All language subtitles for Chasing.the.Equinox.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG2_English

NARRATOR:
Hidden in the world's iconic monuments,

is an incredible
ancient knowledge of the sun.

DR. FABIO SILVA: This connection
with the sun and the sky,

is actually timeless.

NARRATOR: Twice a year, as light breaks
across the Earth,

their secrets are revealed.

DR. SARAH KLASSEN:
This entire space is engineered around

this one moment in time.

NARRATOR: Across thousands of years
and unrelated civilizations,

ancient monuments unite
in perfect alignment to the sun.

On the same single day,

The Equinox.

TORE LOMSDALEN:
They go and build this fantastic temple,

unique in the world,
so there must be a driving force.

NARRATOR: Each a miracle
of engineering and astronomy.

DR. EFROSYNI BOUTSIKAS: With the
technology that they had at the time,

it's amazing how much
they could have achieved.

NARRATOR:
But how did the ancient astronomers

create this global event?

The human race in a simultaneous

celebration of the sun on the Equinox.

It's 6:15 a.m. in Cambodia.

Today is the Equinox.

An event that happens only twice a year,

when day and night are almost
the same length all over the world.

South East Asia waits for the sun.

Huge crowds gather
at the world famous temple of Angkor Wat.

They've come to witness an ancient
but spectacular special effect.

The sun is up and rising,

just to the east behind the central tower.

But the real moment of truth
is still to come.

♪♪

(crowd cheering)

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
The sun is important in all cultures,

particularly in ancient cultures,

because the sun is the thing that
allows people to survive.

Without the sun there is no survival.

It's not a coincidence
that it has been deified

in ancient cultures
throughout the globe.

DR. SILVA:
We still find this connection very deep.

Every society that we have studied
all over the world and since pre-history

seems to have had an interest
in the sun, the moon or the stars.

NARRATOR:
And on the Equinox, our human obsession

with the sun is revealed...

in ancient sites around the world.

2000 miles to the west,
the windows of the Indian temple

of Sree Padmanabhaswamy

frame the setting sun
with exquisite precision.

In Egypt more visual
fireworks from the setting sun,

as it merges into
the shoulder of the sphinx,

with the Pyramid of Khafre
directly behind.

In Europe,
the megalithic temples of Mnajdra

predate the pyramids by 1,000 years.

Here too is a solar phenomenon
that occurs only on the Equinox.

In the Americas,
at Chichén Itzá in Mexico,

dating back 1,000 years,
an hour long light show

as a snake in shadow form slithers down
the side of the snake god's temple.

Peoples from different continents,
centuries and cultures

all independently celebrated the sun.

DR. SILVA: They were keen
observers of natural cycles,

keen observers of what was
happening in the sky.

And they built that knowledge
into these structures themselves.

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
When we examine these sites,

what we see is not just
the skill that these cultures had,

but also the importance of time
and astronomy and the sun in human life.

It's mind boggling that they had
the capability to make these monuments.

NARRATOR:
In the modern world, it's easy to forget

that since the dawn of humanity,

every culture on Earth
has relied on the sun.

DR. SILVA: Prehistoric societies, before
the invention of writing or farming,

we're already interested in the sky.

And we find evidence for that
all over the world.

NARRATOR:
Astronomy was the first science.

Only astronomy makes
a reliable calendar possible.

DR. BOUTSIKAS: You can't perform
agriculture farming practices,

you can't sew, you can't plow

unless you know
what time in the year it is.

They had to know the movement of the sun
in order to be able to-to survive.

NARRATOR:
In summer, the northern hemisphere

tilts towards the sun...
and the days are longer.

In winter, it's tilted away
and it's cold and dark.

But when the seasons change,
the sun is directly over the equator,

and both halves of the
planet face our star equally.

Everywhere on Earth, day and night
are almost the same length, 12 hours.

DR. SILVA: The word Equinox comes from
the Latin equinotium,

which encapsulates the idea that the night
has the same length as the day.

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
You come out of the darkness of the winter

and your days now from the Equinox onwards
start to grow and become longer,

because light brings life.

