by Freddy Silva
In one flood myth the K'iche' are said to have migrated from stepping stone to stepping stone in the eastern ocean before arriving in Yucatan.8 It is their way of describing an island-hopping voyage in search of a new domicile after being displaced from their original land by the flood. Traveling inland from the Yucatan coast, they eventually settled in the highlands of Guatemala and named their main temple city Utatlán, which came under the protection of a regenerating god by the name Q'uq'umatz. Its remains are located barely fifteen miles north of Lake Atitlán, the largest in Central America, beneath whose waters lies the original city, having itself fallen prey to another natural disaster.
The largest Maya groups still live in this region — Tzutuhiles, Cakchiqueles, Vukumag, and of course the K'iche' — all descendents of an island nation that sank in the Atlantic 11,000 years ago, a place they call Atitlán (or its regional variants Aztalan, Tollan, Tulanzuh). Ascribing the name to the lake and its temple city was a way to keep the memory alive.9
Tikal’s Temple V. It’s unusual slope angle is also used in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
There's a strange fatalism involved in making a hazardous journey from a sunken volcanic landmass in the Atlantic only to settle beside a lake resembling an inland ocean in a region crowded with volatile volcanoes! The rest of the history of Lake Atitlán is shrouded in total secrecy, mostly due to the distrust of outsiders, and with good reason, as recent history attests. The Spanish priests who sailed across the Atlantic with Conquistadores butchered everyone in Central America who did not conform to the Catholic opinion of the world. Before they finished their genocide, along with the wanton burning of volumes of technical, spiritual, scientific and historical literature, they extricated a few codices from the Maya. Yet those accounts are but mere tourist guides compared to the knowledge hidden beneath the floors of ordinary Maya homes — which the Spanish were unlikely to search — or better still, held safely in memory by shamans who escaped into the dense jungle of the interior. Today if one wishes to understand Maya prehistory one ought to consult such individuals, for they recall a very different series of events concerning their roots.
After the flood a company of survivors arrived on the northern shores of Yucatan by boat and kept moving inland through the near-flat peninsula and away from water. After what they'd experienced, even I would have been compelled to make for high ground through mosquito and snake and crocodilo-infested jungle just to feel a sense of safety — much in the way the people of the high Andes did when they felt compelled to place their temple cities in truly awkward locations.10 Those individuals were contemporaries of the K'iche', magician-priests who chose to ride out the tempest and reach survivors in different parts of the world to re-establish the wisdom and the laws upon which new civilizations would be built. With this aim in mind they established the foundation of temple cities throughout Central America.
One such formidable complex is Tikal, of which only an estimated ten per cent has been exhumed from the jungle. The wisdom keepers I befriended are unanimous about the true origin of such places, indicating the buildings are far older than conventionally dated, for what is seen now is but one of many skins of an onion. Indeed just about every pyramid in Central America is built in this manner, accommodating the needs and dictums of each successive age and expanding in kind. The pyramid of the magician at Uxmal, for example, is in fact five pyramids encasing a sacred cave. Since neither the stars nor the Earth are fixed, every few thousand years the temple must be realigned to reflect the sky, thus temples were treated like living beings; the Egyptians went so far as to address each room before dawn as though rousing a person from slumber.
Local wisdom keepers state that, outwardly, the current temples date from c.1300 BC, but their foundation is closer to 8000 BC. Over such a long period they have absorbed influences from the Atlantic (Egyptian, Middle Eastern) as well as the Pacific (Asian, Indonesian). Indeed, walking around parts of Uxmal and Tikal one would be mistaken for being in Cambodia or Java or Egypt.
On my first journey to Tikal I felt comfortable there. It is a university reflecting the architecture of the cosmos, a ceremonial centre where the ancient Maya teachers captured sounds from other realities. Tikal is home to the tallest Maya pyramids, and both pyramids and temples reflect the understanding of mathematics, geometry and cosmic calendars. They also act as needles, capturing the telluric energy of the Earth and sky, acupuncturing the ground, and the body. Miguel Angel Vergara has spent a considerable part of his life reassembling and studying the full Popol Vuh and adds the following: "Tikal was once home to the Architects of the Sky, who came from the stars and spoke He-Suyua-Thau [the language of light], heralding an era when the city fused science, art, philosophy and religion as one."11
Tikal’s main plaza. There may be up to nine underground levels.
Architects of the Sky who spoke the language of light? That paints quite a picture. I wonder which part of the sky they came from?
My walk around the sprawling site led to the pyramid poetically catalogued as Temple IV, the largest by bulk. The rectangular chamber on its summit generates a most unusual acoustic phenomenon. Stand outside on the staircase with your back to the chamber and make a note with your voice. The sound accelerates in the chamber behind you and projects outwards and over the jungle canopy.
Pyramid of the Magician, Uxmal. Actually five buildings in one.
