PREHISTORIC SUNS

FEATURE

All images © Steve Mulligan

P R EH ISTO R I C SU N S

An obsession with prehistoric astronomy – or archaeoastronomy – led Steve Mulligan on an epic journey in search of observatories that resulted in his latest book, Prehistoric Suns: Ancient Observations in the American Southwest.

rehistoric people were

Pmesmerised by the sky, by the changing of the seasons and by the movement of the stars. Knowing when to plant crops, when to harvest, when summer was turning to fall, and winter to spring, these were life-affirming times. Realising that the long winter nights had begun to shorten would have been joyous knowledge, offering the promise of spring.

Figuring out when these events happened took a serious sophistication, as well as a strong scientific method. Creating a marker – using natural landforms – that would only light up on the day of the summer solstice, finding a location to carve it, and then placing the petroglyph in the exact spot to mark the event, all of this was a formidable intellectual and physical task.

The ancients created observatories that exactly marked the summer and winter solstice, the equinox, the cross-quarters (those days dividing the solstices and the equinoxes), even making an observatory to mark the lunar stand-still (where the moon rises at its northern most point in the eastern sky). These observatories still exist around the world, with some spectacular sites in the American West. ›

‘The owner of the company that hired me, hearing I was a photographer, told me of an 18f t snake petroglyph that lit up on the summer solstice.’

harmed and intrigued

Cby the surrounding canyons, I moved to Moab, Utah, in the late 1970s. As this was before Moab became a tourist boomtown, there was a paucit y of jobs, with one of the few being a river guide. The owner of the company that hired me, hearing I was a photographer, told me of an 18ft snake petroglyph that lit up on the summer solstice. While this sounded interesting, the local canyons, having been what lured me here, were occupying my photographic attentions. His story, however, anchored firmly in my memory.

Years later, a friend and I were told of a prehistoric obser vatory south of Moab. Visiting it on the summer solstice, we settled in, waiting for the event. The light show inside this huge split boulder was intricate and exact, and the Calendar Valley site would become the catalyst that ignited my obsession with prehistoric astronomy.

Long after hearing about it, I would visit the solstice snake. This marker was incredible, with a perfect arrowhead of sunlight forming at midday on the solstice, over the snake's head. This would be one of the most dramatic markers that I photographed for this series.

Over the ensuing 15 years, I would research, locate and photograph the myriad obser vatories scattered across the western United States, with the heaviest concentration located in the canyons and mesas of the southwest. Across the west, different areas seemed to always have one person drawn into archaeoastronomy, exploring, locating and verif ying the markers. Almost without exception, these folks were generous, giving me advice and directions to their sites. ›

‘The ancients created observatories that exactly marked the summer and winter solstice, the equinox, the cross-quarters, even making an observatory to mark the lunar stand-still.’

CAPTURING THE SITES ON FILM

The markers, by their very nature, are difficult to photograph, both physically and technically. Often placed in narrow, confined spaces, camera set-up is difficult. The contrast range was usually extreme, and the events rarely lasted long enough for more than one or two exposures. Being hopelessly trapped in the past, I still shoot film with a 5x4 camera, making silver prints in a wet darkroom. Despite cutting development times as much as possible, the negatives were still ridiculously contrasty. Over the span of this project, I used several different techniques to deal with this problem.

For the most extreme conditions, I would pre-expose the negative to the scene pre-event, building up the shadow densities, and then re-exposing the same negative during the event. The second exposure would be determined by the highlight, which was often a sun ‘dagger’. I have photographed several total solar eclipses, and developed this technique to have foreground detail, rather than just a black image of the sun. Another technique I employed was to expose, before the shoot, several negatives to a grey card, helping to build up shadow densities.

The contrast in several of the markers was too extreme even for these techniques. To overcome this, I would use an extremely powerful f lashlight, painting in the shadows.

As I gained experience shooting, developing and printing the sites, the process became smoother. My film of choice is Ilford FP4, developed in Kodak HC-110. My paper of choice is Ilford FB Multigrade, and I employ a doubleexposure printing system. The first, usually very short, high-contrast exposure lays down a shadow base, while the second, soft-contrast exposure fills in the midtones and highlights. This system worked particularly well with the marker photos.

Using a two-developer system also helped, brief ly dipping the exposed paper into a hard developer, and then for a longer time into a dilute, soft developer. This gives excellent contrast control, as well as good local tonal control, delineating the delicate edges between similar tones. mulliganphotography.com

Prehistoric Suns: Ancient Observations in the American Southwest is available now from University of New Mexico Press ($65, unmpress.com)