The heavenly bodies have been of interest to people since time immemorial. Even before the revolutionary discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, astronomers made repeated attempts to find out the patterns and laws of motion of planets and stars and used special tools for this.
The tools of ancient astronomers were so complex that it took modern scientists years to figure out their structure.
1. Calendar from Warren Field
Although the strange depressions in Warren Field were discovered from the air back in 1976, it wasn't until 2004 that it was determined to be an ancient lunar calendar. Scientists believe that the found calendar is about 10,000 years old.
It looks like 12 depressions arranged in an arc of 54 meters. Each hole is synchronized with the lunar month in the calendar, and corrected for the lunar phase.
It is also surprising that the calendar at Warren Field, which was built 6,000 years before Stonehenge, focuses on the point of sunrise at the winter solstice.
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2. Sextant Al-Khujandi in painting
Very little information has survived about Abu Mahmoud Hamid ibn al-Khidr al-Khujandi, except that he was a mathematician and astronomer who lived in the territory of modern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It is also known that he created one of the largest astronomical instruments in the 9-10th centuries.
His sextant was made in a fresco style located on a 60-degree arc between the two inner walls of the building. This huge 43-meter arc has been subdivided into degrees. Moreover, each degree was precisely divided into 360 parts, which made the fresco a stunningly accurate solar calendar.
Above the arc of Al-Khujandi was a domed ceiling with a hole in the middle, through which the sun's rays fell on the ancient sextant.
3. Wolwells and the zodiac man
In Europe at the turn of the 14th century, scientists and doctors used a rather strange kind of astronomical instrument - the Volvella. They looked like several round sheets of parchment with a hole in the center, stacked on top of each other.
This allowed the circles to be moved to calculate all the necessary data - from the phases of the moon to the position of the sun in the zodiac. An archaic gadget, in addition to its main function, was also a status symbol - only the richest people could acquire a volvella.
Also, medieval doctors believed that each part of the human body is controlled by its own constellation. For example, Aries was responsible for the head, and Scorpio was responsible for the genitals. Therefore, for diagnostics, doctors used Volwells to calculate the current position of the Moon and Sun.
Unfortunately, Volwells were quite fragile, so very few of these ancient astronomical instruments survived.
4. Ancient sundial
Today, the sundial is only used to decorate garden lawns. But they were once needed to track time and the movement of the Sun across the sky. One of the oldest sundials was found in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
They date back to 1550 - 1070 BC. and are a round piece of limestone with a semicircle painted on it (divided into 12 sectors) and a hole in the middle, into which a rod was inserted to cast a shadow.
Soon after the discovery of an Egyptian sundial, similar ones were found in Ukraine. They were buried with a man who died 3200 - 3300 years ago. Thanks to the Ukrainian clock, scientists learned that the Zrubna civilization possessed knowledge of geometry and was able to calculate latitude and longitude.
5. Heavenly disc from Nebra
Named for the German city where it was discovered in 1999, the "Celestial Disc from Nebra" is the oldest depiction of space ever found by man. The disc was buried next to a chisel, two axes, two swords, and two chain mail bracers about 3600 years ago.
The bronze disc, covered with a layer of patina, contained gold inserts depicting the Sun, Moon and stars from the constellations Orion, Andromeda and Cassiopeia. No one knows who made the disc, but the arrangement of the stars suggests that the creators were located at the same latitude as Nebra.
6. Chanquillo Astronomical Complex
The ancient astronomical observatory of Chanquillo in Peru is so complex that its true purpose was only discovered in 2007 using a computer program designed to align solar panels.
The 13 towers of the complex are built in a straight line 300 meters long along the hill. Scientists originally thought Chanquillo were fortifications, but it was an incredibly bad place for a fort, as it had no defensive advantages, no running water, or sources of food.
But then archaeologists realized that one of the towers was looking at the sunrise point at the summer solstice, and the other at the sunrise at the winter solstice. Built about 2,300 years ago, the towers are the oldest solar observatory in America. According to this ancient calendar, it is still possible to determine the day of the year with a maximum of two-day error.
Unfortunately, the huge solar calendar from Chanquillo is the only trace of the civilization of the builders of this complex, who predated the Incas by more than 1000 years.
7. Hyginus' star atlas
The Hyginus' Star Atlas, also known as the Poetica Astronomica, was one of the earliest works to depict the constellations. Although the authorship of the atlas is controversial, it is sometimes attributed to Gaius Julius Hyginus (Roman writer, 64 BC - 17 AD). Others argue that the work bears similarities to the writings of Ptolemy.
In any case, when the Poetica Astronomica was reprinted in 1482, it became the first printed work to show the constellations and the myths associated with them.
While other atlases provided more specific mathematical information that could be used for navigation, Poetica Astronomica presented a more bizarre, literary interpretation of stars and their history.
8. Heavenly Globe
The celestial globe appeared even when astronomers believed that stars move in the sky around the Earth. The celestial globes, which were created to represent this celestial sphere, began to be created by the ancient Greeks, and the first globe in a shape similar to modern globes was created by the German scientist Johannes Schöner.
At the moment, only two of Schöner's celestial globes have survived, which are true works of art depicting constellations in the night sky. The oldest surviving example of a celestial globe dates from about 370 BC.
9. Armillary sphere
The armillary sphere - an astronomical instrument in which several rings surround a central point - was a distant relative of the celestial globe.
There were two different types of spheres - observation and demonstration. The first scholar to use such spheres was Ptolemy.
With this tool, it was possible to determine the equatorial or ecliptic coordinates of celestial bodies. Along with the astrolabe, the armillary sphere has been used by sailors for navigation for centuries.
10. El Caracol, Chichen Itza
The El Caracol Observatory at Chichen Itza was built between 415 and 455 AD. The observatory was very unusual - while most of the astronomical instruments were set up to observe the movement of the stars or the sun, El Caracol (in translation "snail") was built to observe the movement of Venus.
For the Maya, Venus was sacred - literally everything in their religion was based on the worship of this planet. El Caracol, in addition to being an observatory, was also the temple of the god Quetzalcoatl.