The solar observatory Bezvodovka.

Bezvodivka is a solar observatory, ancient monument of land architecture, scientific and spiritual centre of the Bronze Age with the area of nearly 20 square kilometers.

In Chernihiv region, nearby the city of Ichnia, at Bezvodivka plateu, a group of ancient mounds  are located. Some of them were destroyed by the people and machinery, while others that remained were described by scholars as the mounds  of nomadic tribes of the  2 millennium BC and were included into the catalogue. However, by combining ancient topographic maps of this area with up-to-date ways of research, recently it has become available to unite the scattered mounds  into a single complex. The land mounds complex occupies the area of nearly 20 square kilometers. Aerial photography records and computer applications made it available to determine the purpose of a group of mounds.

 

If one stands in the centre of the complex, they may see the sun rise and set behind the manually-produced hills on days of winter and summer solstice and days of equinox which have been special to the people since time immemorial. The most important holidays of the year fall upon these very days. Bezvodovka is an ancient solar observatory alike the English Stonehenge or German Goseck. Why is it a solar observatory? The reason is that the movement of the points of the rise and set of the sun and other celestial bodies were marked on the horizon and the regularities of their movement over the celestial sphere were determined. Bezvodovka is the instrument of an incredible scale, the components of which are land, sky and cosmic objects. Determining solar and lunar cycles enabled the ancient astronomers to calculate the dates of lunar and solar eclipses. The dimensions of Bezvodovka observatory and distances between its principal sights,  which range from 800 to 4000 meters imply high precision of measurements of azimuths of the points of emergence of the sun on the horizon.

The solar observatory should be considered not only an interesting archeological monument but also an evidence of existence of civilization on the territory of Ukraine thousands of years ago, the representatives of which created a wide-scale project, organized the people for the purpose of construction and researched the space by means accessible to them. Bezvodovka has conceived its secrets for a long time, but now it reveals the knowledge of the ancient astronomers.