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- lb1lfThese are all over the place in Norway (as are they everywhere else, presumably!)When we moved to the island we currently live on, our address was in a road called 'Solsteinen' (The Sun Stone), but I didn't think anything of it until I realized that the roughly hewn stone serving as the property limit marker was juuu-uuust touched by the sun on Winter Solstice. Aha.A quick call to the local archaeologist confirmed my suspicion - 'Oh, so you're the new resident there, I'd planned on being in touch - that stone monument has been there for more than 2000 years, is A-listed and please, whatever you do, don't do anything with it. Seriously.'
- INTPenisWhat I find cute is that every year on the 21st of december a small number of modern day pagans and nature lovers gather at Ales Stenar here in southern Sweden and watch the sun rise over the center stone of the "ship".We bring thermos bottles, some bring kids, pets, and we just stand there in silence watching the sun.Afaik it's not coordinated, it's just a bunch of people having the same idea every year.
- arionmilesThis reminded me of The Anasazi Sun Temple that catches the first light of the Summer Solstice in a specific point in the temple. I first discovered this watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos early this year (which I'd highly recommend, BTW)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Rinconada
- franzemy modern equivalent(I needed last year for surfing (after i needed to cut a surf trip short as it became night))https://daylight.franzai.com/
- praveen9920There is a temple in India called “Konark Sun Temple”, meant to be worship place of sun god.It is built east-west to signify sun’s journey. The temple has a wheel sort of structure which kinda acts as sundial with minute level accuracy.In India, difference in day time between winter and summer solstices is minimal ( 3.5 hours ), I guess it doesn’t signify anything major close to equator.
- maelitoVert interesting ! One of the cited monuments is 30 min by bike from my home, incredible !
- voidUpdateHow did ancient cultures know when the solstice was? If you didn't tell me it was the 21st, I don't know how I'd be able to tell you other than by carefully measuring the sunrise and sunset times
- andrewinardeerWhere I live, I find it wild that there is a 5.75-hour difference between the summer and winter solstices, nearly a quarter of a whole day.
- akssri[flagged]
- JoeAltmaierWhen an aperture is aligned to the winter solstice, it is also aligned to avoid light the rest of the year. An early attempt at air conditioning? Keep the heat out.We jump so quickly to religious significance.