Mayan Pyramids: Chichén Itzá – Great Cycle of Venus

Tonight I have had a series of inspirations to discuss peace from the perspective of mothers (Mother’s Day), Food security and innovation from the Worldwatch Institute and that had a focus on women’s issues. The last blog tonight I feel to write about is the Mayans. 2012 of course emerges but my feeling was to look at Chichen Itza, the Mayan Pyramids in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The Mayans were skilled farmers I learned and faced many environmental issues. Now I have written the blog, 2012 indeed comes up. So read on for the pure joy of something different to explore. Have fun…

Chichen Itza, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the second-most visited of Mexico’s archaeological sites.[34] The archaeological site draws many visitors from the popular tourist resort of Cancún, who make a day trip on tour buses. In 2007, Chichen Itza’s El Castillo was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World after a worldwide vote.

I have explained in my Clowning Around the World blog my experience at Chichen Itza. I have been told when you go to sacred sites you can have a reaction. I am a person if I have a reaction I acknowledge it, if I don’t then that is fine also. I am interested in the actual experience. Well nothing prepared me for Chichen Itza. I will never forget the intense energy I experienced there. It was so strong I found myself walking past all these craft traders and focusing on the pyramid exclusively. As I got closer the tears in my eyes welled up. It was uncontrollable tears. I ended up on my knees and at the same time I was conscious what would people think about this loco gringo (crazy westener). The connection was definitely there.

What interests me about them is their sacred life as I had an experience there. I do think the sacred does link to environmental challenges. Moreover, it is noteworthy that during the spring and autumn Equinox at sun rise and sun set a snake like shadow wriggles down the pyramid. I would have loved to see that. You see serpent carvings all over the site. Very interesting.

So let’s have a look at the Mayans. An incredible civilisation which I intend to research more deeply if life gives me the time and right space to do it.

Here are excerpts of the history:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/ancientobs/chichen/HTML/chichen.html

On a limestone plateau in the northern region of the Yucatan peninsula lie the relics of Chichén Itzá, once one of the most powerful cities of the Maya. Ruins of the temples of this ancient civilization spread from the jungles of Guatemala to the Yucatan. Today, Chichén Itzá attracts thousands of visitors who come to marvel at the spectacular remains.

The Mayan Civilization

The Maya originated around 3,000 years ago in present-day Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. From around AD 250 to AD 900, the Mayan empire flourished in the southern regions. Around AD 900, the empire in the south collapsed. No one knows why. Scholars have suggested, among other reasons, political upheaval, drought, disease, or overpopulation. But while the empire in the south waned, that in the north, especially in the Yucatan, flourished until the Spanish conquests of the sixteenth century.

The Maya were skilled farmers and created a very sophisticated written language; some think it may have been the first written language native to the Americas. The Maya also developed a well-ordered social class system and carried on trade throughout a network of cities that went as far north as Central Mexico and as far south as Panama. Expert mathematicians, their number system included the concept of zero, an idea unknown to the ancient Greeks, expert mathematicians themselves. The Maya used their mathematical knowledge along with celestial observations to finesse a calendar created by the Olmec (a culture from the Mexican Gulf Coast) and to create monuments to observe and commemorate movements of the sun, the moon, and Venus. Spectacular examples of these monuments can still be seen at Chichén Itzá.

Founding of Chichén Itzá

As with many aspects of Mayan history, the history of Chichén Itzá is obscure: Written records are scarce. In the historical records that do exist, dates that were several years apart were often given the same name, due to the organization of the Mayan calendar. Most sources agree that from approximately AD 550 to AD 800, Chichén Itzá existed mainly as a ceremonial center for the Maya. The area was then largely abandoned for about a hundred years (why, no one is certain), to be resettled around AD 900. Shortly before AD 1000, it was invaded by the Toltecs, a people from the north.

