezzi and Ruggles (2007, 2011) have suggested that the thirteen towers functioned as a calendrical device, for which there is no precedent in the Casma Valley. The two locations where calendrical information could have been obtained are unremarkable and not in the major plazas of Chankillo. Based upon our understanding of the continuity within the culture of the Casma Valley, that hypothesis must be considered suspect (Malville 2011, Malville 2014b).

Fig. 0.2: The torreon of Machu Picchu at June Solstice (photo courtesy of Clive Ruggles).

Fig. 0.3: Sun Doors: double-jamb doorways at Llactapata (left) and Machu Picchu (right).

Fig. 0.4: The huaca of Moray (photo courtesy of Tore Lomsdalen).

It is worth noting that the Spanish Chroniclers did not know about the platforms and mounds of the Casma Valley. They were clearly unaware of Machu Picchu, which was not rediscovered until 1911 by Hiram Bingham. Llactapata was also unknown to the Spanish, rediscovered only in 2003 (Malville et al. 2006). Likewise, the great basins of Moray were unknown to the Spanish and were first photographed by Shipee and Johnson in 1932 (Wright et al. 2011). Only extensive measurements of temperature, hydrology, and astronomy at Moray have made it possible to develop and test interpretative hypotheses. Considering the vast span of time included in the Andean culture area, most of the archaeological record of Peru is lacking in ethnographic or ethnohistoric documentation. Yet, the techniques of skyscape archaeology (Silva 2014; Henty 2014) utilizing strong archaeological contextualization combined with Geertzian thick descriptions have made it possible to develop hypotheses about meaning and intent in these cultures.

Fig. 0.5: The towers of Chankillo.

References

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Bray, T. (2009) An Archaeological Perspective on the Andean Concept of Camaquen: Thinking Through Late Pre-Columbian Ofrendas and Huacas. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3), 357–66.

Bray, T. (2014) The Archaeology of Wak’as. Denver: University Press of Colorado.

Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Geertz, C. (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.

Ghezzi, I. and Ruggles C. (2007) Chankillo: A 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru. Science 315, 1239–1243.

Ghezzi, I. and Ruggles C. (2011) The Social and Ritual Context of Horizon Astronomical Observations at Chankillo. In: C. Ruggles (ed) Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges between Cultures, Proceedings of International Astronomy Union Symposium 278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 144–153.

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Malville, J. M., Thomson, H. and Ziegler, G. (2006) The Sun Temple of Llactapata and the Ceremonial Neighbourhood of Machu Picchu. In: T. Bostwick and B. Bates (eds) Viewing the Sky Through Past and Present Cultures. Phoenix: Pueblo Grande Museum, Phoenix, 327–329.

Malville, J. M. (2009) Animating the Inanimate: Camay and Astronomical Huacas of Peru. In: J. A. Rubiño-Martín, J. A. Belmonte, F. Prada, and A. Alberdi (eds) Cosmology Across Cultures. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 261–266.

Malville, J. M. (2011) Astronomy and Ceremony at Chankillo: An Andean Perspective. In: C. Ruggles (ed) Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy: Building Bridges between Cultures, Proceedings of International Astronomy Union Symposium 278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 154–161.

Malville, J. M. (2014a) Astronomy of Inca Royal Estates II: Machu Picchu. In: C. Ruggles (ed) Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Heidelberg: Springer, 879-891.

Malville, J. M. (2014b) Pre-Inca Astronomy in Peru. In: C. Ruggles (ed) Handbook of Archaeo-astronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Heidelberg: Springer, 795–806.

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1

The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology: An Introduction

Fabio Silva

"sky·scape noun      \ˈskīˌskāp\

1 : a part of the sky with outlined terrestrial objects that can be comprehended in a single view […]

2 : a picture that includes an extensive view of the sky"

(MWD 2004)

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition above stems from the art world, where skyscape paintings such as Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (Fig. 1.1) have become famous. Van Gogh’s oil painting shows a distant mountainous landscape, a small town nearby with a cypress tree partially restricting the view towards the left. Above, a crescent moon and several other lights, depicting stars, illuminate the setting and are disturbed only by a whirlwind of cloud in the centre of the canvas.

Fig. 1.1: Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art., New York, USA/Bridgeman Images.

Van Gogh’s skyscape is as realistic as it is filtered by the perceptual lens of the artist: The mountains in the Starry Night are the same Alpilles that Van Gogh could see from his cell window […]. From that base in observed reality, Van Gogh’s imagination took hold. But it was fed by sources in both nature and art (Soth 1986, 303). Several scholars have tried to identify the depicted constellation, with both Aries and Cygnus being likely, but not certain, candidates (Boime 1984; Whitney 1986). Soth, on the other hand, believes that the depicted stars are not realistic but instead that their meaning should be sought in the conceptual and circumstantial history of the painting. She concluded that Van Gogh unconsciously merged his desire to both paint a skyscape as an image of consolation, and paint the biblical episode of the consolation of Gethsemane, into his 1889 painting. "Unable to paint The Agony in the Garden, Van Gogh projected its emotional content onto nature and created a sublimated image of his deepest religious feelings. […] The blue for Christ and the citron-yellow for the angel became the sky, and the stars and moon. (Soth 1986, 312). As Soth put it, At its most profound level, the Starry Night is Van Gogh’s Agony." (1986, 312).

This skyscape painted by Van Gogh is no different from those painted, sometimes metaphorically and other times quite literally, by other cultures, both past and present. Different cultures might have access to the same sky but see completely different skyscapes. As an example, astronomers have grouped the visible stars into readily identifiable shapes that are known as constellations. The modern western constellations are based on those catalogued by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE (Ptolemy, 1998), though some might be even older (e.g. Frank and Bengoa 2001). However,