The following is a synopsis of Sallie Teames' talk "Possible Signs of Eta Carinae Outburst in Artifacts of Ancient Bolivia". She is presenting this to the American Association of Variable Star Observers in Hawaii July 1 & 2. She delighted those present at the June FWAS meeting with a preview of her talk on the subject. It was quite fascinating and goes like this….

The Hubble Space Telescope took some great Eta Carinae photos, which showed two bi-lobe nebulae that blew out the poles in the Great Outburst of 1843 and also equatorial outbursts that occurred in about 1890. Light curves of observations of Eta are consistent with NASA's derived dates for the formation of the two lobe structures. After 1843, Eta grew to a -1 magnitude. It was the 2nd brightest star in the sky, second only to Sirius. Then it began to fade. Then in about 1950, it began to slowly brighten until in 1998, it increased suddenly. (That is one reason the Eta Carinae Workshop is meeting... to make plans for monitoring it carefully the next 2 or 3 years..)

Then along comes the Chandra Xray Image of Eta Carinae October of 1999. It shows the huge outer horseshoe-shaped nebula surrounding the outside of Eta. NASA derives that it results from a huge outburst occurring about a l000 years ago or more. Similar to the explosions of the 1800's, the explosion 1000 years ago would have caused a very bright star.

So who would have recorded this Southern sky brilliant star? Some Indian shaman-astronomer-priest in the southern hemisphere surely would have recorded it! It's location in the Milky Way is right next to the S. Cross, placing it in a sacred part of their sky. (Positions of the Southern Cross - Crux - and Eta Carina - right)

Now to the present day - A pre-Incan Pokotia monolith statue was discovered by a Bolivian archaeology team led by Dr. Bernardo Biados and Freddy Arce on January 4, 2002. Their research in the Pokotia, Tiahuanaco, and Lake Titicaca area is supported by The Honorable H. Enrique Toro, President of the Congress of Bolivia. The final picture at right is a "rubbing" of the script off the back of a stone monolith statue found at Pokotia, Bolivia, which is close to Tiahuanaco, just below Lake Titicaca. It is quite feasible that the stones could date from 1000 AD, coinciding with the calculated date of the outburst.

The Key to the Mystery?: So now the test - Can you find the correlation between the sky chart and the rubbing?? (Hint: Look for the cross!) And remember - this is total hypothesis... there is no way right now to actually prove it!!