Given the complex nature of the spiral configuration it is perhaps somewhat surprising to find it carefully delineated on rock art in regions as widely scattered as Nicaragua, Indonesia and Italy - natural growth and universal solar aspects notwithstanding. Moreover, the same enigmatic symbol is also incorporated on the Plains of Nazca in Peru and precisely illuminated by rays of sunlight at a site high up on Fajada Butte at the entrance to Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) in the United States. Although no longer functional (see "Changing Patterns at Chaco Canyon", National Geographic Magazine , June 1990), as shown in the composite graphic below the delineation of the Equinoxes and Solstices at this Anasazi Solar Observatory is most impressive. Fig. 1. The Solar Phenomena displayed at Fajada Butte The site itself is a relatively recent discovery as Thomas Y. Canby 1 explains in an article in the June 1990 National Geographic Magazine: "The spiral and the sunlight pattern were discovered in 1977 by Anna Sofaer, a Washington D.C., artist. On the shortest day of the year, she found later, two vertical beams of light would bracket the spiral. The Anasazi, Sofaer believes, were demonstrating a sophisticated use of astronomy". The arrangement apparently once delineated both pairs of Solstices and Equinoxes with great precision, employing a double set of spirals as an integral part of the scheme. Considered the work of the Anasazi (700 - 1600 BCE, Krupp 1983:152), it has apparently deteriorated in recent times, but in working order it