Description
In a previously presented work we analyzed the role of possible astronomical targets in the orientation of the site. In this paper we present new evidences of the archaeoastronomical analysis of Tiwanaku, UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is located near the southern shores of Lake Titicaca on the Altiplano, at an altitude of 3,850 m., Department of La Paz, Bolivia. It was a public - religious space of this city and it is shaped by a series of architectural structures. The Centre of the Tiwanaku Culture ( 200 BC. and 900 AD ), contains traces of more than 1200 years of human occupation. It is the most important pre-Inca site of the Andean region of South America and the archaeological remains have maintained to a certain extent their physical integrity. The Temple of the Sun, or Kalasasaya, perhaps is the best preserved of the ruins. Here is an immense rectangular terrace nearly five hundred feet square with its edges outlined by rows of cut stone columns from fifteen to twenty feet in height. The data have been collected in situ, by the authors in 2007 - 2008, 2014, 2019, 2022 in the area of Tiwanaku. It is a project carried out by AKAKOR to do research in collaboration with UNAR, that will continue over the next few years until the end of the investigations, for a geological, archaeological, astronomical and also cartographic study. The purpose of this new work is to highlight the close correlation between the alignments of the Kalasasaya temple towards stars belonging to the Orion constellation and then to apply a correct and scientific method to date the site, using the collimation between a structure and a star. In 1943, Posnansky reckoned, with the method of varying the obliquity of the ecliptic over time, the date of the site, but he failed to realize that the high propagation of errors led to incorrect results. In this analysis we suggest, by obtaining the alignment azimuth value from the GPS data detected "on site" and knowing the star that is the target, that it is possible to define the dating period. An aerial survey was carried out using a drone Phantom Gx and the data have been processed with the software Pix4D. The magnetic measurements have been corrected by the magnetic declination. We analyzed all the records, obtaining notable results. Subsequently an appropriate statistical study was carried out in order to check their astronomical consistency. The statistical analysis was performed using the most recent techniques belonging to the theory of the Circular Data that is one of the most suitable way in the archaeoastronomical data processing. Statistical test have been applied to verify the confidence level of the results obtained.