Ancient Tombs and Shrines Faced Sun and Stars

April 5, 2004
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer

The sun and stars may have served as critical references for a startlingly diverse
range of ancient builders who constructed chambers to hold the dead and other
religious shrines.

The orientation of thousands of Neolithic tombs erected across Europe and Africa
around 10,000 B.C. were apparently built to face the rising sun, securing the
sun's importance in various human cultures across three countries, two continents
and the Mediterranean islands, according to one astronomy historian. SCIENCE
TUESDAY

Photo: This Neolithic tomb, like thousands of others across Spain, Portugal,
France and North Africa, appears to have been constructed to face the rising sun,
which may have served as a symbol of the afterlife. CREDIT: M.Hoskin.

"I think all these cultures looked on the sunrise as a symbol of hope," said
Michael Hoskin, a historian of astronomy who conducted a study, in an e-mail
interview. "The customs of structure of the tombs vary hugely from region to
region, but the patterns of orientation are very similar".

Hoskins, a historian of astronomy at Churchill College in Cambridge, England, also

found that the Bronze Age sanctuaries of one Spanish island could have once served
as healing centers, though the lack of any written record of the region makes it
impossible to know for sure.

"That they were sanctuaries, whether for healing or otherwise, is clear by the
statues found there and also from the mass of bone fragments and sacrificed
animals that litter them to this day," he said. The sanctuaries, he added, may
have been built with the constellation Centaurus in mind. In Greek mythology, the
centaur Chiron taught the god of medicine.

Hoskin presented his findings on April 2 at the National Astronomy Meeting of the
Royal Astronomical Society at England's Open University.

TOMBS OF THE RISING SUN

The sheer number of Neolithic tombs built with a sun-ward oriented entrances
suggest, if nothing else, that the sun played an important role that coincided
with a person's death, researchers said.

"In studies like this, in which you have a large sample of tombs, you look for
trends," said E.C. Krupp, an archaeoastronomer and director of the Griffith
Observatory in Los Angles, California, adding that it's amazing such structures
can be identified in the first place. "So not only are the dead part of the story,
but the sun is part of the story too."

The Neolithic period, or the Late Stone Age, dates back between 5,000-10,000 years
ago when humans began to take up agriculture, settling down from a more nomadic
hunter-gatherer existence. Communal tombs from that era vary in construction, some
using large rocks while others small, still others containing deep passages. But
all, by necessity, have an entrance through which additional bodies can be
deposited inside.

Hoskin spent 12 years personally cataloging the positions of 2,000 Neolithic

tombs, and researching documented descriptions of some 1,000 others, across
France, Portugal, Spain and North Africa. The entrances of nearly all, he said,
appeared to have built to face the rising or climbing sun at some point during the
year.

In the Alenterejo region of central Portugal, for example, every one of the 177
tombs measured by Hoskin faced sunrise, usually during autumn and early winter,
with a sharp cutoff at the winter solstice.

"All the evidence is consistent with their having aligned their tombs with sunrise
on the day when building started, which is exactly what we know happened commonly
with Christian churches," Hoskin said. "The churches face the rising sun as a
symbol of Christ rising from the dead..no doubt the Neolithic people saw the
rising sun as a symbol of hope of afterlife."

The only exception were some tombs around the small French town of Fontvieille,
where the monuments were built facing sunset, unlike any others found, Hoskin
added.

CENTAUR SANCTUARY

Photo: One of about 30 Bronze Age sanctuaries on the Spanish island Menorca
studied by astronomy historian Michael Hoskin. Built facing the south around 1,000
B.C., they would have had a view of the constellation Centaurus and may have once
been used as healing centers. CREDIT: M. Hoskin.

In a separate study, Hoskin believes he's found some evidence suggesting that the
shrines built on the Spanish island of Menorca around 1,000 B.C. were centers for
healing as well as religious prayer.

His survey of about 30 'taulas,' sanctuaries built during the Menorcan Bronze Age,
found the shrines consistently built with a clear view of the south, some looking
out over the ocean while others sit above open plains. In 1,000 B.C., Menorcan
worshippers would have been able to see the Southern Cross and Centaurus
constellations in the night sky, and if they had a Centaur mythology similar to
the Greeks it's possible the sanctuaries were viewed as a place to seek healing.

"We know that the constellations as viewed by various peoples of the Middle East
and Mediterranean had a great deal in common…there was almost a common pool of
ideas with local variants," Hoskin said. "We do not know much about the
constellations as viewed by the Menorcans, since they were not literate."

But the healing center theory would explain not only the orientation of the
shrines, but also the presence bronze hoofs in the ruins as well as an Egyptian
statue that bears the hieroglyphic inscription: 'I am the god of medicine.'

Hoskin said nothing notable in the sky can be seen from the door of these
sanctuaries today due to the precession of the Earth on its axis.

Even with a written record, Krupp said, it would be difficult to say for certain
what shrines like those of Menorca were used for.

"It implies a certain social organization in the commitment to build the

construction of these monuments, as well as a system of celestial observation,"
Krupp said. "But when you find an astronomical alignment, even you feel very
confident about its intent, its real purpose may not have involved that at all."

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