Another stroll through the forest, this time along the southern rim of the excavated area, brings you to the often-overlooked Temple V, an imposing pyramid featuring a broad staircase, in my opinion the most potent of all buildings at Tikal. Its awkwardly steep slope of 26º is the same angle employed in the stair passage of the Grand Gallery inside the Great Pyramid of Giza — yet another remote relationship. After a couple of hours of solitude away from the incessant cacophony of howler monkeys mischievously wandering the tree canopy above, I wandered over to the main plaza and was joined by Miguel and a K'iche' archaeologist. While Miguel prepared a ceremony to honor the ancestors, I talked to my group about the nine underground layers of construction running beneath the main plaza connecting its two iconic pyramids. I described how the tunnels would have been used particularly by initiates as part of the Mysteries teachings, and how they spent a few days in splendid isolation inside caves concealed within the core of the pyramids before appearing triumphantly at dawn on the summit to observe the rising of Venus, the mark of the risen initiate.
When I finished this spontaneous monologue I looked around to find a lot of stunned faces, particularly that of the archaeologist, who asked me, "How do you know of such things?"
I replied, "Someone here just showed me, a spirit form, perhaps the temple itself is speaking to me, I don't even know if this is true, someone just fed me images and took me to parts of the site no one gets to see."
The archaeologist confirmed all I had said was true. The information has remained confidential because sensitive work is still in progress. Archaeology is a conservative profession, after all. And yes, so far they have discovered five underground levels below the plaza and its pyramids; the rest are in unstable condition due to their remote age, and it is speculated there could be as many as nine levels, a symbolic number in K'iche' Maya tradition.
"What brings you here aside from Tikal?" asked the archaeologist.
"I'm looking for missing people and missing lands."
"You need to go to Lake Peten Itzá and the city of Flores, my friend."
As it turns out, that was precisely where I was staying that night.
HOME OF THE MAGICIANS
Flores is one of those delightful, rambling old towns where every humble home is painted in joyful colors as though someone accidentally dropped LSD into the paint bucket. It once formed the hub for temple cities such as Tikal and Ixlu; many more are known to be hiding in the jungle or beneath deep layers of dirt. Recent discoveries using ground-penetrating radar (LIDAR) include a previously undetected city of 60,000 structures, including pl
azas and pyramids, capable of supporting some 10 million people.12
Flores covers an entire island on Lake Peten Itzá. It is a recent name given by the Spanish to what used to be the religious axis mundi of a priestly caste called the Itz or Itzá, the last of the Maya to hold out against the invaders until the city was overrun and razed in 1697. The Spanish referred to it as Tayasal, a corruption of Ta Itzá (Place of the Itzá). Yet the Itzá precede that period, they are far older than the Maya, they are the ancestors of the Maya.
This was precisely what I had been looking for.
The Itzá called the island Nojpetén (Great Island), except it is not a great island at all. One can comfortably walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes. Its greatness comes from its status as a major spiritual center that once comprised twenty-one temples and a nine-tiered pyramid. The entire island was a temple under the care of the Itzá, accessed only by those who practiced spiritual purity or went there to learn the Mysteries teachings. It was a land set aside from the ordinary world, a primordial mound like Iwnw in Egypt or the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca.
Aside from a couple of stela now adorning the town square you wouldn't know it was ever so. What gives away its ancient sacred status is the cathedral on the island's highest point, most likely the site of the original pyramid, whose stones were plundered to build the town. The cathedral is not aligned east — a violation of standard Catholic protocol — but rather to the winter solstice sunrise in the era of 7600 BC, when the Sun would have appeared in clear view down the neck of Lake Peten Itzá, thus explaining why the Itzá chose this island over a much larger one nearby and named it Great Island.
A stela in Flores town square, the only clue this was once a main Itzá religious center.
The other reason was emotional. Nojpetén was chosen to reflect the original great island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that was once the Itzá homeland until the flood consumed it. The sacred book Chilam Balam (From the Mouth of the Jaguar Wizard), compiled in the 18th century, actually dates the appearance of the Itzá in Central America: “13 times 400 times, and 15 times 400, plus 400 years, the Itzá lived as heretics.”13 That's a total of 11,600 years since their arrival after "the water swallowed the fount of wisdom,"14 dating their arrival from Atitlán to c. 9600 BC — confirming the date originally given to Solon by the Egyptians, as published by Plato.
(Incidentally the original definition of heretic is 'someone in possession of the facts who is able to choose', referring to a well-informed individual, specifically in matters pertaining to sacred or restricted knowledge).
The Itzá named this land Ma'ya'ab (Land of the Few), and in time established the foundations of the temples and pyramids we know today — an estimated 30,000 of them, the most popular being Chichen Itzá — all of which are recognized by the Maya as astral academies incorporating the teachings brought to this land by a priestly caste. Itzá literally means sorcerer, magician, it is they who are referred to as Lords or Architects of the Sky. They took their name from the god-man Itzamna, a renowned master astronomer, mathematician, and teacher of the laws that underpin a civilized society. Itzamna is depicted on a stela arriving on a raft from the east, surrounded by toppling temples and active volcanoes. He settled in the town of Itzamel before initiating the construction of Chichen Itzá. Ironically the stela was removed from Tikal and taken to Europe, ostensibly for protection, only to be destroyed during an air raid in World War II. Another mural, this time in the Temple of the Jaguar at Chichen Itzá, depicts him as tall, slim, bearded, with large eyes and an olden complexion, and more to the point, with facial features that look decidedly Caucasian. Perhaps the most poignant image of Itzamna is the one painted on a large mural inside a subterranean chamber on the periphery of the central plaza of Tikal.
