Lights and Architecture in the Colonial Churches of New Spain and Peru
Abstract I present findings from study of Colonial Churches of New Spain and Perú that demonstrate the original architectects intent. The churchs were designed in such a manner that the play of lights, especially from dome windows, marked days of astronomical and ecclesiastical significance. General architectural orientations of churches varied with churchs in cities generally aligned to cardinal directions, especially east-west, while rural missions were often oriented towards solstices. City street plans often followed church orientations but not inevitably, and some Colonial city centers still reflect equinoctial or solsticial orientation. The knowledge of these phenomena was lost to present day clergy and laity until Rubén Mendoza rediscovered them in California missions (2005, 2009). This work extends the range of these phenomena from the Franciscan churches of California to the Dominican churches of México, Franciscan churches of Texas, and Dominican churches of Perú. The work presented here shows the design of the Colonial churches causes them to produce beams of light whose path could mark the equinox, solstice, or cross-quarter day (the day midway between the two).
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Amson, John Ceres 2008 Gregory’s meridian line of 1673-74: A St. Andrews detective story, Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics: 23: 58-72.
Adkins, Larry R. and Robert A. Benfer 2009 Lunar Standstill Markers at Preceramic Temples at the Buena Vista Site in Perú. Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series: 409: 267-278.
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Cuesta Hernández, Luis Javier 2009 Arquitecture del Renacimiento en Nueva España. Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México.
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Evans, Robin 1995 The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries (MIT Press).
Fisher, Lewis F. 1998. The Spanish Missions of San Antonio. Maverick Press.
Furbee, Louanna 2011 The World’s Water: Seasons and Mayan Cosmology in Present-Day Chiapas. Paper presented in the Symposium on Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies of Change and Difference in Maya Sprirituality. American Anthropological Association, November 17, 2011, Montreal, Canada.
Furbee, Louanna 2013 Ethnography in Support of Archaeoastronomy: The Meaning of Tojolab’al Maya Mountain Alignments IN Ancient Cosmologies and Modern Prophets: Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture, Edited by Ivan Šprajc and Peter Pehani. Anthropological Notebooks XIX, Supplement, pp. 277-286.
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Heilbron, J.L. 1999 The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press).
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Mendoza, Rubén G. 2005 Sacrament of the Sun: Eschatological Architecture and Solar Geometry in a California Mission. 22, 87-110, The Jounal of the California Mission Studies Association.
Mendoza, Rubén 2009 Presidio Light: A Midwinter Sosltice Event at the Presidio Chapel of Santa Bárbara, Fall, 4-11.
Milbrath, Susan 1999. Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars. Austin, University of Texas Press.
Newsome, Elizabeth A. Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World: The Serial Stela Cycle of «18-Rabbit-God K,» King of Copan. Austin, University of Texas Press.
Ortiz Herrera, Rocío 2003 Pueblos Indios, Iglesia Católica y Élites Políticas en Chiapas (1824-1901). Una perspectiva comparativa. CONECULTA-El Colegio de Michoacán.
Peraza Guzmán, Marco 2000 Arquitecturea y urbanismo virreinal (Coordinador), Univeridad Autónoma de Yucatán, Facultad de Arquitectura.
Rice, Prudence M. 2005 Maya Calendar Origins: Monuments, Mythistory, and the Materialization of Time. UT Press.
San Cristobal, Antonio 2000 Estructuras ornamentals de la arquitectura virreinal Peruana. Lima, Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería.
Schibille, Nadine 2009 Astronomical and Optical Principles in the Architecture of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Science in Context 22: 27-46.
Tomka, Steve A., Anne A. Fox, Barbara Meissner - 1999 Mission San José, San Antonio, Texas. Archaeological Survey Report, No. 287. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Adkins, Larry R. and Robert A. Benfer 2009 Lunar Standstill Markers at Preceramic Temples at the Buena Vista Site in Perú. Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series: 409: 267-278.
Aveni, Anthony and Horst Hartung 1986 Maya City Planning and the Calendar. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 76, Part 7.
Anonymous Catálogo Nacional de Monumentos Históricos Inmuebles,Vol. VI. (CONACULTA INAH, Estado de Chiapas, Mexico, 1999).
Benfer, Robert A., Bernardino Ojeda, Neil A. Duncan, Larry R. Adkins, Hugo Ludeña, Miriam Vallejos, Víctor Rojas, Andrés Ocas, Omar Ventocilla y Gloria Villarreal 2010 La Tradición Religioso-Astronómica en Buena Vista. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP l1: 53-102.
