Gisela Ermel
enigmatic monuments of the Olmec and Maya
In: Q'Phaze, No. 8, Kassel 2007
the prehistoric past of Central America has many unsolved mysteries and provides materials for various Speculations and hypotheses. One of these puzzles are the so-called Fat Boys. This is huge monumental sculptures with strange magnetic properties, which were made of basalt boulders. We found these sculptures at sites such as Monte Alto, El Baúl, Chocola and Abaj Takalik - all very early Olmec sites near the Pacific coast of Guatemala.
dug in the 1940s, archaeologists and their assistants in the archaeological site of Monte Alto and nearby regions of La Democracia, and El Baúl remarkable stone monuments. They were large, rounded boulders, usually of about 1.5 m in diameter, which had been processed into heads and round bodies. The faces were like puffy, body fat, to say the least. The archaeologists said, quickly joined by "Fat Boys" or even "Potbellies" (Dick bellies). The heads appeared to resemble individual characteristics as in the famous colossal heads of the Olmecs, but it did not seem to give. The body monuments had her arms around the fat belly, so that touching the fingers of the hands, almost. Legs and feet were shown similarly. Sexual characteristics were not evident. The artist had edited the boulders only minimal, it all seemed very rudimentary.
What should constitute these monuments? They had no idea. Ruler? Were the living role models have been fat? Fatness had been regarded as a beauty ideal? Or were the sculptors were just too lazy to carry more stuff? Whatever - here you had transported truly funny guy to light. We had no idea that this Fat Boys hid a secret in themselves, that these monuments made even more puzzling.
One of the Fat Boys, found in Monte Alto 
Fat Boy in head form - also found in Monte Alto 1979 discovered a student who is the Archäoastronomen Vincent Malmström assisted, near Monte Alto by sheer coincidence, the magnetic properties of one of the Fat Boys, because he wore during his work a compass around his neck. Every time he approached the compass of a particular location of the monument, the needle was deflected. A few years earlier had discovered Malmström Izapa magnetic properties of a monument in the form of a turtle head - also by chance - and speculates about Central American understanding of magnetism.
In the same year and his students discovered Malmström another monument with magnetic properties in nearby El Baul. The monument showed two men sitting cross-legged on a bench, his arms crossed over his chest. Both men recorded on magnetic poles at the points where the arms crossed, while the Bank were among the two opposite poles. The discovery of the "magnetic Fat Boy" and the sculpture caused a big surprise in the art and media hype, especially when it turned out, were estimated as the age-old Fat Boys. TIME magazine did on 3 September 1979 the article "Fat Boys: A Pre-Columbian Mystery" out, topped by the headline: "Fat Boys 4000 Years Old!"
has now been found that most of the Fat Boys have magnetic properties. This, however, no magnetic material was added, but the monuments are in at these points are magnetic material, probably inclusions of magnetite or other iron ore outside, the rock is nothing but to see it. This points to the monuments are strong enough to move a compass needle. They have two opposite poles, both agencies usually about four inches apart. Located at these points one each u-shaped magnetic field inside the rock? The most sensational, however, at these Fat Boys is the fact that these magnetic poles consciously or intentionally placed in the monuments were well integrated. In the minds of the right temple with a magnetic pole, the force field line enters here the head just above the ear and comes as a counterpoint to the ear out again. When the bodies of the two opposite poles are always left and right of the navel. The exceptions are the two sculptures, such as sedentary men of El Baul. El Baúl offers even erected a stone jaguar, which has on two paws magnetic poles, but not opposite poles.
Jaguar of El Baúl with magnetic properties Why did the producers of the Fat Boys just these points on the ear or on the navel? No one has a clue. An accident is virtually impossible. Many archaeologists now debated as to whether the artist was even aware that here there is magnetism. How could Stone Age people stumble upon the knowledge that is contained in the basalt rocks magnetic iron ore? Noticed by chance a stone cutters, such as light dust particles have been grown during the editing of boulders from a certain point or repelled? It likes to imagine some archaeologists. Rather, it was so that these rocks were deliberately chosen and modified it so that the magnetic poles of the iron ore included in the pre-planned points came to rest. But as the producers found the right rocks? The magnetic bodies were not seen even from the outside. And why were all these with plus and minus pole equipped Fat Boys and Potbellies made?
have been further magnetic Fat Boys found in El Salvador, Hueyapan de TrimEnd, Tuxtla Chica near Izapa, Kaminaljuyu, Santa Leticia, Seibal and Tres Zapotes. The vast majority of monuments, however, come from the Pacific coastal region of Monte Alto, El Baule and La Democracia. Today, in front of the Museum of La Democracia eleven o'clock Fat Boys, arranged in two rows along the forecourt, while a twelfth is at the entrance of the building.
Fat Boy from Abaj Takalik 
Fat Boy front of the museum in La Democracia The dating of these monuments is difficult because the objects appeared several times changed the location. Some archaeologists suggest that the first Fat Boys are also in the time of San Lorenzo, which took place about 1200 BC, a sudden jump from the stone age farmers culture to high culture. (See also my article "The Count of San Lorenzo"). The age of the Fat Boys is not yet accurate.