The Toltecs had settled at Tula, near modern-day Mexico City, around AD 900 under the rule of a king named Topiltzin. Topiltzin also took the name of Quetzalcoatl, or “Feathered Serpent,” the name of an Aztec god. A rival warrior faction forced Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl and his followers out of Tula around AD 987. Mayan historical sources mention that in the period that ended in AD 987, a man who called himself Kukulkán arrived in Chichén Itzá from the west (Kukul means “feathered” and kan means “serpent”). A strong case has been made that Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl and Kukulkán were most likely the same person, and that he brought the Toltec beliefs and practices to Chichén Itzá, including the practice of human sacrifice. The Toltecs were somewhat open to new ideas, however, incorporating some beliefs held by the Maya already at Chichén Itzá.

Another perspective of the Mayans at Chichén Itzá.
http://factoidz.com/the-secret-of-ancient-mayas-sacred-well-cenote-at-chichen-itza/

Like the ancient Egyptians, the Mayas built pryramids. This is the pyramid temple in Chichen Itza.

The Mayas once inhabited the jungle-covered peninsula at the tip of the southern part of Mexico that curls like a tail. They were a cultured people, and as clever and industrious as the ancient Greeks and Romans. Their civilization lasted for centuries, and they built a number of magnificent cities. One of them, Chichen Itza, was founded about 400 A.D. and became the holy place for the Mayas.

The Mayan civilization died, and the people disappeared. The holy city, Chichen Itza, was also abandoned hundreds of years ago. What happened to the Mayas is still a mystery. Nothing was known about the Mayas until the Spanish explorers found the lost city of Chichen Itza. The lost cities of the Yucatan Peninsula interested archeologists, and they began to explore the large pyramid temples and other buildings. Then they found the huge mysterious well of Chichen Itza. It turned out that it was a sacrificial well of the ancient Mayas. The first man to enter this great well, which is about 30 metres deep and 60 metres across, was an American named Edward Herbert Thompson (1857-1935). He descended into the dark depths in 1885, wearing a deep-sea diving suit. Having no underwater light, he explored the bottom by touch. He filled up buckets with mud, which, when emptied, revealed examples of Mayan skill and design: gold ceremonial masks, rings, ornaments, daggers and other things which were very important for historical and archeological studies. He also found human skulls and bones.

Wikipedia offers some interesting insights into the Mayans.

Chichen Itza (play /tʃiːˈtʃɛn iːˈtsɑː/;[1] from Yucatec Maya: Chi’ch’èen Ìitsha’,[2] “at the mouth of the well of the Itza”) is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico.

The Maya name “Chich’en Itza” means “At the mouth of the well of the Itza.” This derives from chi’, meaning “mouth” or “edge”, and ch’e’en, meaning “well.” Itzá is the name of an ethnic-lineage group that gained political and economic dominance of the northern peninsula. The name is believed to derive from the Maya itz, meaning “magic,” and (h)á, meaning “water.” Itzá in Spanish is often translated as “Brujas del Agua (Witches of Water)” but a more precise translation would be Magicians of Water.[citation needed]
…

Political organization

Several archaeologists in late 1980s suggested that unlike previous Maya polities of the Early Classic, Chichen Itza may not have been governed by an individual ruler or a single dynastic lineage. Instead, the city’s political organization could have been structured by a “multepal” system, which is characterized as rulership through council composed of members of elite ruling lineages.[9] This theory was popular in the 1990s, but in recent years, the research that supported the concept of the “multepal” system has been called into question, if not discredited. The current belief trend in Maya scholarship is toward the more traditional model of the Maya kingdoms of the Classic southern lowlands.[10]

El Castillo

Dominating the center of Chichén is the Temple of Kukulkan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl), often referred to as “El Castillo” (the castle). This step pyramid has a ground plan of square terraces with stairways up each of the four sides to the temple on top. On the Spring and Autumn equinox, at the rising and setting of the sun, the corner of the structure casts a shadow in the shape of a plumed serpent – Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl – along the west side of the north staircase. On these two annual occasions, the shadows from the corner tiers slither down the northern side of the pyramid with the sun’s movement to the serpent’s head at the base.

East side of El Castillo

Mesoamerican cultures periodically built larger pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such example. In the mid 1930s, the Mexican government sponsored an excavation of El Castillo. After several false starts, they discovered a staircase under the north side of the pyramid. By digging from the top, they found another temple buried below the current one. Inside the temple chamber was a Chac Mool statue and a throne in the shape of Jaguar, painted red and with spots made of inlaid jade.