The Equinox is the reaffirmation that
the world is waking,

the cosmos is waking up again,
the Earth is waking up again.

And your survival can carry on.

NARRATOR: Ancient civilizations develop
the astronomical knowledge

to plot the sun's movements
with precision.

And then, the engineering skills
to celebrate those movements in stone.

The mystery is, how did they do it?

For archaeologist Dr. Sarah Klassen,

the alignment with the sun at the Equinox
is one of the most spectacular features

of the temple at Angkor Wat.

Sarah is using new technology to discover
the secrets of ancient structures.

DR. KLASSEN:
This is a total station

and we use it in the field to collect
very high precision,

uh, geographical locations
for points of interest.

So we can use it for architecture,
like here at Angkor Wat.

And we can then load into a computer
to understand how the temple was built,

what angles, what the different lengths
are between the different features.

NARRATOR:
The temple of Angkor Wat

was built 800 years ago
by Emperor Suryavarman II,

and stood at the heart of his empire.

DR. KLASSEN:
You can tell that the ancient Khmer

were extremely sophisticated
when it came to their engineering,

both in terms of
the scale and the precision

of the types of things
that they engineered.

NARRATOR:
It's on the Equinox that this

sophistication becomes clear.

Angkor is aligned towards
the rising Equinox sun.

One set of grid lines runs north to south.

The others run west to east
into the rising Equinox sun.

From the western gate,
a dead straight avenue

leads directly to the heart of the temple.

But modern measurements reveal that
the alignment is not quite due east.

DR. KLASSEN: The one thing
that's really unusual about Angkor

is it's not built exactly
on the cardinal directions.

It's actually half a degree off.

NARRATOR:
For these ancient masters of geometry ,

half a degree would be
a huge margin of error.

But in fact, it's no mistake.

It's a deliberate stroke
of mathematical genius.

DR. KLASSEN:
It's actually quite ingenious.

We think they did this
so that during the Equinox

the sun would rise
directly over that central temple.

NARRATOR:
The trick is that the Equinox sun

rises at due east.

But in the minutes it takes to rise
to the height of the tower,

it also moves right across the sky.
Half a degree off due east.

If the tower was due east,

the sun would be out of line
when it reached the top.

So the architect's solution was simple.

They rotated the entire layout
to compensate by exactly half a degree.

DR. SILVA:
To create an alignment between

the western gate, the top
of the tower and the sun

on the day of the Equinox,
is a huge amount of skill.

NARRATOR:
Eight centuries later,

it's still a calculated,
mathematical miracle.

One that proves the Equinox
was a vital moment

for which the entire temple
was constructed.

DR. SILVA: The beauty of Angkor Wat,
is in the mathematics of it.

It looks and feels like everything
was minutely planned and,

and detailed to a mathematical
level of precision.

DR. KLASSEN:
After working here for over five years,

it's really exciting to kind of
finally be here for this moment,

that this entire
structure was built around.

The energy of the crowd,
all the excitement of everyone being here,

it's a very special moment.

NARRATOR: A fraction, half a degree,
makes all the difference.

DR. SILVA:
To actually capture the sun

right at the top
of the central tower of Angkor Wat...

They were using the sun to make
a statement about their own beliefs,

and in this case, their own power
and their place in the cosmos.

♪♪

(crowd cheering)

DR. KLASSEN:
The temples that we see today

are not what the temple
would have looked like in the past.

The temple may have been
coated entirely in gold,

so you can imagine what it would look like

with the sun
rising over the central tower.

A powerful moment to experience.

NARRATOR: The Emperor's architects
had got it right, to the last tiny detail.

Angkor Wat is one of
the world's greatest ancient sites.

But just one of many across the Earth
that celebrate the Equinox sun

with a spectacular light show.

As the Equinox sun leaves Cambodia,

it continues its journey around the globe.

In Kerala, 2000 miles to the west
on the south coast of India,

the crowds have to wait for
sunset to witness the effect.

The stunning temple
of Sree Padmanabhaswamy

has a beautifully carved tower
dated 400 years after Angkor Wat.

