THE ARITA CONE: A NATURAL AND PERFECT SOLAR AND LUNAR CLOCK/CALENDAR

Here is the perfect sundial and annual astronomical calendar, sculpted by the wind over millions of years, continuously marking with its sharp shadow the hours of the days, the two equinoxes and two solstices, and the four seasons of the year, all with absolute precision.

As it has clear skies, it also functions as a lunar calendar, which apart from its orbit every 27 days and its four phases every 29.5 days, repeats its exact position on the horizon every 18.5 years.

Any ancestor with imagination, tenacity, and perseverance could have assembled it with bright colored stones - one color for solar timing and the other for lunar timing - placing them at sunrise or moonrise always at the sharp point of the shadow.

To "see" the clock/calendar in all its splendor, given the flat terrain, one only had to climb the Arita Cone.

But there are no colored stones or any other markers that have been discovered by archaeologists. Perhaps the ancients simply periodically saw which distant mountains the shadow pointed to as the days passed and with that they deduced the rhythm of cosmic time sufficiently, a kind of astronomical observatory useful for the agricultural civilizations that would emerge five to eight millennia ago in the Andean world.

Perhaps not. But that does not stop the fact that this natural solar and lunar clock/calendar has been "working" wonderfully since long before humanity itself existed.

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ARTICLE: EL CONO ARITA EN LA PUNA DE ATACAMA