The textbook knew the Greeks from the 5th Cent. magnetism, and a Chinese manuscript of 121 BC. speaks of a "stone that can guide a needle in a different direction." Did the Olmecs long before the magnetic properties of iron ore? They used any compass-like Aids in the construction of cities and their location? Or was that knowledge of magnetism and its practical application in building part of the knowledge, the unknown master planner of the Stone Age farmers switched, as the cultural leap took place? A compass-like tool would be for all the promises made to the cultural leap in Central America on its feet, have been enormously helpful.
for the early and suddenly out of nowhere had come about the Olmec culture as well as the somewhat later the Maya and much later Teotihuacanos was an aspect of particular significance to astronomy. The importance of this aspect was to catch the experts just to understand at first. Some archaeologists suggest that an astronomical relationships includes all Olmec sites of both the Maya and later Teotihuacanos to an interconnected whole. This astronomical pattern consists of lines that are based on the cardinal directions or to certain solar data. Lines on which there are several cities lead to a Point on the horizon, where one of the Solstice or Equinox data on the sun or went down.
were Amazingly, the cities that are on those lines to connect virtually invisible, built not in the same time periods. Association of a long-term plan several nations and several times with each other? But who should provide such an overall plan have designed and monitored? Apparently still was Tenochtitlan, the last major city in Central America before the English conquest, located and constructed in accordance with this plan. Mysteriously, the Aztecs speaking of a "sacred bundle" of over two hundred years, long criss-cross through Mexico before then and after close to divine instruction prescribed by their god Huitzilopochtli site founded and built the city of Tenochtitlan. (See also my paper "The sacred bundle") Apparently, even Tenochtitlan by astronomical lines is connected with ancient sites, invisible lines that only begins our modern Archaeoastronomy to make visible.
In ancient Central America was apparently left nothing to chance. For the construction of cities - starting with San Lorenzo BC to around 1200. - With its drawing board layout, the astronomically aligned buildings, monuments and major axes were not only the knowledge required for the erection of all the platforms, pyramids and buildings, but also skills in mathematics, astronomy, geometry, trigonometry, geography, cartography, and many other fields of knowledge, quite apart from the necessary logistics, planning, organization and control. Had they then simple surveying instruments? Or they used a primitive form of the compass? Or was left to the measurement of the unknown master planners, without which the cultural leap by Stone Age farmers to high culture of the Olmecs did not conceivable?
Archaeologists Krotser P. and Michael Coe took place in San Lorenzo a rod-shaped object made of polished iron ore of 2.5 cm length. This artifact "M 160" was so thorough investigations revealed, around 1000 BC. produced. Michael Coe suggested that there could be a primitive bar magnet. Until now the assumption that in ancient Central America not for appropriate use of magnetism was well known. We trust the people of that time the knowledge of Earth's magnetic field does not apply. Or should the Olmecs magnetism indeed known, but it considered only as a mysterious supernatural force? Against this Assumption is in my view, the sophisticated and complex architecture astronomy and the astronomical and suspected cardinal line network of a long-term plan.
Like the Fat Boys fit in here, is still unclear. To occur, especially in cities like El Baúl where the famous monument of 27 - the "figure with the space helmet" - was found, suggests that happened in the past, Central America, the things that has established Archaeology has not taken into consideration. A contact between the stone age people and their culturally and technologically superior visitors? The iconography of Central America offers this scenario numerous other indications: gods in disguise bird, People flying into the jaws of serpents, gods coming down from heaven, people with abnormally long skulls and more.
Monument 27 in El Baul - the famous "Astronaut" Literature:
Carlson, JB: Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy? In: Science, Vol 189, No. 4205, 1975
Coe, Michael Richard Diehl: In the Land of the Olmec. Austin, Texas, 1980
Coe, Michael: San Lorenzo and the Olmec Civilization. Washington, DC, 1970
Ermel, Gisela: The sacred bundles of the Aztecs. Gross-Gerau 2007
Fuson, RH: The Orientation of Mayan Ceremonial Center. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, No. 59, 1969
Malmström, Vincent H.: Knowledge of Magnetism in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. In: Nature, Vol 259, No. 5542, February 1976
Malmström, Vincent H.: Land of the Fifth Sun: Mexico in Space and Time. Hanover, New Hampshire in 2002
Malmström, Vincent H. and Paul A. Dunn: Pre-Columbian Magnetic Sculptures in Western Guatemala. www.dartmouth.edu/ izapa/M-11pdf ~
Morante, Ruben: Los alineamientos magicos de las piramides mesoamericanas. Jalapa 1986
Nowotny, Karl A.: Tlacuilolli. Monumenta Americana II, Berlin 1961
Palmeros, Rafael A.: The Magical Alignments of the Mexican Pyramides. www.geocities.com/NEXPLICATA2000/issue4/1.htm
Parsons, Lee A.: Excavation of Monte Alto, National Geographic Society Research Reports: 1968 Projects. Escuintla 1976
Shook, Edwin M. / Marion Popenoe de Hatch: Archaeological Study of Monte Alto, Guatemala, preclassic and Cultures on the Pacific Coast, 1972-77. National Geographic Society Research Reports 13, Escuintla 1981
Taube, Karl A.: Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Washington, DC, 2004
The Fat Boys: A Precolumbian Mystery. TIME Magazine, 3 September 1979
more:
Gisela Ermel: The sacred bundles of the Aztecs.
Culture jump, Master Plan and gods cast: Central America mysterious past.
Ancient mail Verlag, Gross-Gerau 2007
ISBN 978-3-935910-57-6
272 pages, numerous illustrations
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