Resumo

MORANTE LOPEZ, Rubén B.. OBSERVATORIOS ASTRONÓMICOS EN TUBOS DE LAVA MESOAMERICANOS. Avá [online]. 2019, n.35, pp.55-76. ISSN 1851-1694.

Our studies about underground observatories (Morante 1993, 1995, 1996a, 2010; Morante, Garza and Valencia 2018) began in 1986. Then, we did not know that in 1963 Franz Tichy (1980) had begun similar studies in this field. As he did, since the beginning, we suggested (Morante, 1989) that those chambers and chimneys were instruments used to determine astronomical positions, especially of the Sun, in order to point out important economic dates for the economy of Mesoamerican peoples, such as the proximity of rainy season, close to the summer solstice. We also suggested that their constructors may have been inspired by natural accidents, such as caves (Morante 1993). However, for central Mexico, where we studied the oldest underground observatories, we had not found such accidents with appropriate conditions to observe. Recently we investigated two cases; here we present some results.

Palavras-chave : Underground observatories; Volcanic caves; Sacred calendar.