Peñasco Blanco

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Peñasco Blanco ("White Bluff" in Spanish) is a Chacoan Anasazi great house and notable archaeological site located in Chaco Canyon, a canyon in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is an arc-shaped compound built atop the canyon's southern rim; it was constructed in five distinct stages between 900 AD and 1125 AD. A cliff painting (the "Supernova Platograph") nearby may record the sighting of a supernova on July 5, 1054 AD.[α][1]

[edit] Notes

     α.   ^  The Crab Nebula, now a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus, was the result of the event in question; it attained peak brilliance on the date that the Chacoans presumably sighted it.[1]

[edit] Citations

  1. ^ a b Kelley & Milone 2004, p. 413.

[edit] References

  • Kelley, DH & EF Milone (2004), Exploring Ancient Skies: an encyclopedic survey of archaeoastronomy, Springer, ISBN 0-38795-310-8.