Through its series
of precisely aligned windows,

the Equinox sun sinks into
the west like an elevator,

lighting up stories
at five minute intervals.

NARRATOR: Another quarter of the way
around the world in ancient Egypt,

the setting Equinox sun hits two
of the most iconic structures on Earth.

The Great Sphinx of Giza
and the Pyramid of Khafre

are both believed to have
been built 4,500 years ago.

On the Equinox, the setting sun merges
into the Sphinx's shoulder

with the Pyramid of Khafre behind.

The alignment of all the Giza pyramids
to the setting sun in the west

is incredibly accurate,
within 1/15th of a degree.

The ancients may have achieved this
using the simplest of tools.

DR. SILVA:
One possible way of orienting structures

to the point of the compass
is using the Indian circle method.

This method consists of an upright pole

and observing the shadow
that is cast by the sun

between sunrise and sunset.

And you would mark the movement
of this shadow on the ground.

Then you would take a rope
of the same length

as the wooden pole that you used,

and you would tie it around the pole
and draw this circle on the ground.

These intersect at two points,

and if you draw a line
between these two points

you've got a line
that is marking the east-west direction.

When you look at it from above
it does seem to fit perfectly

with the point of the compass.

This method is so simple and so powerful,
so accurate that...

it could actually be used by any society
anywhere in the world.

NARRATOR:
On the day of the Equinox,

the sun's journey
continues onwards onto Europe.

Bathing the Mediterranean and light.

On the island of Malta,
something incredible is happening.

The rays of dawn penetrate
a pre-historic temple,

a 1,000 years older than the pyramids,
with breathtaking precision,

striking the center of
the ancient alter dead on.

DR. SILVA: They were specifically
targeting the Equinox.

Pinpointing the exact position of sunrise
at the Equinox is incredibly difficult.

And that makes it even more amazing
that some societies did manage to do that.

NARRATOR: It's a miracle
of astronomy and architecture,

made five and a half thousand years ago.

DR. SILVA:
The people in Malta were building these

fantastic great massive structures,

and building so many of them
on such a small archipelago,

that this is unheard of
anywhere else in the world.

NARRATOR: The temple at Mnajdra
is one of the oldest temples in the world.

Built with stones weighing 30 tons each,
the equivalent of five elephants.

DR. SILVA:
They clearly were not that primitive,

they clearly have the skills,
the ability, the know-how.

It's fantastic to think that this
was built to align with the Equinox.

NARRATOR:
For the last ten years,

archaeoastronomer
Tore Lomsdalen

has been focused on figuring out
exactly how they did it.

LOMSDALEN:
Every time I come here, I'm amazed,

and I think about
the knowledge they must have.

They go and build this fantastic temple,
it's unique in the world,

so there must be a driving force.

NARRATOR: There are three separate
temples at Mnajdra,

arranged in a clover leaf shape.

They're aligned in different directions,

with one facing east to the Equinox dawn.

LOMSDALEN:
They knew what was going on in the sky.

They oriented it towards
the eastern horizon

to be able to observe how
the sun moved through a solar year.

NARRATOR: As well as the days getting
longer and shorter through the year,

the precise spot on the horizon
where the sun rises also moves.

In December, it rises at
its most southerly point.

At mid-summer, it reaches
the furthest north.

The Equinox sunrise at due east will be
right in the middle of the two extremes.

DR. SILVA: That middle point
would be close enough to the Equinox

for them to build
a structure that was aligned to it.

NARRATOR: Tore believes
the temple builders used this method

to keep track of the sun
throughout the year.

That Mnajdra was a calendar
built in stone.

A tantalizing clue lies
at the winter solstice position.

LOMSDALEN:
This hole could have been a marker

for the builders when they build Mnajdra

to align to the rising sun
at the winter solstice.

It's so perfectly aligned.

NARRATOR: There may have been
a similar marker for the Equinox.

But this method isn't very accurate,

especially on a steeply
sloping cliff top like Mnajdra.

By the time the sun is high enough to see,
it already has drifted to one side.

