Sunduki – “Home Of The Gods” – One Of The World’s Oldest Astronomical Observatories

First version of this article was originally published on October 16, 2014

MessageToEagle.com – Prehistoric paintings found across the world provide a lasting evidence that early people engaged in stargazing. Some people believe one of the oldest astronomical observatories is Stonehenge.

However, Sunduki, an ancient and spectacular site also known as “home of the gods” could today be the world’s oldest astronomical observatory.

Sunduki, known as the Siberian Stonehenge, was not only a place of huge religious significance in the ancient world, but also its stargazing capital.

This enigmatic place was ruled by an ancient civilization that used magical crystals as their main source of energy.

It is believed that the people who lived here had very long life-spans, were free of war, hard toil, and the ravages of old age and disease.

Today, Sunduki is often referred to as the Siberian Stonehenge. It must be added that Sundiki is considered to be at least 16,000 year-old, thus it’s much older that Stonehenge.

At the site we find a series of eight sandstone outcrops on a remote flood plain on the bank of the Bely Iyus river.

Professor Vitaly Larichev, of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has investigated this ancient place in detail and he says this could be the world’s oldest astronomical observatory.

The word ‘Sunduk’ in Russian means ‘chest’ or ‘trunk’ which explains how the place got its modern name.

“For many years I tried to unravel these mystery ‘chests’,” said Professor Vitaly Larichev said. Determined to decode some of the mysteries of Sunduki, he admits he became an ‘astro-archeologist’.

“We don’t dig in the ground – we study what ancient people knew about astronomy’, he said.

What I discovered was a surprise even to myself. Comparing maps accumulated over many years of astronomical observations, I came to understand that here in Sunduki, we can see the oldest astronomical observatory certainly in Asia. Its age is about 16,000 years old. The ancient inhabitants of this valley daily observed the sunset, the sunrise and the moon’. They did so for many thousands of years since then, which means it’s millennia old tradition.
Based on what is known so far, the first sundials existed about 3,500 years ago in Egypt. Ancient Siberian astronomers did not have such instruments.

Instead they used giant rocks and chinks in the stone architecture in this Siberian landscape for their calculations and observations.

Professor Larichev said found ‘numerous ancient solar and lunar observatories around Sunduki.

“This square pattern of stones on the ground shows you the place. I knew there would be an orientation point, but we had to search through the grass for a long time to find it. Now look up to the top of that ridge. You see a place where there is a crack between the rocks? If you were here on the summer solstice, you would see the sun rise right there. Or you would if you were here 2,000 years so. Now the timing is slightly different,” Professor Larichev explained.

High on one cliff wall is a rock engraving showing dragon heads in one direction, and snake heads in the other.

“If the sun were shining, we could tell the time,’ Professor Larichev said. “In the morning the shadow moves along the snake’s body from his head to his tail, and in the afternoon it comes from the other direction along the dragon. From the same observation point you can determine true north and south by sighting along the mountains.”

There is a gallery of rock art. Some dates back several centuries BC and so is relatively modern.

But a mysterious white horse found not far from the first ‘chest’ on Black Mountain was carved in the rock and is well preserved – yet scientists suggest that this petroglyph appeared 16,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, establishing this as a site of human activity over many millennia.

“It was ‘the home of gods, great artists and sky watchers’, said the professor. It was more than this, too.”

There are also burial mounds and other manmade constructions – including irrigation channels – which have yet to be fully investigated.

Sunduki is without doubt a remarkable ancient full of secrets place shrouded in mystery.

MessageToEagle.com

source: The Siberian Times