Monthly Archives: December 2016

The Essentials (IX): Fernán Guerra, the man who knew too much

Location of the old manor houses in Teguise, Lanzarote. The streets of the so-called Gran Aldea witnessed the clashes among the neighbors and the henchmen of Inés Peraza and Diego García de Herrera (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

[…] the King […] had ordered him, among other words, to come another day, in the wee hours, to the quarter of the fat bell, through Xerez wicket, to speak with Their Highnesses, and that no one should see him nor take another person with him; […] and when he returned […] he said how His Highness had asked him for the conquest of this island, before a secretary of His; and that he had given it all in writing, and what population and places there were on the island, and the size of the island; and how many people would have to come from Castile, to conquer it and place it under the obedience of Their Highnesses on this island, and what ships would be necessary, and that everything was given in writing; and that […] His Highness had asked him if he knew any ship masters and that he would bring Him some […][1]RUMEU (1990, pp. 677-678). This translation by PROYECTO TARHA..

Let us clarify that this title, sort of a Hollywood one, is not that of the essential we want to show today, but the story contained in it, worthy of a screenplay, justifies this liberty.

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Using Stellarium in Archaeoastronomy

Canopus’ heliacal rising simulation (circle right above the horizon) in 1478 seen from the coordinates of modern Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city. Simulation landscape does not correspond to the real location (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

In our previous post we showed two videosimulations of the solar eclipse that took place on April 29th, 1478. This time we shall discuss a piece of software used to perform those simulations: Stellarium.

Stellarium is multiplatform, free software which works as a planetarium. As such, we can use it to simulate the position of celestial bodies visible from any geographic location on Earth at a specific time and date, accurately enough even for astronomical events two or three millenniums before our Era, which makes it very valuable in the field of archaeoastronomy.

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