DR. SILVA:
You are going to be finding a point

that isn't exactly due east,

it's going to be slightly to the left
or slightly to the right of east,

which builds in this error
into the method.

NARRATOR: This method was likely only used
for the design of the first temple,

believed to be a single
chamber facing the horizon.

The Equinox sun would have entered
the temple at a slanting angle

to hit the alter at one side,
rather than dead on.

But over time, the temple was rebuilt
with new astronomical knowledge.

LOMSDALEN:
There was an evolution

in the astronomical knowledge
and development of the--

of how they wanted
to have the temple oriented

directly towards the Equinox sunrise.

NARRATOR: And surprisingly, that
new knowledge may have come at night.

In Malta,

the ancient astronomers
needed a new method

to align their temple precisely
to the rising Equinox sun.

The answer, it seems, lay in the stars.

DR. SILVA:
They were using particular stars

that rise at the exact location
as the sun rises at the Equinox

as very accurate markers for this event.

NARRATOR: Astronomers believe
they used these pillars

to mark their observations.

There's a cluster of holes that's thought

to represent the stars
in the Pleiades constellation,

also known as the Seven Sisters.

They're bright
and prominent in the night sky.

By chance, the Pleiades rise at due east,

the same place as the Equinox sun.

But while the sunrise
moves along the horizon,

the stars come up in the same place
every night,

because they're 30 million times
further away than the sun.

DR. SILVA:
Almost every night of the year

you just spot where
the Pleiades are rising

and you will know the sun will
rise at that exact spot

on the days of the Equinox.

NARRATOR:
The showpiece of the new temple

would be the huge central alter

to catch the rising Equinox sun.

LOMSDALEN:
They develop more awareness

and this whole temple was built
to center around the Equinox.

NARRATOR:
It took more than 1,000 years

to reach the final design.

The alter was at the back
of a completely new chamber,

so deep into the temple,

the sun could never fully reach it,
except on the Equinox.

Prehistoric humans sent a message
we can still read today.

LOMSDALEN (off screen):
See the brightness, look how beautiful.

NARRATOR: The Equinox sun still
comes right down the central corridor

to bathe the altar piece in light.

LOMSDALEN (off screen):
Look at the passage...

All the sun is increasing.

It's gone up 100% today.

MAN (off screen): Whoa.

NARRATOR: The light hits its target
with extraordinary precision.

DR. SILVA: At the Equinox, this corridor
has just the right length

to create this effect

where the sunlight just hits the bottom
of this altar in the back.

It's fantastic that this was
an intentional alignment.

NARRATOR: Some of the first builders
built for the Equinox.

LOMSDALEN: 5,000 years ago,
they made these temples.

This is absolutely
their altar and it's amazing.

NARRATOR:
Just one hour after Malta,

the Equinox sun reaches across Europe
to rise on stone age Ireland.

1,500 miles from Malta, the same effect.

The dawn light hits ancient stone
at the back of a chamber,

and a carved
symbol of the sun.

This is Loughcrew in County Meath,

a stone age site like
Malta and almost as old,

dating back 5,000 years.

A farming society was greeting
the arrival of spring.

DR. SILVA: They were building
those relationships they had to the cosmos

into the structures
that they were building

or into the art that they were painting.

NARRATOR: The light descends
to a second carved image of the sun.

Prehistoric people marking the Equinox
as a matter of life and death.

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
What you are basically doing

is ensuring that the sun will shine
or will do what it's supposed to do

in order for your crops to grow.

You're addressing the cosmos, um,
in order to be able to ensure

your own existence and your own survival.

NARRATOR:
The Equinox leaves Europe far behind.

The dawn light races across
the Atlantic Ocean,

and finally hits America.

In north western New Mexico,

the sun climbs ever higher
over endless desert.

Archaeoastronomer Anna Sofaer,

has been drawn to the Pueblo ruins
of Chaco Canyon for more than 40 years.

ANNA SOFAER: I am stunned
by the beauty of Pueblo Bonito.

It is so gorgeous.

