Next to an oasis in the coastal Peruvian desert is one of the weirdest structures in America - something like a fortress erected on top of a hill. From the south, the fort is guarded by a line of thirteen towers.
The fortification looks very ridiculous from a military point of view, because it is almost impossible to protect it: there are many entrances, there is no water source inside. In addition, the towers are located a few hundred meters from the top of the hill and are built almost in a straight line.
Therefore, in 2007, archaeologists put forward a new interpretation. Perhaps it was a place of worship and a kind of solar observatory like Stonehenge. The main evidence was that the towers were aligned with the sunrise point at the summer and winter solstices, which played an important role in the worldview of many ancient peoples.
Google Earth image.
Amelia Sparavigna from the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy) came to the same conclusion using a computer program that calculates the position of the sun in the sky and the amount of sunlight falling on photovoltaic panels.
Indeed, the position of the first tower corresponds to sunrise on June 21, and the last one to December 21.
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It also turned out that the towers cast shadows for a reason. Since they are tropics, they point north one half of the year and south the other. When the sun is at its zenith, the shadows disappear.
Perhaps, in this way, farmers received important information - for example, about the time of planting seasonal crops. But why exactly thirteen towers?