Tag Archives: Archeoastronomy

Cuatro Puertas: a landscape for Stellarium

The esplanade and the four entrances that precede the main cave of Cuatro Puertas archaeological site (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

In an earlier post, we advocated the creation of a repository of Canarian landscapes of archaeological interest, for use in Stellarium. Today we want to break the ice with a landscape prepared by ourselves, corresponding to the archaeological site of Cuatro Puertas, located in Telde, Gran Canaria. This place was declared in 1972 Historical-Artistic Monument by the Spanish State –together with Cueva Pintada at Gáldar– and Property of Cultural Interest by the Government of the Canaries.

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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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The solar eclipse of 1478

Visibility of the solar eclipse happened on July 29th, 1478. Yellow ovals determine the areas in which part of the eclipse took place below the horizon. The blue curve path “flies” over locations from where maximum occultation of the solar apparent surface could be observed (source: Xavier Jubier).

[…] They got into a fortress called the Ansita, which is in the parts of Tirajana. As the Governor knew it, he left with all the people on horseback and on foot that he could take, and went to the said fortress and surrounded it; and he had it surrounded in such a way they came to an agreement to save their lives and keep them from captivity and go to Castile, which were agreed. And the next day the faycán and the other Canarians came out of the fort, and brought them, and became Christians, on which day the Sun made a great eclipse, and afterwards it rained and a great wind blew; and over that island flew many birds that they had never seen before, which were cranes and storks and swallows, and many other birds they do not know their names.[1]MORALES (1978), p. 508. Translated and adapted from old Castilian by PROYECTO TARHA.

This curious passage, at the end of Chapter XXXVII in the Chronicle of the Catholic Monarchs written by Diego de Valera, shortly narrates the end of the conquest of Gran Canaria associating it with an astronomical phenomenon of undoubted transcendence for most of the ancient cultures: a total eclipse of the Sun.

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