Look at just those doorways
and the perfect right angles to the edges.

Look at the way it's held up for so long.

Isn't that incredible?

(laughs)
That people built this 1,000 years ago.

NARRATOR:
This is ancient territory,

spanning more than 30,000 square miles
of the American south west.

In the early 12th century,

these were the lands
of the ancestral Puebloan people.

One of the most sophisticated
civilizations of the ancient south west,

who believe they'd been
lead here from the north,

the spiritual home of their ancestors.

The ancestral Puebloans
reshaped the canyon

with hundreds of structures that
seem to grow organically from the rock.

And their obsession with the Equinox
lead them to construct

one the greatest single buildings
of ancient America,

the iconic Pueblo Bonito.

In the brutal high desert
landscape of New Mexico,

archaeoastronomer Anna Sofaer
explores a mysterious ancient structure.

This is Pueblo Bonito,

one of the biggest single buildings
in ancient North America.

Built in a place too barren to support
the numbers who could live here.

SOFAER: This room shows you how large
the interior rooms of Bonito were.

We're standing on the top
of the first story

and we are in the second story,

and then above those vigas,
those wood posts you see the third story.

And you get a little look at
what was the fourth story.

So it's a massive building.

NARRATOR: The sheer scale sparks
the greatest mystery of Pueblo Bonito.

Thousands came,
but very few stayed to live.

SOFAER: It's really difficult to think
of people living here.

If you imagine, two stories above
you, you're enclosed.

You cannot have a fire.
You can't have a hearth.

It's a great puzzle,
what were they doing?

What we're looking at is a site
that was built for religious purposes,

for very powerful beliefs.

And those beliefs are based
on a relationship with the cosmos.

NARRATOR: They came to Chaco Canyon
to worship the sun.

Paul Pino is an elder
of the Laguna Pueblo,

a modern community directly descended
from the original Puebloans.

PAUL PINO:
The culture that created Bonito,

that culture is not gone.

It continues today
in the Pueblos here in New Mexico.

(drums beating, chanting)

My grandchildren are part of that culture,

living every single day.

They're a part of it, and they will
pass that onto their children.

NARRATOR: Cameras are not permitted
inside Pueblo ceremonies,

but in this rare footage,
worshipers are leaving a kiva,

a circular underground structure
where rituals and meetings are held.

PINO:
I believe that when the people lived here,

they performed a lot of their ceremonies
much the same as the ceremonies

that we do today.

There's that continuity
from the past to the present.

NARRATOR:
Pueblo Bonito alone has 36 kivas,

with room for up to 50 people in each.

The Puebloans saw order
in the way the sun moved,

and mapped it onto Pueblo Bonito.

On the Equinox, the sun rises in the east
at the end of the enclosing wall.

Sunset happens in the west
at the other end of the enclosing wall.

SOFAER:
This wall, that's the exterior wall

of the building on the south side,

is so exactly east-west
that on the nights on Equinox

you can view the sun setting
on the trajectory of this wall.

NARRATOR:
And Pueblo Bonito

is only the largest building
in an entire ritual landscape.

The whole canyon marks the Equinox.

There are 14 great kivas,
like Casa Rinconada.

The giant circles could each take
400 people, almost 6,000 in all.

SOFAER: The kiva is so important
in the ancient Chaco culture.

This is the ceremonial site
for most of their activities

that were related to the sun.

NARRATOR:
The kiva had a heavy earthen roof.

In the dark interior, worshipers
would only see the sun

through the niches in the walls.

SOFAER: It was organized to
the cardinal directions:

north, south, east, west.

Over there, the north side of the building
has a rectangular structure

with two doorways that are aligned
to the rising of the Equinox sun.

NARRATOR: Everything is aligned
to the compass within a few degrees.

The doorways of this rectangular structure
open east and west,

so the rising Equinox sunrise
shines through both

and floods the interior with light,
two days a year until the end of time.

PINO:
The sky and the Earth were created

at the same time in our belief.

The sun was created to give light
to the world,

so the sun and the Earth work together
to provide nourishment for the people.