Great Ball Court

Archaeologists have identified several courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame in Chichén, but the Great Ball Court about 150 metres (490 ft) to the north-west of the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 metres (545 × 223 ft). The imposing walls are 12 metres (39 ft) high, and in the center, high up on each of the long walls, are rings carved with intertwining serpents.[21]

At the base of the high interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated and from the wound emits seven streams of blood; six become wriggling serpents and the center becomes a winding plant.

At one end of the Great Ball Court is the North Temple, popularly called the Temple of the Bearded Man. This small masonry building has detailed bas relief carving on the inner walls, including a center figure that has carving under his chin that resembles facial hair.[22] At the south end is another, much bigger temple, but in ruins.

Built into the east wall are the Temples of the Jaguar. The Upper Temple of the Jaguar overlooks the ball court and has an entrance guarded by two, large columns carved in the familiar feathered serpent motif. Inside there is a large mural, much destroyed, which depicts a battle scene.

In the entrance to the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, which opens behind the ball court, is another Jaguar throne, similar to the one in the inner temple of El Castillo, except that it is well worn and missing paint or other decoration. The outer columns and the walls inside the temple are covered with elaborate bas-relief carvings.

Chichen Itza tzompantli

Of all the monuments, the Tzompantli is the closest to what one would find in the Mexican Plateau. This monument, a low, flat platform, is surrounded with carved depictions of human skulls.

Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars

Next to El Castillo are a series of platforms. The Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars is built in a combination Maya and Toltec styles. Each side has a staircase to the top. Carved into the sides are panels depicting Harpy Eagles[23] and Jaguars consuming what appear to be human hearts.

Platform of Venus

This platform is dedicated to the planet Venus. In its interior archaeologists discovered a collection of large cones carved out of stone, the purpose of which is unknown. This platform is placed between El Castillo and the Cenote Sagrado.

Sacbe Number One

This sacbe, which leads to the Cenote Sagrado, is the largest and most elaborate at Chichen Itza. This “white road” is 270 metres (890 ft) long with an average width of 9 metres (30 ft). It begins at a low wall a few metres from the Platform of Venus. According to archaeologists there once was an extensive building with columns at the beginning of the road.”

There are more sites in wikipedia but I felt it was fairly heavy duty to read. So this is a taster.

The Serpent: Kukulcan?

The serpent I found of interest as it was present in Chechen Itza in so many locations. So I have searched for what it means. It is called Kukulkan. Here is another viewpoint from a cosmic perspective. Venus features strongly in the Mayan history. When I went to Talum in Mexico (another Mayan pyramid) Venus was mentioned in the history as significant.

Just following a thread here…

http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/5.htm

The Pyramid of Kukulcan; a Precessional Alarm Clock.

When the Toltec people moved to Chichen Itza, they merged their own zenith cosmology with the Mayan system, and the result was the Pyramid of Kukulcan. This has been designed so that every year, on Spring Equinox, the afternoon sun causes a shadow play so that it appears that a huge serpent is descending from the sky, down the pyramid. However, John Major Jenkins shows that the pyramid is much more than an equinox indicator. It is a …

‘PRECESSIONAL CLOCK WITH ITS ALARM SET FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’.

Jenkins says that Kukulcan, (or Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent), was the symbol of a sun-Pleiades-zenith conjunction. Exactly 60 days after the Spring Equinox, on May 20, the zenith passage of the sun takes place over Chichen Itza. The Crotalus rattlesnake, whose pattern is constantly used in Mesoamerican art, has a marking on it which is identical to the Solar ‘Ahau’ glyph of the Maya, and its rattle was called ‘tzab’, which is the same word used for the Pleiades star cluster.

The moving snake on the Pyramid is an annual reminder of a conjunction of the zenith sun with the Pleiades over Chichen Itza, but this is an event which will occur in a 360-year window of time that is just about to open. Right at the start of the window is 2012 and on May 20 2012, the zenith passage combines with a solar eclipse, on the Tzolkin day 10 Chichan, which means serpent. The winter solstice end-point will be 4 Ahau in the Tzolkin calendar, meaning Lord/Sun, and 3 Kankin in the Haab calendar, which means ‘snake-day’.