Itzamna paddles to Yucatan after the sinking of Atitlán.
But Itzamna's background now takes a fascinating left turn. His name is an amalgamation of Izanami and Izanagi, the husband-wife, brother-sister creator gods who appear in Japanese mythology c.8000 BC; the same relationship is attributed to the antediluvian gods of China, Nu Kwa and Fu Hsi. How this god-man arrived from Atitlán only to become etymologically linked to the Far East is confusing at best, except there may exist a bridge between these two disparate trains of thought. Miguel Angel Vergara makes it clear that two groups of sages arrived in Central America after the flood: the Itzá of Atitlán, who were represented by the totem Kan/Chan, the serpent, while another, the Olmec, claimed origin from Mu'ul in the Pacific and came under the totem of Balam, the jaguar.15
Itzamna also shares an interesting history with the god-man K’uKuulKaan who similarly appears dressed in a long tunic after the flood, from a land lost to the sea to the east. K’uKuulKaan was not so much a given name but the spiritual ideal this individual represented. His cult was based on nonviolence, compassion and humility. It was also obsessed with the mystery of immortality. The people of Yucatan and Guatemala were under no illusion about the physical nature of this god, for they describe him as "fair and ruddy-complexioned with a long beard... a mysterious white man with strong body, broad forehead, large eyes... who came from across the ocean in a boat that moved by itself without paddles." He was also described as such by the Olmec, to whom he was known as Quetzalcoatl.
Pyramid of K’uKuulKaan, Chichen Itzá.
There is no doubt the incoming Itzá set out to recreate the world they once knew and lost. Only an advanced culture with thousands of years of accumulated science and engineering know-how could have created temple cities such as Copan, Tikal, Chichen Itzá, Palenque, Uxmal, and El Mirador, the largest civic and pyramid complex in the Americas, the product of a fully developed culture. As with other parts of the ancient world the best architecture is found at the lowest layer, its megalithic engineering eclipsing all subsequent construction.
Chichen Itzá, in particular, was a kind of cosmic university to which candidates would flock from all over central America to be educated to the highest levels of mathematics, astrology, astronomy, science, philosophy and the Mysteries, each discipline taught in individual temples, many of which embodied the teachings by mere virtue of measures and decorations hard-wired into the fabric of the buildings. Candidates became masters of the arts and carried the title Ah-Kan-Bezah (Those Who Teach The Path to Wisdom).16
Geological evidence shows that the Yucatan Peninsula has been habitually destroyed by rampaging tsunamis as tall as fifty feet, necessitating rebuilding programs on a regular basis. This alone accounts for the many layers of style and building design. The central administrative structures of Palenque, for example, exhibit at least four different building periods founded on a lower layer of megalithic stones that are clearly the product of an earlier civilization.
Museums are filled with statues and stela bearing the telltale signs of saltwater erosion from sites deep inland. Everywhere lie buildings half covered with layer upon layer of silt, and yet all rivers throughout the Yucatan are underground, so where did so much silt come from? Recent excavations around the perimeter of the Pyramid of K’uKuulKaan in Chichen Itzá reveals a further two layers of beautifully fitted stone concourses now lying twenty five feet below the present ground level, validating traditions that it was designed long, long ago by the astronomer priest Nohoch-Itz-Tzaab (Great Face of the Rattlesnake), and expanded accordingly from period to period.17 Like the moai on Easter Island, such extreme silting can only come from thousands of years of accumulated debris, from recurring periods of civilization, destruction, fallowness and rebirth. Archaeologists such as Augustus Le Plongeon, who came across such temples covered in dense jungle in the 1890s, remarked on the amounts of river rock and sediment deep inside the buildings, not to mention half-buried buildings, attesting to many violent episodes. The temple of Sayil, some 100 miles from the ocean, appears to have undergone a horrific tsunami which pounded the buildings with such force that great numbers of building blocks have been widely scattered to a point where recons
truction has proved impossible.
Exposed lower level reveals the pyramid’s older layer.
Could this be evidence of mega floods and extreme weather that followed the end of the Younger Dryas? One piece of evidence concerns the sacbe, the spirit roads that stretch across the Yucatan in ruler straight alignments like umbilical cords linking temple cities to each other. They are identical in character and purpose to the tracks fanning out from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, or the ruler-straight roads criss-crossing the British Isles from tip to toe that even in 2000 BC were already described by the Welsh as old beyond memory. Such engineering marvels, ten to twenty-five feet in width, hundreds of miles in length, were built well enough to require little or no maintenance or improvement. They too were constructed from a long accumulation of gathered experience.