Comment: Why we must save our astronomical heritage

16 January 2009 by Clive Ruggles

Magazine issue 2691.

THE Acropolis in Athens, the elaborate temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and the stone statues of tiny Easter Island, home for 1000 years to the most isolated human community on Earth. These are among the 878 World Heritage Sites (both cultural and natural) protected by UNESCO as places of "outstanding universal value" to humankind. As such, each contains extraordinary creative masterpieces from lost cultural traditions. And each represents a vestige of the past that stands out as a powerful source of inspiration to people across the planet.

Yet one aspect of our cultural heritage - astronomy - is woefully under-represented on the World Heritage List. To those of us in the modern, lit-up world, the first time that we see a truly dark night sky can be breathtaking. But until relatively recently, most people experienced this spectacle every clear night, wherever they lived. If we want to appreciate the beliefs and practices reflected in the architecture of ancient temples and tombs, we cannot ignore their relationship to the sky.

The World Heritage List does contain a few ancient sites and monuments with links to the sky, but these were selected because of their broader archaeological and cultural significance. They include the Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, aligned so the sun shines in only for a few minutes after sunrise on the shortest days of the year. This shows that people 5000 years ago saw a link between ancestors and the sun.

There's also Stonehenge in Wiltshire, UK, with its well-known connection to midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset; Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, featuring the Fajada Butte "sun dagger" that splits a spiral carving at noon on the summer solstice; and several pre-Columbian sites in Mexico, including Chichen Itza, Monte Alban and Palenque. The Mesoamerican preoccupation with solar, lunar and planetary cycles and conjunctions is manifested in inscriptions, alignments, and the existence of "zenith tubes" down which the light of the sun shone at noon on the two days in the year when it passed vertically overhead.

Despite these examples, there have never been any clear guidelines for nominating World Heritage Sites based on their relationship to astronomy, and this leaves many key sites vulnerable to neglect and irreversible damage. To try and fix this, UNESCO is now encouraging member states to put forward astronomical nominations, and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be working with UNESCO throughout 2009 to come up with clear criteria for judging the merits of these sites. It is a fitting task for the International Year of Astronomy, which celebrates the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first use of a telescope to gain an unprecedented view of the sky.

Full article here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126915.700-comment-why-we-must-save-our-astronomical-heritage.html