A Prehistoric Solar Observatory in the Middle of Sahara Desert

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna (1)

1 Polito - Politecnico di Torino = Polytechnic of Turin

The prehistoric stone funerary monuments of the Sahara desert, distributed in a huge geographical area, had been created in several different shapes. Some of them have a design that looks like a keyhole, and therefore are known as keyhole tombs. Since they are facing the sunrise, these tombs were also considered as places for the worship of the sun. In this paper, we show that one of them, in Algeria, has two radial lines oriented with the sunrise azimuths of winter and summer solstices. This monument is then a prehistoric solar observatory in the middle of Sahara.

Mots clés: Solar Observatories; Solar Orientation; Satellite Images; Google Earth; GIS; Archaeoastronomy; Archaeology

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna. A Prehistoric Solar Observatory in the Middle of Sahara Desert. Philica, 2014, ⟨10.5281/zenodo.3362222⟩. ⟨hal-02264633⟩