NARRATOR: The Equinox sun bursts
into kivas across the canyon.

PINO:
It must have been, at this height,

something phenomenal to see.

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
What we are exploring are sites

where people were gathering in order
to have this experience of space,

but also this connection with the cosmos.

PINO:
The alignments represent

a particular order in how things are done.

And sometimes in this modern age,
that order is missing.

And we mess up our world.

NARRATOR: The Pueblo marked the Equinox
with one final spectacular display.

This is Fajada Butte.

A scared overlook, where most likely,

only the elite astronomers
of their civilization could ever go.

On its side, Anna found
three sandstone slabs,

appearing to be set by
hand against the rock face.

There was a spiral pattern
carved into the rock.

She was just in time to watch
a dagger of sunlight appear from nowhere.

SOFAER:
The precision of that

within a few minutes of noon,
I think it's four minutes of solar noon.

NARRATOR:
On the west face, another spiral pattern:

this time a double.

SOFAER:
It has a dagger of light

going up through the right lobe.
Again, noon Equinox.

DR. SILVA:
What makes Chaco canyon unique

with respect to the Equinox,

is that it shifts the emphasis
from the sunrise or the sunset

and puts it at noon.

SOFAER:
It's like clockwork.

It's like all of that
is happening at once.

The sun dagger site marks Equinox.

These two sites mark Equinox noon.

It's the same that we see
in the buildings, the same people,

the same mindset to align themselves
to the sun, the power of the sun.

NARRATOR:
1,500 miles from Chaco,

the Maya built structures
that dwarfed even Pueblo Bonito.

And they created
the greatest solar effect of all:

the climax of the sun's entire journey.

In the ancient city of
Chichén Itzá, in Mexico,

thousands of people have
gathered from far and near.

In a few hour's time
at this ancient pyramid,

they will witness quite possibly

the single most spectacular effect
ever created with the Equinox sun.

DR. SILVA: This is not your average
alignment to sunrise of sunset.

This is a complicated 3D effect

that involves the light of the sun
hours before it sets

to construct this dynamic shadow play
that is uniquely Mayan.

NARRATOR:
A 1,000 years ago,

the vast Maya empire was centered here,
in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

But their civilization was
already 3,000 years old.

It has become a byword
for sophisticated learning,

astronomical knowledge and
above all, stunning buildings.

This is called El Caracol,
Spanish for "The Snail,"

because of its distinctive shape.

DR. SILVA:
It has this dome shape at the top.

When you look at it
from our modern, Western perspective,

it looks just like an observatory.

So maybe people were sitting
there inside this structure,

looking for the sun
or the moon or the planets.

NARRATOR: For site director,
Marco Antonio Santos Ramirez,

El Caracol was a central
importance to the Maya.

MARCO ANTONIO SANTOS RAMIREZ: The
astronomers would be in here all the time,

and they were looked after
by many people,

because they were the specialists.

For century after century,
there was a continuous recording

of all astronomical phenomena.

DR. BOUTSIKAS:
Astronomical observations and knowledge

was restricted to, uh,
specific elites, for example.

And by doing that, what the Mayans
achieved to do is maintain power.

So your power was maintained through
the knowledge of how the sky operated.

NARRATOR:
By the time Chichén Itzá was built,

Maya astronomers already
knew exactly how the sun,

moon and planets would move.

El Caracol is not so much an observatory,

as a calendar made in stone.

The slits in the walls were
deliberately placed

to record the passing of the sun
on certain vital days.

A pair of slits records a specific sunset
on the Equinox or the Solstice.

RAMIREZ:
These alignments were used to establish

which time of the year they were in.

NARRATOR: Marco's colleagues have been
capturing the effects throughout the year.

Reconstructing the detailed knowledge base
that the Maya had built up over centuries.

RAMIREZ: See how the sun
was coming in these doors

to register these lines of light

that mark the specific times
they want to register.

It may look very simple,

because all you are seeing
is a line of light,

but to get to this,
there is an ancestral knowledge

going through many generations.

