Completed in 1982, this classic, timeless film documents the extraordinary celestial calendar created by ancient North American Indians, and rediscovered by artist Anna Sofaer, high on a butte in New Mexico. The “dagger” is presently the only known site in the world that marks the extreme positions of both the sun and moon. The film explores the complex culture of the Chaco people who constructed the calendar and thrived both spiritually and materially in the harsh environment of Chaco Canyon a thousand years ago.

Anna Sofaer’s classic film The Sun Dagger changed forever our perception of America’s earliest Indian peoples.

“…as an astronomical and geometrical marvel, it ranks with the Pyramids and Stonehenge.” – Science 84

Director/writer: Anna Sofaer
Features: Rolf Sinclair, Anna Sofaer
Narrator: Robert Redford
Running Time: 1 hr.
 
Film: Documentary
Language: English