COLORADO, USA — An annular solar eclipse known as a ring of fire appeared over the American Southwest on Saturday morning in places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, where the ancestral Puebloan people likely watched a similar eclipse more than 900 years ago.
They may have even recorded it on the walls with a petroglyph. It's carved into a rock outcropping in Chaco Canyon called Piedra del Sol.
The artifact shows a circular center possibly representing the moon totally blocking the sun with flares all around the circle which could be the sun's corona which is only visible to the naked eye during a total solar eclipse.
"And we think the other circular object could be the planet Venus which would have been visible to the northeast of the eclipse," said John Keller, astronomer and director of the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder.
Keller said previous research by CU Boulder professor Kim Malville showed that there would have been a total solar eclipse in July of 1097, which would have been about the time the Piedra del Sol petroglyph was etched.
"If it's true, it would be the oldest representation of a total solar eclipse during solar maximum," said Keller.
He said the pronounced curls around the circle in the petroglyph might represent a very active corona. Solar flares are more active during solar maximum.
Now in 2023, the same moon passed in front of the same sun, again drawing a crowd of viewers.
“That’s what’s so special right?" said Keller. "You’re in a place where clearly a thousand years ago very similar humans were observing very similar phenomena.”
What’s not clear is how the ancestral Puebloans reacted to the eclipse, other than noting its rarity with petroglyphs. But not all cultures are anxious to catch a glimpse.
Saturday morning's eclipse also traveled over the ancestral Navajo lands in the American Southwest, where some tribes still today do not encourage eclipse viewing.
“There are cultural sensitivities that this is not a positive thing," he said. "If the sun, which is the giver of life, is being destroyed by the moon, then it's more like OK, let's focus a little more here and be reflective and prayerful and mindful.”
He said whether you chose to witness the eclipse spiritually or visually you’ll understand why the ancient cliff dwellers felt the event should go down in history.
Ancient Predictions
Keller also said that the ancestral Puebloans of Mesa Verde may not have been totally caught off guard by the eclipse of 1097. There were records that other ancient civilizations, like the Mayans, were able to predict astronomical events.
He said in Mayan books called codecs, there was math that indicates they were tracking the lunar cycle to predict eclipses.
"Because eclipses only happen on new moons and full moons, you can't have an eclipse that's 5.25 moons later, you can only have an eclipse that's exactly five full moons later or five new moons later," said Keller. "So, they knew to within the next lunation whether or not they were in eclipse season or not."
It's not known if the Puebloans were also that mathematically advanced but there is another site in southern Colorado that would suggest that they, too, tracked the lunar cycle.
"There's a place called Chimney Rock just outside of Pagosa Springs," he said. "That was clearly a marker of a lunar cycle known as the Lunar Standstill."
He said that the peoples of that time knew that every 18.6 years, they would be able to see one particular rising of the moon through the two shafts of Chimney Rock. And there is archeological evidence that would suggest that there was increased human foot traffic coinciding with those dates, indicating that they would gather knowingly around a predicted lunar event.
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