Skywatchers, Shamans & Kings , livre ebook

S KYWATCHERS , S HAMANS K INGS
ALSO BY E. C. KRUPP
Beyond the Blue Horizon: Myths and Legends of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets
Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations
Archaeoastronomy and the Roots of Science (edited)
In Search of Ancient Astronomies (edited)
FOR CHILDREN
The Moon and You
The Big Dipper and You
The Comet and You
S KYWATCHERS , S HAMANS K INGS
A STRONOMY AND THE A RCHAEOLOGY OF P OWER
E. C. Krupp

WILEY POPULAR SCIENCE

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 1997 by E. C. Krupp. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krupp, E. C. (Edwin C.)

Skywatchers, shamans, and kings : astronomy and the archaeology of power / E.C. Krupp.

p. cm. - (Wiley popular science series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-47I-04863-I (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-471-32975-4 (paper : alk. paper)

I. Astronomy, Ancient. 2. Astronomy. Prehistoric. I. Title.
II. Series: Wiley popular science.
QBI6.K83 1996
520 .93-dc20 96-12997
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for
Dr. Robert J. Chambers and Dr. George O. Abell, who piloted us through the universe with only the sky for a net
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Certainly some power was at work in bringing this book to the shelves of stores and libraries and to the hands of its readers. An honest acknowledgment of the real source of that power must inevitably track it past the author and back to those who influenced and sustained the effort. What power any of us may possess inevitably comes from somewhere else-genetics, friendship, education, and experience. Understandably, then, I acknowledge the support and assistance of family, friends, teachers, and colleagues.
Celestial power is only understood through the symbols that assert its presence and influence, and for that reason I have found it useful-actually, essential-to seek audiences with the sky in the cultural corridors of its power on earth. This means traveling to monuments and museums where relics of celestial power may still be seen. I have, by this time, seen more than 1,300 ancient and prehistoric sites in person. Not all of them involve the sky or reveal our ancestors interaction with it, but enough of them possess celestial connotations to eradicate any doubt about the influence that zone of our environment has had upon us.
Getting to such places-Inner Mongolia, the indigenous lands of Chiles Mapuche Indians, off-trail ruins in Mesoamerica, or the landmine-encircled temples of Cambodia-isn t always easy, and I have had lots of help. Yvette Cloutier, who owns and operates ETA/Piuma Travel has, for many years now, taken my impossible itineraries seriously and gotten me where I need to go. Likewise, Mary Dell Lucas, the risk-taking tour-organizing proprietor of Far Horizons, has also found the untraveled paths through the jungles and the mountains and the deserts on behalf of my curiosity. Many of these trips have been developed under the auspices of U.C.L.A. Extension, and in particular, Dr. Eve Haberfield and Karen Prinzmetal have encouraged and defended the unlikely destinations these expeditions have included. These field study tours provide opportunities for research. They are subsidized by an audience of adventurous travelers who accept adversity as a reasonable price to pay for uncommon experience and firsthand knowledge. We offered the first of these programs in 1976, and all of those who have enrolled and traveled with me over the years have my gratitude, sympathy, and respect.
Ted Pedas has continued to invite me to lecture for passengers on the unconventional cruise programs he contrives for Sun Line and Orient Lines. Without his willingness to include me in the successful rendezvous with the October 24, 1995, total solar eclipse in the South China Sea, I would not have been able to walk the grounds of Angkor Wat in time for this book, and I would have missed the meaning and importance of the cosmic metaphors of the Khmer royal temples.
I am also indebted to many professionals who, sharing this interest in ancient astronomy, have also helped me hit the road. Dr. Rolf Sinclair, Dr. Ray White, and Dr. George Coyne enhanced my understanding of ancient Rome through their invitation to participate in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, a conference hosted by the Vatican Observatory in summer, 1994. A little earlier, Dr. Melvin L. Fowler, with assistance from the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society, got me back to west-central Illinois for the May 10, 1994, annular eclipse of the sun and for an update on recent research through participation in a special symposium, The Ancient Skies and Sky Watchers of Cahokia: Woodhenges, Eclipses, and Cahokian Cosmology. In spring, 1992, Stanislaw Iwaniszewski, Arnold Lebeuf, and Mariusz Ziolkowski welcomed me to Poland as part of the international symposium, Time and Astronomy at the Meeting of Two Worlds, and so kept me in touch with developments that might have otherwise eluded me.
Von Del Chamberlain s books and research papers are rich sources of information on American Indian sky lore, and his presentations at conferences are consistently informative and entertaining. The greatest pleasure, however, is hiking and riding horses with Von Del to the hard-to-get-to sites of the American Southwest. I have benefited from his knowledge of and enthusiasm for the land and its sky on three such campaigns and look forward to more.
For almost two decades now, I have been empowered by the advice and company of experts on ancient skywatching who also double as friends. Professor Anthony F. Aveni continues to drive the field forward through his commitment to genuine interdisciplinary study John B. Carlsons recent insights on Mesoamerican astronomy reflect only a fraction of his varied interests as Director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy. David Dearborn came back, as near as anyone I know, from the dead to inject life and enthusiasm into the research community. He and the late LeRoy Doggett, beyond their own research, invested editorial energy in the quarterly news bulletin, issued at solstices and equinoxes by the Center for Archaeoastronomy. Alexander Marshack, well-known for his work on upper paleolithic symbolic systems, transformed archaeological perceptions of our Ice Age ancestors. He has readily encouraged my attempts to synthesize what is really at work in the cultural expression of celestial themes from the Stone Age to the New Age. With insight and originality, Arlene Benson and John Rafter keep squeezing the astronomy out of ethnography and rock art in California and adjacent territory.
An unexpected invitation from Eleanor Cross Harrison and Dr. Stephen D. Siemens to contribute a paper to an American Anthropological Association session on Configurational Approaches to Culture through Analogy forced me to come to grips with an alien discipline of knowledge. That exercise in turn allowed me to appreciate an entirely different aspect of the sky s imaginative impact.
Dr. Richard E. W. Adams, Dr. Peter H. Keller, Nancy Cattell, and the irrepressible Gary Wirth all generously supplied photographs of places that even I regard as particularly remote ends of the road.
Once again, I am a privileged beneficiary of the graphic resources of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. I am beholden to Joseph Bieniasz for illustrations prepared for research papers, for Observatory programming, and for Observatory publications-especially the Griffith Observer . Their inclusion in this book enhances and clarifies otherwise arcane material. In addition, many of the photographs processed for the Observatory s extensive picture file were also available to me. The high technical standards of Anthony Cook, Daniel Marios, and Lisa Auerbach ensure photographic professionalism at Griffith Observatory.
Cultivating an undergraduate s appreciation for the full spectrum of human endeavor, Pomona College, in Claremont, California, applies the power of its professors to humanize the sciences and put rigor in the humanities. They make a permanent investment in each generation of students and ask only for the interest, to be paid in an examined life. The principal on the debt I owe to all of my teachers at Pomona remains outstanding-even after 30 years, but I have tried to honor them with a high interest rate and continuous reinvestment. The late Dr. Robert J. Chambers, my astronomy professor and advisor, generously continued to extend my credit long past Pomona and graduate school and throughout the years of our continuing friendship.
At U.C.L.A., the late Dr. George O. Abell, like Bob Chambers before him, put the power of opportunity at my disposal