|
|
|
 Home : Conference : Speakers
| Keynote Speaker |
Anna Sofaer (The Solstice Project) The Mystery of Chaco Canyon
Listen to Anna Sofaer, award winning director of the documentary "Mystery of Chaco Canyon", discuss
the discovery of the solar and lunar alignments in Chaco Canyon. She will show a section of the film that shows the sun markings and the solar
alignments of the Chaco buildings. She will then present the history and process of developing the Sun Dagger computer model and show the interactive
real time capability of the model. THE MYSTERY OF CHACO CANYON examines the deep enigmas presented by the massive prehistoric remains found in Chaco
Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. It is the summation of 20 years of research. The film reveals that between 850 and 1150 AD, the Chacoan people
designed and constructed massive ceremonial buildings in a complex celestial pattern throughout a vast desert region. Aerial and time lapse footage,
computer modeling, and interviews with scholars show how the Chacoan culture designed, oriented and located its major buildings in relationship to the
sun and moon. Pueblo Indians, descendants of the Chacoan people, regard Chaco as a place where their ancestors lived in a sacred past. Pueblo leaders
speak of the significance of Chaco to the Pueblo world today. The film challenges the notion that Chaco Canyon was primarily a trade and redistribution
center. Rather it argues that it was a center of astronomy and cosmology and that a primary purpose for the construction of the elaborate Chacoan buildings
and certain roads was to express astronomical interests and to be integral parts of a celestial patterning. While the Chacoans left no written text to help
us to understand their culture, their thoughts are preserved in the language of their architecture, roads and light markings. Landscape, directions, sun
and moon, and movement of shadow and light were the materials used by the Chacoan architects and builders to express their knowledge of an order in the
universe.
Awards for The Mystery of Chaco Canyon: Taos Talking Picture Festival Silver Plaque,
The Chicago International Television Competition Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film & Video Festival Honorable Mention,
The Archaeology Channel International Film & Video Festival American Museum of Natural History, New York National Museum of National History,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC Aboriginal Voices Festival, Toronto Hot Spring Documentary Film Festival Heard Museum Indigenous Film Festival
|
|
 |
|
|
Who is coming?
Below is the break down of where SWUG 2007 participants are coming from:
|
| New Mexico |
100 |
|
| Colorado |
46 |
|
| Other |
31 |
|
| Arizona |
23 |
|
| Utah |
8 |
|
| Wyoming |
8 |
|
|
|
|