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Steps to Heaven



architecture of the Maya with surprising symbolism

Gisela Ermel

In: Legendary Times, No. 4, 2005 Beatenber



New discoveries and old myths reveal a surprising connection: the Maya kings imitated upon entering office, the rise of a God in heaven. Stunning architectural elements raise the question why this was way to the stars of course, steps, and an exit hatch. The Maya culture of Mesoamerica

has lots of interesting for the Paleo-SETI research features, has been already published a lot - from the high-astronomy and mathematics, myths about gods up to the mysterious departure of the great cities. But the Maya are always a Surprise force good and the archaeologists to rethink. Sun turned out in the 1990's supposed "dance platform" as something else entirely, something that makes them from pre-astronaut's point of view a highly visible indication of an erstwhile contact between "heaven and earth."



contact with the sky

began in 1990, the archaeologist and Mayan expert David Freidel and Charles Suhler excavations in Yaxuná, a huge, over 640 mounds comprehensive Maya city in the northern plains of Mexico. Their excavations have focused on the structure "6E-120, a platform of the residential complex from the heyday of the place. What both puzzled researchers made was the fact that so much BC ceramics from the period between 300th AD to 200. (Late pre-classic) was found in this platform as well as the appearance of the building which did not fit with the other platforms residence of classical music.

Suhler and Freidel felt this structure as a mystery. It fit into any standard category of Mayan architecture. Neither was this a simple yet solid platform deck was a ground-level masonry structure. What they did was so different platform, the labyrinth system of underground corridors with multiple inputs, which led into a chamber in the center. Even stranger was the staircase that led from one of the corridors a kind of trap door on the horizontal surface of the platform. 6E-120, the two archaeologists forced once again to think hard about the supposed features of Maya buildings. Here, some seemed to be something been different, the Maya used to but otherwise their platforms from the outside to climb the stairs. But here, the builders had apparently envisioned a building in which the user has a complicated corridors "tour" turned her into a central chamber and then through an internal staircase through a trap door onto the surface of the building came up.

The problem with this platform was for the two Mayaisten that it was apparently unique. No other Archaeologist has ever had, so far as they knew at that time, a building like this mentioned.



surprise Fund

But the next excavation season brought a surprise. The archaeologist discovered a second, almost identical structure. Since we had so now lying two platforms with underground corridors, secret chamber, rise and fall doors, close together, and both date to the late pre-classic. Suhler and Freidel was clear that they are dealing with a special "Design", a special building type. Since one could assume that the Maya of Yaxuná thought otherwise and built as elsewhere, the experts examined for similar structures in other locations. And they struck lucky.

the first instance, that they found was a building from the Late Classic in Copán (Peten region, Honduras). It was here in the 1940s Tatjana Proskouriakoff restored the so-called "Temple 11", one of the main buildings of the city. This building was a platform with interior corridors, on the basis of inputs on each side of the rectangular walls. In the center, where met the corridors, there was a "throne Bank", flanked on both sides of stairs that led up to a trap door through which you came to the surface of the building.

Temple 11 Copán

The "upright sky"

gave this structure there inscriptions on stone tablets at the inputs, which informed that the building on 26 September 766 had been initiated, built under King Yax Pak, the last great ruler of Copan. Very interesting was the name of the structure documented here: "pat chan" which means "bottom of heaven". Statues of ancient gods of the four cardinal directions were up a massive snake, writhing on the front of the building. Suhler and Freidel knew that by the conventional interpretation of the Mayan symbolism this snake, the "cosmic monster" represented a symbol of the ecliptic path of the sun through the constellations. Their conclusion: If the king climbed through the corridors and the trap door onto the surface of the platform, he ascended to heaven, so to speak symbolically.

The iconography inside the building, spoke the same language. The "throne Bank" was framed by a mosaic, a "dragon mouth" representing, and according to the standard interpretation, it symbolized the gateway between the world of gods and the human world. For the Maya expert Linda Schele, this is also a symbol of the Milky Way, and the throne Bank, its assumptions are accurate to the point where the "First Father" Hun Nal Ye to Heaven "climbed." We have to do so with an incredibly complicated and still completely misunderstood myth of an "event", which is linked to a central event: "First Father" was on the day zero of the Long Count Calendar of the "rowing paddler gods" in the sky carried. On this day, "4 Ahau 8 Cumcu" - usually calculated back to the date of 13 August 3114 BC. - Was also, according to mythology, the "setting up" of the "three hearth stones" on or in the sky. This event was not only for the Maya of extreme importance, but it is already possible for the much older Olmec show, as I will show you later.

Rise of the divine twins

Suhler and Freidel had received in the meantime a very interesting early English report notes had described the Maya scholar Michael Coe in a 1989 book. Under the auspices of the Dominican monks of Verapaz Maya Indians had on 24 June 1543 may perform on the occasion of the inauguration of a new city, San Juan Chaleco, and the inauguration of the operations planned cacique (chieftain) a ritual. Place of performance was a platform with trap door and secret chamber underneath.

