52 PART 1^ |^ EXPLORING THE SKY
universe are in many cases
lost. Many cultures had no
written language. In other
cases, the written record has
been lost. Dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of beautiful Mayan
manuscripts, for instance,
were burned by Spanish mis-
sionaries who believed that
the books were the work of
Satan. Only four of these
books have survived, and all
four contain astronomical ref-
erences. One contains sophis-
ticated tables that allowed the
Maya to predict the motion of
Venus and eclipses of the
moon. No one will ever know
what was burnt.
Th e fate of the Mayan
books illustrates one reason why histories of astronomy usually
begin with the Greeks. Some of their writing has survived, and
from it you can discover what they thought about the shape and
motion of the heavens.The Astronomy of Greece
Greek astronomy was derived from Babylon and Egypt, but the
Greek philosophers took a new approach. Rather than relying
on religion and astrology, the Greeks proposed a rational
universe whose secrets could be understood through logic
and reason. Before you begin your study of the history ofstory. At noon on the day of the summer solstice, a narrow dag-
ger of sunlight shines across the center of a spiral carved on a cliff
face high above the desert fl oor (■ Figure 4-3). Th e purpose of
the Sun Dagger is open to debate, but similar examples have
been found throughout the American Southwest. It may have
been more a symbolic and ceremonial marker than a precise
calendrical indicator. In any case, it is just one of the many astro-
nomical alignments that ancient people built into their structures
to link themselves with the sky.
Some scholars are examining not ancient structures but
small artifacts made thousands of years ago. Scratches on certain
bone and stone implements follow a pattern that may record the
phases of the moon (■ Figure 4-4). Some scientists contend that
humanity’s fi rst attempts at writing were stimulated by a desire
to record and predict lunar phases.
Archaeoastronomy is uncovering the earliest roots of astron-
omy and simultaneously revealing some of the fi rst human
eff orts at systematic inquiry. Th e most important lesson of
archaeoastronomy is that humans don’t have to be technologi-
cally sophisticated to admire and study the universe. Eff orts to
understand the sky have been part of human cultures for a long
time.
Although the methods of archaeoastronomy can show how
ancient people observed the sky, their thoughts about their
■ Figure 4-3
In the ancient Native American settlement known as Chaco Canyon, New
Mexico, sunlight shines between two slabs of stone high on the side of
440-foot-high Fajada Butte to form a dagger of light on the cliff face. About
noon on the day of the summer solstice, the dagger of light slices through
the center of a spiral pecked into the sandstone.
(NPS Chaco Culture National Historic Park)
High on Fajada Butte,
the Sun Dagger is off
limits to visitors.The spiral pattern is the
size of a dinner plate.■ Figure 4-4
A fragment of a 27,000-year-old mammoth tusk found at Gontzi in Ukraine
contains scribe marks on its edge, simplifi ed in this drawing. These mark-
ings have been interpreted as a record of four cycles of lunar phases.
Although controversial, such fi nds suggest that some of the fi rst human
attempts at recording events in written form were stimulated by astronomi-
cal phenomena.