ARE THERE IMAGES OF SUPERNOVAS IN ROCK ART?

 

Chaco Canyon, Penasco Blanco trail, San Juan county, New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris, May 1994.

Everyone who is interested in archeoastronomy knows about the proposed pictographic record of the supernova of A.D. 1054 in Chaco Canyon. The triad of the handprint, starburst, and what is assumed to be a crescent moon have become famous. These claims have even proliferated. A number of other combinations of crescents and what might represent stars in the American West have been declared to be records of that supernova.

Crescent and Sun, Arroyo del Parral, Crosby, Baja California. From The Cave Paintings of Baja California, Harry W. Crosby, 1984, p. 36, Copley Press, La Jolla, CA.

In 2015, astronomer E.C. Krupp wrote "Star and crescent combinations in rock art in the American Southwest were first interpreted in 1955 as eyewitness depictions of the 1054 AD Supernova explosion that produced the Crab nebula. While the Crab nebula is visible only telescopically, the event that generated it was brilliant, and for a time only the Sun and Moon were brighter. Additional Crab supernova candidates in California and Southwestern rock art were suggested 20 years later, and they included Chaco Canyon's Penasco Blanco pictograph panel, which became the poster child for Crab supernova rock art and is now called 'Supernova' on signage at the site. By 1979, a list of 21 Crab supernova rock art sites was assembled, and the inventory has continued to expand more slowly since then." (Krupp (A) 2015:167)

Possible representations of the AD 1054 supernova. Left to right: El Parral, Baja California; White Mesa, Arizona; Navajo Canyon, Arizona; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; from "The Cave Paintings of Baja California", Harry W. Crosby, 1997, p. 227, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.

And in a second piece in 2015 Krupp wrote - “Astronomical studies of rock art began in the American Southwest, in 1955. William C. Miller, a staff member at Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories, initiated this research with a report on the pairing of a “star” symbol with a crescent at two different rock art sites in northern Arizona. He also suggested both panels might depict the Crab supernova of 1054 AD, a conspicuous event which was recorded at the time by official astronomers in China and Japan. Miller’s work was never forgotten by the astronomers, but astronomical interpretation of rock art went dormant until the 1970s, when additional examples of star/crescent combinations in California and Southwest rock art were noticed. In 1972, paintings of a “star” and crescent were reported from Fern Cave in Lava Beds National Monument, in northeast California, and a year later, the star and crescent on an overhang at Penasco Blanco in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, captured attention. In June, 1973, at a conference in Mexico City, a group of eight investigators discussed five different supernova rock art sites and mentioned the possibility of two others in the first survey of supernova rock art. Two years later, astronomers John C. Brandt and Ray A. Williamson confirmed the two provisional sites and added six more. At the same symposium, Dorothy Mayer, a rock art researcher, discussed more than a dozen sites in California and Nevada and judged that four might represent the Crab supernova. By 1979, a new review listed 19 possible supernova depictions in rock art. By 2005, however, detailed, disciplined review demonstrated some of the classic examples could not possibly represent the Crab supernova. It was also clear no one knew the locations of the two original “supernova” sites and that no one had seen them since Miller described them. When the two sites were finally recovered and reappraised, it was evident the supernova interpretation at both sites is compromised, and ongoing scrutiny of the other canonical star/crescent rock art panels may now result in a complete reassessment of the supernova record in Southwest rock art.” (Krupp (B) 2015:594-5)

Navajo Canyon (actually Binne Etteni Canyon) Arizona. From Krupp (A), 2015, Figure 2.

It has gotten to the point where every crescent in rock art that is accompanied by another object is branded the A.D. 1054 supernova. Probably the most important question we have to ask is “what would a supernova look like to an ancient naked-eye observer, and how would they draw it?” I have never seen a supernova so I do not know what it would really look like.

White Mesa, Arizona. From Krupp (A), 2015, Figure 1.

Virtually all descriptions of the event go something like the following. “Chinese astronomers noticed the sudden appearance of a star blazing in the daytime sky on July 4, 1054 CE. It likely outshone the brightest planet, Venus, and was temporarily the 3rd-brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon. This “guest star” – the exploding supernova – remained visible in daylight for some 23 days. At night it shone near Tianguan – a star we now call Zeta Tauri, in the constellation of the Taurus the Bull – for nearly two years. Then it faded from view.” (Sessions and Gonzaga 2023)

Supernova explosion. Internet image, public domain.

The speculation then continues, usually starting with the panel from the Penasco Blanco trail in Chaco Canyon. “The ancestral puebloan people in the American Southwest may have viewed the bright new star in 1054. Also, a crescent moon was in the sky near the new star on the morning of July 5, the day following the observations by the Chinese. So the pictograph below, from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, may depict the event. And the multi-spiked star to the left represents the supernova near the crescent moon. Furthermore, the handprint above may signify the importance of the event or may be the artist’s ‘signature.’” (Sessions and Gonzaga 2023)

Petroglyph originally designated an eclipse. I suggest it as a much better candidate for the AD 1054 Supernova. Photograph High Altitude Observatory, public domain.

I would like to nominate another candidate for the supernova of A.D. 1054. Also found in Chaco Canyon, it has been designated as a solar eclipse in the past, but, as I have written before, a total solar eclipse should not have the center pecked out like this, it should be a ring of light showing prominences. This petroglyph seems to me to be a much better candidate for early stages of an exploding supernova. There are any number of public domain photographs on the internet of supernovas in their various stages, and some of them look very much like the Chaco Canyon petroglyph in question. Can I prove any of this? No, I cannot – but I submit it makes a certain amount of sense.

NOTES: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these claims you should read the Krupp’s excellent reports listed below.

REFERENCES:

Krupp, Edwin C. (A), 2015, Crab Supernova Rock Art: A Comprehensive, Critical, and Definitive Review, August 2015, Journal of Skyscape Archeology 1(2), 167-197. DOI:10.1558/jsa.v1i2.28255.

Krupp, Edwin C. (B), 2015, Rock Art of the Greater Southwest, pp. 593-606, in Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, edited by Ruggles, Clive L. N., Springer Company, New York

Sessions, Larry, and Shireen Gonzaga, 2023, Meet the Crab Nebula, remnant of an exploding star, 15 January 2023, https://earthsky.org. Accessed online 21 October 2023.