Our decipherment of Saksaywaman, Cuzco, Peru, relies upon a fantastic panorama photograph of SaksayWaman by Martin St-Amant :"Sacsayhuamán Décembre 2006 - Vue Panoramique - Pleine résolution" by Martin St-Amant (S23678) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. That photograph is so large that we will subsequently break it down into sections in subsequent postings to present our decipherment of those sections.
We obtained Inca Quechua names for stars and their stellar locations via:
From the left, stars marked at SaksayWaman via its megalithic stone rows are as follows:
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 86 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
The Decipherment of SaksayWaman Cusco Peru as Representing Star Groups of the Heavens Between Tullu Mayu and Sapphi Mayu, the Ends of the Milky Way
We obtained Inca Quechua names for stars and their stellar locations via:
- Gary Urton, At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology, University of Texas Press, 1981, which writes: "Based on fieldwork in Misminay, Peru, Gary Urton details a cosmology in which the Milky Way is central. - See more at: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/urtcro#sthash.Fc2kLRQ0.dpufBased on fieldwork in Misminay, Peru, Gary Urton details a cosmology in which the Milky Way is central."
- http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/andes/startable.html
- http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/andes/startable2.html
From the left, stars marked at SaksayWaman via its megalithic stone rows are as follows:
- Libra as a male
- Virgo as a female
- Corvus, Quechua Una Llama viz. Huch'uy Llama>
(The New Born Llama, i.e. newborn "lamb") - the trapezoid door above marks the Line (Colure) of the Equinoxes
- Crater as a bird of some kind, or possibly the end of the tail of Hydra
- Hydra as a serpent whose tail extends downward from the wall and then back up towards Crater
- Leo as a similar animal form of some kind
- Cancer ? as an L-shape (uncertain, this could be nothing)
- Canis Minor as an animal of some kind looking left
- Canis Major as a human with a two-eared crown
and to the left of it, a marking as the foot-shaped hole in the Milky Way - Gemini, as the upper twins and lower twins, Hatun Cruz, "the Big Cross"
- Orion, Inca Quechua Hatun Chakana ("The Big Bridge"), Orion's Belt. The The shield stars of Orion are Quechua Pisqa Collca "the 5 storehouses" (7 at some sites) between the Belt of Orion and the Hyades. Columba is also possibly marked via a turtle-like (?) figure and cupmarks for stars.
- Taurus as a person -- bringing an offering to Orion?
- Auriga as a boat and below them the "Rudder of Auriga"
- Perseus as an elongated figure upwards
- Ursa Minor
- the Pleiades, Quechua Qoto "bunch" (of stars)
- to their right at the stars of Triangulum and Aries, as a domestic animal, a woman (pregnant?), a child next to her as Triangulum, and one or two cats at Aries
- to their right the stars at and nearby Zeta Andromedae
- as at the Nazca lines, previously deciphered at Nazca Mystery Image
- Cassiopeia
- Andromeda below it and Pegasus as a horse
- the trapezoidal door marks the Line (Colure) of the Equinoxes
- Draco as a serpent
- Cepheus as a turtle
- Cygnus as a bird of prey of some kind
- Lyra with Vega
- Aquila as the central groups of stars at Saksaywaman. Quechua Pachapacariq ch'aska, the "Venus" of the northern suyu, identified by some
as Altair in Aquila. Altair is the brightest star in a "line" of 3 prominent stars. See Robert S. McIvor, Star Patterns on the Aztec Calendar Stone, ADSABS.HARVARD.EDU, Research Papers -- Articles de recherche SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 94, p. 59, where he notes that this line of three stars are individually called Comdormi (condor), Suyuntuytapas (vulture) and Guamantapas (falcon). Guaman is the same as Huaman viz. Waman in SaksayWAMAN. - the Galactic Equator (marked)
- Serpens Cauda
- Ophiuchus
- Serpens Caput
- the wall makes a cut from the serpent (this is the location of the Quechua Amaru, "the serpent changing to the condor"-- so we move down in the sky from the previously identified stars to
- Sagittarius and to its right the Quechua Atoq
- Atoq, the Fox, marks the sky between Sagittarius and the tail of Scorpio
- Scorpio
- Lupus is near a black sky area Unallamacha, Quechua for "baby llama"
- Centaurus as the Great Llama, Quechua Hatun Llamaytoq viz. Llama Cancha. The Inca used black areas of the sky (yana phuyu) to mark animal figures, also including bright stars as features, as in the case of Alpha and Beta Centauri marking the eyes (Llamacñawin) of Hatun Llamaytoq, the Great Llama. See From Quarks to Quasars for the Inca dark constellations, from which the following image of the Inca dark constellations is linked :
This and much further information is found in the book by Gary Urton, At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology, University of Texas Press, 1981.
- above the foregoing is perhaps is Ursa Major, but this is very uncertain
- Tinamou, Quechua Yutu
- Crux, the Southern Cross, Quechua Huch'uy Chakana, "the Small Cross"
- The serpent Mach'acuay was seen in the black areas of the sky between Crux and Canis Major, with one end pointing in the direction of Crux, and its other marking the end of the stones of SaksayWaman to the right.
- Above Mach'acuay, and outstandingly confirming the probative value of the general decipherment here (even if not all the particulars), we see a stone figure in the shape of a frog or toad, Quechua Hamp'atu (Hanp'atu). The toad "overlooks" Mach'acuay and as reported in Inca legend, the frog viz. toad sees the sunrise first, being higher.
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 86 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
The Decipherment of SaksayWaman Cusco Peru as Representing Star Groups of the Heavens Between Tullu Mayu and Sapphi Mayu, the Ends of the Milky Way