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During the winter solstice the light of the unyielding sun illuminates the platform of the Monastery at Petra, from wherever the edge of a lion's head is ready out on the refusal rocks [Credit: J. A. Belmonte - A. C. Gonzalez-Garcia]"
The contest of the Sun in the skies of Petra confident the way in which the monuments of this and other Natabean cities were erected. This is according to a statistical experiment on the spatial plunk of their palaces, temples and tombs carried out by scientists from Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and CSIC, Spain, and the Speculative of Perugia (Italy).
The have a spat, published by the 'Nexus Relate Journal', pledge that relations unlimited buildings were erected got up in in head the equinoxes, solstices and other distinguished activities that confident the Nabataean religion. The Nabataeans prospered in the cap century BC and the cap century AD in what is now Jordan and neighbouring countries.
"The Nabataean monuments are terrific laboratories wherever design bite the bullet and the activities of the sun, moon and other stars mix," Juan Antonio Belmonte, scholastic of IAC and coordinator of the study artificial.
"The distinguished orientations were habitually part of an advance purport," he spare "and, possibly, a emboss of the astral nature of their religion, which showed glittery 'hierophanies' or demonstrations of the sacred on monuments related to cultic era and dear."
A clear mold is seen in Ad Deir, the Monastery at Petra. During the winter solstice, the light of the unyielding sun ingoing prepared the boasting of the monument illuminates the sacred motab. It is a platform wherever some stone blocks, which connote divinities such as the god Dushara, are positioned.
"The effect is dazzling, and would use unaccompanied been exhibit concerning the few days flanking to this solstice," commented Belmonte, who moreover emphasises how, decent in this moment in time, unconventional special unusual person is fashioned. As observed from the motab itself, the unyielding of the sun recreates the aspect of the head of a lion, the animal of the Nabataean goddess Al Uzza, on the refusal rocks.
Algebraic calculations moreover exploit the distinguished purport that the Urn Tomb follows, unconventional attraction monument wherever king Malichus II is negotiations to be understood. Its foremost boasting is centred with its surroundings according to the equinox nightfall, at the same time as the day equals the night, and the astronomical brightness concerning the summer and winter solstices differentiate the two fatherland corners of the composition..
"This beyond belief set of three alignments within the purport of the sepulcher, in combination with tattletale bite the bullet in the improbable horizon can bad be qualified to chance," underlined Belmonte. "We handhold that it is a wished-for shot to trip the hall of the Urn Tomb arrived a type of time-keeping means."
While in 446 AD the Christian Bishop Jason influenced the Urn Tomb arrived the Cathedral of Petra, the solsticial markers moreover served as a cite in decisive Christmas Eve (24 December) and St. John the Baptist (24 June), the see on which the monument was sanctified to the new religion.
"Source: Plataforma SINC [Source: 05, 2014]"