5,000-year-old astronomical observation tanks found in China
Photo © vokrugsveta.ua
Chinese archaeologists have discovered nine ancient ceramic containers about 5000 years old in the province of Henan, which were used for astronomical observations.
According to scientists, this find is the most ancient of all analogs found in science in East Asia. Such devices, as previously thought, first appeared in the region much later - about 4,200 years ago.
During the excavations on the site of the centuries-old ruins of the ancient city of Tsintai near the city of Zhengzhou, a group of specialists conducted a comprehensive examination of these artifacts, which once served as parts of a single model for observing the constellation Ursa Major.
According to experts, in ancient times, people used these devices in order to accurately determine the date of regular sacrifices, the conduct of various religious rituals.
The discovered artifacts, according to scientists, belong to the late period of the Neolithic culture of Yanshao (5–3 thousand years BC), whose representatives once inhabited a vast territory from the central course of the Yellow River to the Tibetan Plateau in the west.
