Templos do sol divulgados na Society of Leyhunters – folhetim de Setembro por Albano Chaves – Temples of sun at Chãs

TEMPLES OF THE SUN at CHÃS
Albano Chaves
Leça da Palmeira, June 2012
Solstice Rock (A)
(40º 59' 35.59' N / 07º 10' 43.89" W) 

 

A study published in this site in English

Only the introduction is in Portuguese 

Vídeo  Winter Solstice  -Temples of sun at Chãs

  

ARCHAEOASTRONOMY 

 

 

 

Albano Chaves, que já nos havia surpreendido com a sua descoberta de um alinhamento do solstício do Inverno, no maciço dos Tambores, cujo estudos publicamos neste site - (1) SOLSTÍCIO DO INVERNO....(2) SOLSTÍCIO DO INVERNO . pois bem, essa extraordinária investigação, ultrapassou fronteiras e   já foi divulgada em 8 páginas no folhetim do passado mês de  Setembro da Society of Leyhunters - Uma das instituições mais conceituadas no estudo da astroarqueologia (archaeoastronomy) constituída como fórum e um espaço de opinião sobre os alinhamentos sagrados  

O pormenorizado estudo encontra-se no arquivo do site Archives - leyhunters.co.uk da .The Society of Leyhunters  também acessível em Home - leyhunters.co.uk

No entanto, Albano Chaves, a quem uma vez mais agradecemos a sua valiosa colaboração cientifica,   teve a a amabilidade de nos facultar o texto e as imagens desse seu interessantíssimo trabalho, que, com muito prazer, aqui reproduzimos - Pedindo-lhes desculpa que não o pudéssemos  publicar com a mesma qualidade gráfica com que nos foi enviado e editado na prestigiada Society of Leyhunters 

Video - Stone Sulstcio Summer -Temples of sun at Chãs

TEMPLES OF THE SUN at CHÃS
Albano Chaves
Leça da Palmeira, June 2012
Solstice Rock (A)
(40º 59' 35.59' N / 07º 10' 43.89" W)

At the parish of Chãs, borough of Vila Nova de Foz Côa – a city with two human heritages: Port Wine and Paleolithic Engravings of the Côa valley dating from 10 to 16,000 years B.P. –, district of Guarda, Portugal, and at the plateau called Monte dos Tambores, a huge egg-shaped boulder welcomes us at the western edge of the Iberian Meseta, high above the graben of Longroiva. Down in the valley, the white horizontal strip to the left of the boulder is the IP2, the road from the city of Guarda (to the left) to Vila Nova de Foz Côa (ca. 10 miles to the right) (Fig. 1).

This boulder is known as Solstice Rock because an observer placed a dozen steps or so east of it sees the Sun at 8:45 p.m. oat the Summer solstice disappear right behind the top of the stone. In front of it, a small fossette.

The journalist Jorge Trabulo Marques organizes every year gatherings to celebrate the event: men and women crowned with laurels and clad with long white tunics carry small scythes, flowers, candles, etc. A lamb – not sacrificed! – a group of gaiteiros (bagpipe players) and the recital of poems complete the festivities.

For ample reports on the subject, visit:

(1) ALBANO CHAVES E OS MISTÉRIOS DO SONO MILENAR DOS TEMPLOS DO SOL, AFINAL, ALI AS PEDRAS GUARDAM AINDA OUTROS SEGREDOS - O SOLSTICIO DO INVERNO

(2) ALBANO CHAVES E OS MISTÉRIOS DOS TEMPLOS DO SOL, ESTUDO REVELA ALINHAMENTO COM O SOLSTICIO DO INVERNO

Fig. 1 – Sunset at the Solstice Rock (A) (21.6.2010)

Fig. 2 – Tom Graves standing on the

fossette at the Solstice Rock

The renowned dowser, investigator and author Tom Graves visited the area in 2008 and detected two underground flows of water under the fossette where he stands in front of the Solstice Rock (Fig. 2).

That very rock shows two different "human" profiles, as can be seen below (Figs. 4 + 5).

 

Fig. 3 – Map of Portugal with the location of Chãs

Fig. 4 – Solstice Rock – north side                                        Fig. 5 – Solstice Rock – south side

Hair Rock (B)

(40º 59' 39.552" N / 07º 10' 34.968" W)

Some 260 metres away from the Solstice Rock and 58º east of due north stands another boulder, the strange Hair Rock. From a particular small rock some 20 metres west of it, the rising sun at the equinoxes is seen through a small tunnel (4.5 m long, 0.70 m high) at the base of the Hair Rock.

Fig. 6 – Hair Rock – west side –                                             Fig. 7 – Hair Rock – north side

            rising sun at the equinoxes

Fig. 2 – Tom Graves standing on the
fossette at the Solstice Rock

Fig . 9 -  Small dome in the tunnel inside the Hair Rock with

 Fig.10 –Hair Roch, east side

Inside the tunnel "entered" by the rising sun on the equinoxes there are several domes with remnants of paintings with iron pigments, but the most curious one is a niche with a dome showing a strange black stain known as "Our Lady's Head of Hair", the origin of which is not clear. That dome adjusts perfectly to a human head and the stain looks like a head of black, long and uncombed hair. The analysis of the paint revealed manganese salts, but it is not clear whether the "hair" is a painting or a natural phenomenon. The whole interior of the tunnel has suffered strong wind erosion along the millennia.

Prof. Adriano Vasco Rodrigues, an eminent historian, archaeologist, investigator and author, studied the rock in 1957 and classified it as (...) a pre-historical sanctuary chronologically integrated in the Neolithic revolution. Its characteristics suggest the existence of a cult to the skull, which is characteristic to the Hispanic Peninsula at the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic, according to Prof. Pericot. Its identification with a feminine entity, later consecrated to Virgin Mary and accompanied by a popular legend, suggests an initial cult to Mother Goddess, symbol of fertility.

