Article: Putting an old site in a new light; Yale grad student shows Peruvian hill was solar observatory 2,300 years ago

The sloping 900-foot-long mound rises from the flats of Chankillo, Peru, like the back of an enormous, ancient alligator with 13 ridges.

Most archeologists over the years were preoccupied with a circular fortified temple at the site and did not give the nubby hill much thought.

Not until Yale anthropology graduate student Ivan Ghezzi measured the hill and watched the sun rise at the vernal equinox did the hill reveal its real purpose.

It is apparently the oldest known solar observatory, used 2,300 years ago by a sun-worshipping and bellicose people in religious and other rituals.

The ridge covers the entire solar year and was created 500 years before Mayan monuments of similar purpose -- ...

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