May 13, 2006

The Brazilian Stonehenge.

It challenges one's mental image of the size of the world to think that something like this could exist and not have been noticed until now:
A total of 127 large blocks of stone were found driven into the ground on top of a hill.

Well preserved and each weighing several tons, the stones were arranged upright and evenly spaced....

The stones appear to have been laid out to help pinpoint the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest in the sky.

1 comment:

michael farris said...

And the state it was found in is sparsely populated and not close to any major Brasilian (or other) urban areas.

I'm curious why the winter solstice would be important for agriculture there. The state of Amapa is right smack dab on the equator and most tropical places have just two seasons, dry and rainy (with very short transitional phases), the duration of which varies a lot from place to place.

verification word: cxhgkele, a small Zulu woodwind instrument (the x and g represent clicks).