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THE FOUR MOONS 163
days, or 8,035.5 hours, corresponding to 407 synodic periods of
the moon while it goes through all its phases. The number of
eclipses in one year is 156 cycles for the solar year and 143 cycles
for the lunar year.
Exactly as the width of the temple represents 11/12 of its
length, so the lunar year represents 11/12 of a solar year. This
fact alone seems to confirm the interpretation of the Gate of the
Sun numbers and the Tiahuanaco calendar, and the theory of the
four moons does not seem so improbable any more. In fact, it begins
to look very probable.
The Tiahuanaco astronomers worked with a small time cycle
of 3,168 days, representing 11 solar years or 12 lunar years. Apparently,
they also worked with a great cycle of 9,504 days,
which was the time the sun and the moon needed to come to the
same longitude and the same point on the zodiac of that period
in our planet's history.
Some might ask how the Nineveh Constant fits in with the
theory of the four moons, when the intervals were of different
value. So check again with your handy calculator—it fits with
precision up to the fifth decimal point. Start with the number of
hours in the Nineveh Constant, which is 54,432 million, or exactly
6,209,445 solar years of 8,766 hours each, or 1,788,320,160 days of
30.4375 hours of that time. Equally precise are the numbers that
you will obtain fiom the division of the Nineveh Constant into
564,495 cycles of 11 solar years or 12 Ixmar years.
Now the Temple of Kalasasaya in Tiahuanaco is built at an altitude
of 3,845 m and situated at i6°2/ south latitude and 68°4i'
west longitude. One degree of longitude at this latitude is
about
106,790 m. Dividing this by 360,000, we obtain a local foot of
0.296639 m, very close to the actual foot of 0.297234 m, which
will play an important role in this story.
Kalasasaya is in ruins now. But it was built on a stone masonry
terrace that has kept its form and dimensions fairly well. It is
This map shows the orientations and the dimensions of the principal
ruins measured in Tiahuanaco cubits of 445.851 millimeters each. The
width-to-length ratios of several buildings had astronomical or mathematical
meanings. For example, 264 and 288 were the numbers of
days in the lunar and solar years at that time, and 288/396 was the
tangent of 36 degrees.