In October 2026 Mexican archaeologists confirmed that a pyramid complex at Teteles de Ávila Castillo in Puebla was aligned to the solstices and equinoxes 2,500 years ago — the first solar observatory found outside the Maya world.
The Art Newspaper, 26 October 2026: INAH's 11-year dig at Teteles de Ávila Castillo reveals an E-Group complex aligned to the rising sun — the first of its kind found outside the Maya area.
A fuller account of the Puebla find: the eastern platform tracks dawn at the equinoxes and solstices, and may have marked the start of the pre-Hispanic calendar in February.
Long before the Inca, builders in Peru's coastal desert raised thirteen towers to split the horizon and follow the sun across the whole year. It dates to around 300 BC.
How the Thirteen Towers of Chankillo turn a ridgeline into a calendar you can read with your eyes — a sunrise sliding tower by tower through the year.
The field that studies how ancient cultures encoded the sun, moon and stars into their monuments — and how researchers tell a real alignment from a lucky coincidence.
Across the Maya lowlands, these courtyard-and-platform complexes were built to frame the sunrise at key dates. The Puebla site is the first found well outside that world.
A walk through the towers and the fortress on the ground, showing the scale of a 2,300-year-old instrument built out of the desert itself.