Birth and Death of Venus. In The Mayan Prophecies, Adrian Gilbert said that he used astronomical software called SKYGLOBE to look at the sky as it was at dawn, on 12 August 3114 BC (where he dates the beginning of the Great Cycle). He found that as the Pleiades were on the meridian, the Sun was preceded by Venus as the morning star. This he took to be the mythical “Birth of Venus” associated with the start of the Great Cycle. Just as in ancient Egypt, the dawn rising of Sirius heralded the flooding of the Nile and the beginning of a new year, and the meridian transits of Orion correlated to the First Time and Last Time of Osiris; to the Maya, the meridian transit of the Pleiades announced the “Birth of Venus” as it rose over the horizon.

Gilbert used SKYGLOBE to check the sky on 22 December 2012 (where he dates the end of the Great Cycle), and found that, just before sunset, as the Pleiades rise over the eastern horizon, Venus sinks below the western horizon. This, he thinks, is the symbolic “Death of Venus”, indicating the start of a new precessional age.

Morton and Thomas have repeated this conclusion in Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, (see item 25) and have also supplied the Death of Venus sky chart, which Gilbert had not included in the Mayan Prophecies. They have also adjusted the start and end dates of the Great Cycle by one day to the ” Thompson 2″ dates that Jenkins has confirmed.

Immanuel Velikovsky has said in his book Worlds in Collision, that the Birth of Venus occurred when Venus was “born” from Jupiter. A cosmic collision caused a part of Jupiter to burst out, becoming a comet, and leaving the famous red spot where it burst out. This is clearly illustrated in the Greek myth of Athene who sprang from the head of Zeus, making Mount Olympus tremble and stirring the sea, (Athene, reasons Velikovsky, is the planet Venus, and Zeus is the planet Jupiter). Velikovsky dated this event as contemporary with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, explaining the plagues and parting of the Red Sea. Several Mayan and Aztec myths were also cited as evidence, including the fact that Quetzalcoatl, which means feathered serpent, is the well-known name for the planet Venus. It was also called “the star that smoked”. Velikovsky quotes from Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Histoire Des Nations Civilisees du Mexique:

“…the sun refused to show itself and during four days the world was deprived of light. Then a great star …appeared; it was given the name Quetzal-cohuatl …the sky, to show its anger…caused to perish a great number of people who died of famine and pestilence…It was then…that the people [of Mexico] regulated anew the reckoning of days, nights, and hours, according to the difference in time.”

This would explain the Mayan obsession with Venus, and we can now see why the Birth of Venus has been associated with the start of the Great Cycle. However, Velikovsky dated the event around 1500 BC with the Exodus. Graham Phillips has also convincingly explained the events of the Exodus as side-effects of the eruption of the volcano Thera (in his book Act of God), but Nigel Appleby has unified the theories with that of Nibiru, the tenth planet.

The existence of Nibiru was postulated by Zecharia Sitchin in his book The Twelfth Planet-(12 counting the Sun and Moon). Ancient Sumerian mythology implies that there is a large planet –Nibiru- on an elliptical orbit, which enters the solar system every 3,600 years. Velikovsky and Sitchin actually used the same Sumerian myth as part of the evidence for their respective theories (the Marduk and Tiamat myth). According to Sitchin’s chronology, the next return is due in 3400-3600 AD.

Appleby suggests that it was Nibiru that caused the disasters of the Exodus as it “shunted both Earth and Mars close to each other’s orbit…” and that it was this which triggered the eruption of Thera. However, Velikovsky didn’t say Mars was involved in the original Birth of Venus incident, but two later ones around 700 BC. Anyway, it IS an interesting idea, since it provides a large passing body to interfere with Jupiter and cause the ejection of Venus. What is more, it would mean that Nibiru is due to return soon (1500 BC to 2000 AD =3500 years), as Appleby suggested: 2012 – 2036 (see item 27).

If we prefer to correlate the Birth of Venus incident to 3114 BC, then the implication is that the Great Cycle is measuring the period of return of some OTHER huge planetoid (see items 8 & 10), due in 2012, on Snake Day.