Anaya Avila, María del Pilar, Patricia del Carmen Aguirre Gamboa2, Rossy Lorena Laurencio Meza y Anaya Avila, Maria del Pilar, Patricia del CarmenAguirre Gamboa, Rossy Lorena Laurencio Meza, and María del Rocío. and Ojeda Callado 2010. La enseñanza de la redacción periodística y las competencias tecnológicas que requieren los alumnos de Comunicación de la Universidad Veracruzana. Congreso Internacional de AcademiaJournals.com, ISSN 1946-5351 Online.
Atigas, Juan B. 1991 La Arquitecutra de San Christóbal de las Casas. Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, UNAM.
Benavides, Antonio 1984 La arqueología histórica Maya de Chiapas: un inicio. XVII Mesa Redonda de la Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, II: 195-205. Mexico.
Castañeda, Carlos E. 1940 The Beginning of Printing in America The Hispanic American Historical Review, 20: 671-685.
Casistor, Nick 2009 Mexico City. Oxford: Signal.
Cuesta Hernández, Luis Javier 2009 Arquitecture del Renacimiento en Nueva España. Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México.
Dawson, George M. 2004 Sunsets at Mission Concepción: Pursuit of a Legend. Manuscript.
Evans, Robin 1995 The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries (MIT Press).
Fisher, Lewis F. 1998. The Spanish Missions of San Antonio. Maverick Press.
Furbee, Louanna 2011 The World’s Water: Seasons and Mayan Cosmology in Present-Day Chiapas. Paper presented in the Symposium on Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies of Change and Difference in Maya Sprirituality. American Anthropological Association, November 17, 2011, Montreal, Canada.
Furbee, Louanna 2013 Ethnography in Support of Archaeoastronomy: The Meaning of Tojolab’al Maya Mountain Alignments IN Ancient Cosmologies and Modern Prophets: Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture, Edited by Ivan Šprajc and Peter Pehani. Anthropological Notebooks XIX, Supplement, pp. 277-286.
Gossen, Gary 1999 Telling Maya Tales: Tzotzil Identities in Modern Mexico. New York: Routledge.
Heyd, Michael 2003 The Discourse of Pious Science, Cambridge University Press Online Journals, 16.
Heilbron, J.L. 1999 The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press).
Lee, Thomas Arvol and Sidney D. Markman 1977 The Coxoh Colonial Project and Coneta, Chiapas, Mexicco: A Provincial Maya Village under the Spanish Conquest. Historical Archaeology, Vol. II, pp. 56-66. Society for Historical Archaeology.
McClusky, S. 2007. Calendrical Cycles, the Eighth Day of the World, and the Orientation of English Churches IN C. Ruggles and G. Urton (eds), Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy. Studies in Honour of Anthony F. Aveni, Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado Press, pp. 331-353.
Markman, Sidney 1984 Architecture and Urbanization in Colonial Chiapas, Mexico. Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society
Mendoza, Rubén G. 2005 Sacrament of the Sun: Eschatological Architecture and Solar Geometry in a California Mission. 22, 87-110, The Jounal of the California Mission Studies Association.
Mendoza, Rubén 2009 Presidio Light: A Midwinter Sosltice Event at the Presidio Chapel of Santa Bárbara, Fall, 4-11.
Milbrath, Susan 1999. Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars. Austin, University of Texas Press.
Newsome, Elizabeth A. Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World: The Serial Stela Cycle of «18-Rabbit-God K,» King of Copan. Austin, University of Texas Press.
Ortiz Herrera, Rocío 2003 Pueblos Indios, Iglesia Católica y Élites Políticas en Chiapas (1824-1901). Una perspectiva comparativa. CONECULTA-El Colegio de Michoacán.
Peraza Guzmán, Marco 2000 Arquitecturea y urbanismo virreinal (Coordinador), Univeridad Autónoma de Yucatán, Facultad de Arquitectura.
Rice, Prudence M. 2005 Maya Calendar Origins: Monuments, Mythistory, and the Materialization of Time. UT Press.
San Cristobal, Antonio 2000 Estructuras ornamentals de la arquitectura virreinal Peruana. Lima, Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería.
Schibille, Nadine 2009 Astronomical and Optical Principles in the Architecture of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Science in Context 22: 27-46.
Tomka, Steve A., Anne A. Fox, Barbara Meissner - 1999 Mission San José, San Antonio, Texas. Archaeological Survey Report, No. 287. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Benfer, R. A. (2013). Lights and Architecture in the Colonial Churches of New Spain and Peru. El Futuro Del Pasado, 4, 421–458. https://doi.org/10.14201/fdp.24764
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