9. Crab Supernova Rock Art: A Comprehensive, Critical and Definitive Review
From the Ground to the Sky - Ten Years of Skyscape Archaeology - Fabio Silva
Edwin C Krupp [+]
Griffith Observatory, LA
E C Krupp is an astronomer and has been Director of Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, since 1974. He led the recent $93-million Observatory renovation and expansion. He is the prizewinning author of five books, including Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations (Dover Publications, 2003) and Skywatchers, Shaman & Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power (Wiley, 1999) dozens of research papers, and hundreds of articles on cultural dimensions of astronomy. He has visited nearly 2000 ancient and prehistoric sites around the world.
Description
The author re-examines 21 rock art depictions, typically of a crescent Moon alongside a star, that had been interpreted as representations of the Crab supernova of 1054 AD in the American Southwest and beyond. He concludes that all documented cases are ambiguous, “and the supernova interpretation of several of them is fatally flawed”. His paper highlights the importance of reflexivity as well as cultural, artefactual and iconographic context in interpretations; something that fits well with skyscape archaeology as we believe this should apply not only to the interpretation of rock art but also structural alignments.