After the "cacique cacique of" Ah Pop'o Batz once baptized as prescribed and a Christian mass was held, Maya spectacle began with the deafening sound of trumpet shell, turtle shells and other instruments. To cap the showpiece suddenly opened on the platform of a trap-door, from the magnificently robed "Hero Twins", the divine twins, ascended to heaven. The two sons of First Father had come to the end of a journey that above the earth and the underworld, and after hair-raising adventures that had shown up because of the many spectators on the platform, now arrived in heaven.

The dramatic change have always been celebrated verhüllendemRauch in everything, and the Trap-door was first used as the main character the "heavenly realm" was achieved. By the way, also know North American Indian myths out of "divine twins' up there in heaven with her also" divine "father.

According to David Freidel and Charles Suhler the platforms in Yaxuná and Copán were designed to mimic the journey of the gods in the sky. Was this had been a solemn ritual in the office of a new ruler?

Soon the two scientists discovered other similarities. Palenque, located in the far west of the Maya lowlands (Copán in the southeast), showed in the "Block E" of the city palace similarity with the building design. "Building E" was a coronation been room for the later dynasties. This building contained a trap door over a stairway that led down into an underground maze of corridors and rooms within the platform.

House E at Palenque

Here, the two scientists found the "cosmic monster" design on one of the entrances, the building with the sky putting on.

And they came across another surprise. A later ruler of the city had erected outside the building a free-standing tower can. "Was such, this tower of kings used to 'metaphorically' to ascend to heaven? "wondered Freidel and Suhler. Had the original design of a wooden frame is? Structure 6E-120 had Yaxuná included on the surface of strange post holes. what? Was Here were the ruler on a wooden scaffold climbed even higher up?

symbols of the cosmos

come up with this idea, the researchers of photographic stone stelae at Piedras Negras, the Kings show at the office, sitting in niches above on scaffolding, on which they could be reached only by ladders. These scaffolds were decorated with "cosmological symbols" and sky bands. The conclusion of the two archaeologists from it's almost pre-astronauts: This was probably shown the king on a journey to heaven.

course we can still continue to think a little. Like the Maya were ever on the idea that we could go to heaven? And how they came to the idea that someone lives up there in heaven? These are the crucial questions that I have not found in any of the archaeological book.

Almost every jat before the impressive and mysterious structures on the roof structures seen photos of Maya, called "Cresteria" (English = cockscomb), a marked feature of Mayan architecture. They have no constructive purpose and are just decoration. So it was said before.

Typical roof construction - Cresceria - here in Palenque

Suhler and Freidel think otherwise. Are these the stone equivalent of the wooden frames? In Palenque Merle Greene Robertson reconstructed in the 1970s, such a roof on the Temple of the Sun. There the king is shown sitting in a framework of walls, decorated with a sky band, similar to the royal stand niches of Piedras Negras. The head of the ruler - in Piedras Negras and Palenque - Adorned with a "magical bird head", and the ruler is a symbol of the door is to heaven. The seated king is accompanied by dancing and snake bodies "riding" gods. Is shown visually as the ruler comes out of the "gate-Monster" and ascends to heaven? Increasingly

crystallized out that we are dealing with an old and popular architectural style or motive to do the Maya must. The typical Maya-roof structure is of the opinion Suhler and Freidel represent the sky, in the climbs of the rulers. The so-called Temple of the Sun in Palenque has a preserved by the present interior, through which one could walk around in the roof, so to speak. Linda Schele found the stone foundations of a wooden ladder, which once led to an opening in the top of the roof. According to Freidel Suhler and another example of a device for imitation of a heavenly journey.

This design is also found in the Maya city Toniná. In a covered niche archaeologists discovered a throne with a high podium. This niche could be achieved only via a narrow staircase. Stuck behind the throne figures show once sky symbols, and an input into a maze of underground corridors.

ascension architecture

found All in all, Suhler and Freidel a number Design of forms related to each other expressed by the same underlying symbolism of a walk-way to heaven. Ascension architecture is therefore present from the late pre-classic, classical, and even from the time of conquest, the latter in connection with a rite that was practiced in other safe places. have been a motif that appears in the architecture of such a long period of time, very important.

Not all archaeologists agree with the interpretation of Freire and Suhler and call for "symbolic sweat baths" or "metaphorical birth huts" and similar nonsense. The conclusion of the two excavators is gaz clear that this form of architecture was designed primarily to allow the rulers to ceremonial celebration of his inauguration to perform a heavenly journey, which was perhaps inspired by the heavenly journey of the "First Father".

13th August 3114 BC.

What was "Wakan Chan Nal", the "Himmelsaufrichteplatz," the place "ordered house" to be the first father and where he "entered" the sky was? What were the "three hearth stones" that had been here, "set up"? What happened on 13 BC August 3114th?

