Friday, July 28, 2006

Hohokam Sun Watch Station

by JimP
Yes, this is a rock pile post. Please bear with me as I give you a little background.

Five minutes from my new house here in Arizona is a mountain range called the White Tanks. The White Tanks are home to some remarkable petroglyphs. In fact, they're so numerous in one area they call it, "Petroglyph Plaza." Just recently, astronomers announced their findings that one of the petroglyphs quite likely depicts the supernova of 1006 AD. Click here for more information about that find.

That would not be the first petroglyph believed to depict a major astronomical event here in Arizona. Another site is strongly suspected to depict the supernova of 1054 AD. Click here to read about that one.

But researchers have also been finding, "Sun Watch Stations," dotted around the landscape. I visited one at Papago Park in Phoenix about a half hour from my house. It's called Hole in the Rock. A rock pile is involved. Click here for preliminary findings.

More study of the site is needed. As soon as temperatures are tolerable I'll take my camera and snap some photos of the rock pile, and try to get better depictions of the various alignments. I can say that in this part of the desert it is highly unusual to find the concentration of rocks you'll see in the photo at the above link.

2 comments :

pwax said...

I found rock piles in a number of places northwest of Phoenix when I was there.

JimP said...

How far northwest Peter? Were you in Wickenberg? Closer to Phoenix? Or farther up in the high country? I live northwest of Phoenix in Surprise.

We're having real troubles with grave robbers and other thieves. In one case, two guys loaded a boulder with a 1,000-year-old petroglyph onto their truck to bring it home and display it in their yard. They were caught and the only punishment for such a crime is a $300 fine.