On the Astronomical Origin of the Offset Street Grid at Teotihuacan

Chiu B. C. Morrison P. , “Astronomical origin of the offset street grid at Teotihuacan”, Archaeoastronomy (Supplement to Journal for the history of astronomy), no. 2 (1980), S55–64.

Peterson C. W. Chiu B. C. , “On the astronomical origin of the offset street grid at Teotihuacan”, talk presented at the 164th A.A.S. meeting, Baltimore, Maryland; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, xvi (1984), 449.

Millon R. Drewitt B. Cowgill G. , Urbanization at Teotihuacan (Austin, Texas, 1973).

Dow J. W. , “Astronomical orientations at Teotihuacan: A case study in astroarchaeology”, American antiquity, xxxii (1967), 326–34.

Aveni A. F. Hartung H. Buckingham B. , “The pecked cross symbol in ancient Mesoamerica”, Science, ccii (1978), 267–79.

Malmström V. H. , “A reconstruction of the chronology of Mesoamerican calendrical systems”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ix (1978), 110–11. See also idem, “Origin of the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar”, Science, clxxxi (1973), 939–41. The earliest such suggestion dates from Nuttall Z. , “Nouvelles lumières sur les civilisations américaines et le système du calendrier”, Proceedings of the Twenty-second International Congress of Americanists (Rome, 1928). For a recent survey of Mesoamerican zenith passage solar observatories see Aveni A. F. Hartung H. , “The observation of the sun at the time of passage through the zenith in Mesoamerica”, Archaeoastronomy (Supplement to Journal for the history of astronomy), no. 3 (1981), S51–70.

Drucker R. D. , “A solar orientation for Teotihuacan”, delivered at the XV Mesa Redonda of the Sociedad de Antropologia, 1973.

Gamio M. , Anales del Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Historia y Etnologia, México, i (1910).

cetenal (Direccion de Estudios Economicos; Comision de Estudios del Territorio Nacional), Carta Topografica (1977).

There is ambiguity in the literature as to the exact location of teo. 6, which has been placed as lying along the N-S Teotihuacan axis, in a direct line extension of the Street of the Dead, or on a line parallel to the Street of the Dead; the present results finalize its location. See, e.g., Aveni A. F. , “Native American astronomy”, Physics today, xxxvii (1984), 24–32; Aveni A. F. Hartung H. , “The cross petroglyph: An ancient Mesoamerican astronomical and calendrical symbol”, Indiana, vi (1979), 37–54.

Gamio , op. cit. (ref. 8).

Cf. ref. 1.

Note an error in Paper I in the location of Izapa: It is in southern Mexico. It is the location of the low-latitude zenith passage of 12 August and is the attributed birthplace of the Mayan sacred calendar. (While the observation of zenith passage of the sun may appear to be strange, since the direction is different at different latitudes, this may be the very reason for perpetuating the original low latitude zenith passage in Izapa (and coincidentally in Copan).).

The Pleiades may account for the 195°.5 N-S streets so accurately marked off from the valley cross to the western C. Colorado cross with 0°.l accuracy, but only the sun could explain the second alignment, in that it is affected by the observer's altitude differences but not by extinction of the atmosphere. The Pleiades were probably observed in coincidence with the solar phenomena.

See ref. 5.