• Submitted by: admin
• Las Tunas
• 11 / 24 / 2006

Across Cuba, there are numerous monuments that honor the island's independence hero, the most famous being the tall marble statue that rises above the Jose Marti Plaza of the Revolution, in Havana.

Nevertheless, in eastern Las Tunas city a small park, known there as the Marti Plaza, stands out for its ingenious conception based on the incidence of the sun's rays on that spot.

Jose Marti was a 19th-century poet and intellectual, who dedicated most of his short life to the cause of Cuba's independence from Spain.

A sundial that indicates the most important events in the life of Jose Marti.

The solar park, which was designed by local architect Domingo Alas Rosell, is made up of three main elements that give the place a unique character.

One of them is a conventional sundial that indicates the time.

There is also a solar calendar showing dozens of historical dates related to the hero's life and struggles.

The last peculiar feature is a light reflector that casts the sun's rays upon the sculptured face of Marti every May 19, at the exact hour that he fell in combat against the Spanish colonial troops.

According to Alás Rosell, the designer of this architectural complex, he and Jorge Perez Doval, from Cuba's Geophysics and Astronomy Institute, had to do a multitude of calculations so that the solar timing devices worked accurately.

In that way, astronomical knowledge was used to recreate the life history of the Maestro, as Cubans usually call Jose Marti.

The plaza is a metaphor that recalls a stanza of his "Simple Verses" in which the author states, "Do not put my body in the dark to die a traitor's death. I am a good man and, therefore, I shall die facing the sun."

Source: Prensa Latina