NARRATOR: The
Maya knew the Equinox was vital

for the survival of crops.

RAMIREZ:
In the case of the Equinox,

it was an important and symbolic moment,

because the dry season
is the death season,

and the rainy season is the life season.

And it's probably marking the end of one,

and the start of another one.

NARRATOR:
To guarantee their survival,

the Maya believed the gods had
to be placated at the Equinox.

And at Chichén Itzá, one of the most
powerful gods was Kukulkan:

a winged serpent who flew ahead
of the rain god Chac,

bringing in the wet season,

as his tail moved the wind
and swept the Earth clean.

The Maya built their pyramid in his name
and carved his image into its façade.

RAMIREZ:
Kukulkan is a creator god,

creator of time, universe,
men, corn and fire.

It's like a rebirth,

a fight between these
two forces: life and death.

NARRATOR:
At the Equinox,

Kukulkan will be celebrated
with a spectacular light show.

On the day of the Equinox,

tourists at Chichén Itzá
wait for the spectacular moment

that marks the arrival of the new season.

GROUP: Kukulkan.

NARRATOR:
It's now just minutes away

and tension is rising.

Clouds threaten to ruin
the crucial moment.

The crowd prays they'll see the true
extent of Maya religious power.

DR. SILVA:
To create this effect is very complicated

and yet they've done this
almost 1,000 years ago

without any of modern mathematics
or computer technology.

RAMIREZ: All the people are around
Kukulkan pyramid waiting for that moment.

NARRATOR:
The pyramids key feature

is this sloping edge
on the north west corner.

Each of the steps protrudes a little
in a triangle-shaped bump.

The Maya realize that these would
cast shadows on the nearby staircase

and they could use them to
conjure their illusion.

RAMIREZ:
Here is where we will see the

formation of the light
and shadow triangles.

NARRATOR: The whole effect will happen
in three dimensions.

The sun is moving in
a curve across the sky.

The edge is sloping
down and sideways

and the staircase is a flat
plain at a different angle.

So the Maya architects had to solve
a highly complex problem.

DR. SILVA:
This must have required amazing skills.

What they must have done
is create a small scale 3D model,

made of maybe wood or clay,
and actually go out there

and use the actual light of the
sun on the day of the Equinox

to cast light on this model
and play with it

until they found exactly
the effect they were looking for.

NARRATOR:
The basic shadow was a line of triangles,

but if the Maya changed
the shape of the sloping edge,

it would change
the shape of the shadow.

They could use their model
to get the effect they wanted.

NARRATOR:
The Equinox moment is almost here.

RAMIREZ:
As the sun sinks to the west,

the light and shadow triangles
will start forming.

NARRATOR:
We cannot be certain

what effect it must have had
on the watching Maya people.

It must have been
part wonder, part terror.

RAMIREZ: At this moment,
they are starting to show up.

NARRATOR: Kukulkan himself had appeared
on the face of the Earth.

It's not the shadows that count,
but the light.

The brilliant outline of a serpent's body
slithering down the staircase

to join his head at the base.

RAMIREZ: They've come to see this,
the descent of Kukulkan

and how it fertilizes Mother Earth.

NARRATOR: For the Maya, this was
the ultimate expression of the Equinox.

Kukulkan had descended
to Earth to banish the dry season

and bring rain and new life.

RAMIREZ: How wonderful it is that
the ancestral knowledge can still be seen.

DR. SILVA:
In modern society,

we have lost touch with
the environment that's around us

and that includes the sky.

But in particular we've
lost touch with the Equinoxes,

which would be the true moments
of transition

between the warm half of the year
and the cold half of the year.

NARRATOR:
Leaving Mexico,

the sun passes over
the Pacific Ocean

and finishes its Equinox journey.

Civilizations long forgotten,

unknown to one another
celebrated this day.

For the ancients,
the sun was the giver of life.

First they needed
to understand its journey,

then they wanted to harness its power.

Developing the first knowledge
of astronomy and engineering to do it.

Chasing the Equinox,

the ancient astronomers
created a cosmic magic.

Captioned by Point.360