The "three hearth stones" are used by some researchers, like Maya interpreted as three stars from the constellation Orion. But this is only speculation. But apparently they are architecturally symbolized by the three-temple complex of the Maya. Monumentalbaukomplexe for such an enormous amount of work has been running and this form of architecture goes far back in time before the journey to heaven above platforms.

BC by 300. This design appeared suddenly in the Maya country and shows the view of many American Studies indicate a striking change in ideology. Typical are three groups in the ancient Mayan cities such as Nakb, El Mirador, Uaxactún, Tikal and many others. Prof. Linda Schele was to here as the first one related to the mysterious "three hearth stones" in the sky and with the zero date of the big round calendar suspected. It is assumed that these complexes only the stylized and simplified successors are designated as E-groups building, one of the major architectural developments from 1200 - 800 BC. were. Construction has continued even to this classic, decorated with snakes and bird motifs.

This e-groups were identified after the first of such building complex - E 7-Sub - appointed Uaxactún. Even the then archaeologists Frans Blom (1920) suggested an astronomical significance of the structures. He was right. E 7-Sub is on the west side of the square, the opposition on the east side of the square three smaller buildings. These are placed so that one of E 7-Sub absorbed from the sun at the summer solstice with the first small building provides for day and night are equal over the middle, and the winter solstice on the third. According to many experts, Maya, this building complex is a symbol for the place on / in the sky with the "three hearth stones" which is so important for 13 August 3114 BC.

The complex E 7-Sub began with the corresponding three small pyramids in Uaxactún

it with the Olmecs

Welch importance of this date for the ancient Mesoamerica had already showing buildings of the Olmec . In its ancient city of La Venta (Beginning about 900 BC.) Finds the earliest example of architecture that has been aligned astronomically to a point on the horizon, where every year on 13 August, the sun goes down! Again and again one meets with this date in Mesoamerica. What was so important that buildings over 2000 years to this point on the horizon hosted? The mythology that revolves around this mysterious date that is the Long Count calendar today often referred to as day zero, rotates among other things, the heavenly journey of "First Father". Was his journey to heaven with a lot of builders and ceremonial trouble again and again and again imitated?

The mysterious event on 13 August 3114 BC. recorded on stone in Palenque

beings from the sky

Teuchitlan The architecture seems another example of symbolic representation of the possible travel between heaven and earth to offer. This is to Zeremonialkomplexe round pyramids, surrounded by a circle usually eight platforms. The round pyramid contained a kind of altar with post hole, presumably from the Mayan researchers, it served as a support for a post, with a very early Volador ceremony was performed (= a ceremony in which the descent of gods from heaven to earth represented by a pole down on ropes from floating Indians was, and in some Maya sites nor to present). This design is

it from BC about 300. (Thus coinciding with the three-temple complexes), Mexico, especially in the highlands of Jalisco. Until now, many researchers believe this design was too extravagant to be Mesoamerican. Figurative ceramics that were found in these sites, surprised the archaeologists. Here ceremonial scenes were clearly illustrated in tone, including a scene with a rod. Experts suggest that there might, be the representation of a Volador ceremony. This fits well into the sky Teuchitlan travel architecture.

sky holidays were celebrated here also appear, although in a different way than in the platforms with trap doors, stairs and corridors. Apparently, the ancient Maya rulers climbed on the day of her inauguration on stairs, ladders, scaffolding and through trap doors "in the sky" up. The theme of heavenly journey must be for all of Mesoamerica have been of paramount importance and it is up to us to find out why.

Literature:

Beekman, Charles S.: Ceremony, Symbolism, and Public Architecture in Late Formative Jalisco. www.hometown.aol.com/cbeekman/articles/aaa99pap.pdf

Freidel, D., Suhler, C.: The Path of Life: Towards a Functional Analysis of Ancient Maya Architecture. www.maya.csuhayward.edu/yaxuna/path.html

Freidel, D. / Suhler, Ch.: Mayan Warfare. www.mc.maricopa.edu/d10/anthro2003/readings/mayan_warfare.html

Malmström, V.H.: Architecture, Astronomy and Calendrics in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. In: Ray a. Williamson: Archaeoastronomy in the Americas. Balena Press, Center for Archaeoastronomy 1981

Malmström, V.H.: Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon: The Calendar in Mesoamerican Civilization. Austin, Texas, 1997

Schele, L. / Villela, K.D.: Creation, Cosmos and the Imagery of Palenque and Copán. www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/RT10/creation.pdf

more:

Gisela Ermel: The sacred bundles of the Aztecs.

Culture jump, Master Plan and gods cast: Central America's mysterious past.

Ancient mail Verlag, Gross-Gerau 2007

ISBN 978-3-935910-44-6

272 pages, numerous illustrations