(Adriano Vasco Rodrigues, Terras da Meda – Natureza e Cultura, ed. Câmara Municipal da Meda, 1983, page 26.)

As yet, these are the only two rocks in the area which were known to be connected with the sun. Although they cannot be seen from each other, is it thinkable that they "just stand there", independent from each other, without the existence of some sort of "dialogue" between them? Hardly, I should say. Are there other rocks or otherwise markers in the area forming some sort of astronomical arrangement? In that case, what sort of arrangement? Perhaps a geometrical figure, but what other markers stand there for us to spot them? Armed with a compass and a GPS, I did a little surveying, and, marking the coordinates on a Google map, I was not much surprised at what I found, as I had foreseen the situation: a sort of observatory at a vantage point just above the Solstice Rock, on a hill crowned by an Iron Age castro (hill fort) the only remains of which are portions of a surrounding rock wall and rock foundations of round dwellings. From that vantage point it is possible to see the rocks A + B + C:

(A) – To the northwest, the Solstice Rock (40º 59' 35.59" N / 07º 10' 43.89" W), which on the Summer solstice is aligned with the setting Sun and the fossette. The angle of that alignment is 58º west of due north, the solar azimuth at sunset at the local latitude.

(B) – 260 metres to northeast stands the strange silhouette of the Hair Rock (40º 59' 39.95" N/ 07º 10' 34.47" W).

An imaginary straight line AB passing the Solstice Rock A and the Hair Rock B follows the path of the mid-summer sunrise on a bearing of 58º east of due north.

(C) "Sun Gate"

(Portuguese: "Porta do Sol")

(40º 59' 36.85" N / 07º 10' 27.04" W)

207 metres east of the Hair Rock B stands an outcrop of granite, which will be here called Rock C, "Old Man Rock" due to the profile which can be seen from the east side, or perhaps even better "Sun Gate", as will be understood later on. A straight line passing Rock C at an angle of 122º east of due north intersects to the west the line AB at a point D (40º 59' 31.966" N / 07º 10' 36.425" W) and meets farther away a massive boulder which my wife called "Mushroom" (Portuguese: "Cogumelo") for lack of a better name.

This means that an observer standing on any point along the alignment C–D–"Mushroom" can witness the midwinter Sun rise right in the centre of the "Sun Gate", as will be seen further on

 

 Fig. 13 – Boulder "Mushroom" and the "Sun Gate", an apparently man-made opening, are aligned at an angle of 122º east of due north.

 Fig. 12 – East side of Rock C with an old man's profile apparently looking south over the "Sun Gate

Fig. 14 shows all the points and lines referred to: A, B, C, intersection point D and the boulder 

"Mushroom".

A straight line passing C and parallel to ABD (at an angle of 58º east of due north) and a straight line passing A and parallel to CD (at an angle of 122º east of due north) meet one another at point E, thus building the parallelogram ADCE

Fig. 14 – Parallelogram ADCE

Several meters away from the Hair Rock (B) stands what I called the Altar, a stone with a small cavity. I suspect that this Altar cannot be dissociated from the other stones.

On the field I took the coordinates of this Altar (F), a sort of a washing basin on a pedestal (Fig. 15). Back home I asked my good friends, the surveying engineers António and Miguel Lázaro, father and son, without whose capacities this work could not have been done and to whom I am greatly indebted, to calculate the coordinates of the centre of the parallelogram above, but departing only from the coordinates of A, B, C and D. As I expected, the result coincided with the coordinates of F on the field (Figs. 15 + 17).

Coordinates of F on the field 40º 59' 35.916" N / 07º 10' 34.824" W	Calculated coordinates of F 40º 59' 36.177" N / 07º 10' 35.377" W
Altar – centre of the parallelogram, possibly centre of unimaginable events, festivities, perhaps even sacrifices performed by our ancestors anxiously awaiting the risings of the Sun on the turning points of its perpetual alternating northeast-southeast-northeast-southeast motion.

Questions rather than answers arise from this paper, because its purpose is only to pinpoint rocks at the Monte dos Tamboresof Chãs which may somehow be connected with the motion of the Sun and which might have been important to whoever lived there thousands of years ago.

This survey is certainly far from being exhaustive and more piercing eyes and more perspicacious minds will certainly identify further markers of this kind.

Let us now take our place anywhere along the line "Mushroom" – D – C ("Sun Gate"), which makes an angle of 122º east of due north, and prepare to watch the midwinter Sun rise in splendour between the "frames" of the "Sun Gate" (C), thus confirming that the calculations were correct.

The photos (Figs. 17+18) were taken from the point X towards C (Fig. 16

Fig. 16 – Point X (40º 59' 40.272" N / 07º 10' 33.348" W) where the photos were taken from

 Fig. 17

 Fig. 18

So much for Chãs. Let us now make a "short" jump to Canada!

Fig. 19 shows an outcrop of granite at Majorville, Alberta, Canada and Fig. 20 shows the sun rising on the equinoxes behind that "Sun Gate". Note the striking similarity with the "Sun Gate" at Chãs, Portugal.

 

Fig. 19                                                                        Fig. 20

 

(Both pictures from the book Hidden Stonehenge: Ancient Temple in North America Reveals the Key to Ancient Wonders (2012), page 60, 292, by kind permission of his author, Dr. Gordon Freeman, Professor Emeritus M.A., University of Saskatchewan, Ph.D., McGill University, D. Phil., Oxford University, Canada.)

Vídeo - Stone Equinox--Temples of sun at Chãs