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Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 18: The Books of the Chilam Balam.

[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 19.26 $
Contents of this chapter: [Introduction] [The Katun Cycle] [The Start of History] [Author's Introduction] [The Thirteen: Saturn] [The Nine: Jupiter] [Nine Lives: Mars] [The Four Trees] [Katun 9-Ahau: Ten-Sky] [Katun 9-Ahau: Venus] [2349 BC] [The Moon] [Jupiter Returns] [The Burning Tower] [The Planted Timbers] [Katun 3-Ahau: the Sun] [The 8th Century BC] [The day of Kan] [The Flowers] [Saturn] [Jupiter] [The End of History] [Recap of Book X] [Endnotes]

Introduction

The "Chilam Balam" books are a collection of post-colonial (16th century AD) native manuscripts in the Mayan languages, using the Latin script, which recorded histories and prophesies, many dating back with certainty for hundreds of years, while one chapter, Book 10, plus some single pages, recollect events dating back thousands of years but presented in terse and obscure language. What follows below is an attempt to 'read' Book 10 in terms of the chronology of celestial events which I have already established on the basis of information from the eastern Mediterranean region, India, and China. Three additional pages, which include events dating back to ca 30000 BC are addressed separately in Chapter 19. [note 1a]

"The Book Of Chilam Balam Of Chumayel" was translated into English by Ralph L Roys in 1933, based on original sources, and compared to other extant documents and other copies of the "Chilam Balam." It is not easy to read, even though the text is supplemented with extensive footnotes and added commentary. One of the stumbling blocks is the mention of many Maya Gods which are still obscure and difficult to identify today. A copy of "The Book Of Chilam Balam Of Chumayel" is on line at [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/maya/cbc/].

I first looked at the "Chilam Balam" after I had written most of the text of these pages. In Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam", labeled (by Roys) "The Creation of the World," I ran into a phrase which caught my attention,

"Then there came great misery, when it came about that the sun in Katun 3-Ahau was moved from its place for three months."

If there is one thing for certain, it is that since the Sun first appeared, it has never moved, acted up, or changed its look in human memory -- except, of course, in 685 BC, as I had already established. Could this be a record of the nova event of Venus of 685 BC (680 BC in eastern Mediterranean chronology), when the polar axis relocated, the dome of the sky twisted, and the vernal equinox moved suddenly to another zodiac sign?

A calculation showed that the first Katun 3-Ahau period after 747 BC started in 687.33 BC (6.3.0.0.0), two years before my estimate for the Venus nova event of 685 BC. A closer reading of the remaining text soon convinced me that this chapter retold events dating back to before 3100 BC and probably to before 4200 BC.

The clearest indication of this was a description of the interaction between Jupiter and Saturn which can be placed in 3114 BC. It is described with uncanny accuracy -- if we are allowed to transfer the names of two sets of obscure Gods, "The Thirteen" and "The Nine," to Saturn and Jupiter. The remainder of this chapter provides the details.

The Katun Cycle

First a word should be said about the 13-Katun calendar cycle in use by the Maya at the time of the Spanish invasion. After Classical times (ca AD 900), the Maya dropped their 'long count' dating and reduced their calendar to a repeating cycle of 13 Katuns (which was in use also before AD 900). Each Katun consists of twenty Tuns, that is, twenty 360-day years (thus 19.71 of our Gregorian years), and each is named after the last day of the period in the Tzolkin day nomenclature, which is always one of the day-numbers 1 through 13, followed by the day-name Ahau. The Katuns are named, in order, 11-Ahau, 9-Ahau, 7-Ahau, etc, skipping a day number for each consecutive Katun. The complete cycle of 13 Katuns is approximately 256.26 actual current years.

Because of the Maya philosophy of cyclic time, only this single cycle of 13 Katuns was recognized, and all events placed within this cycle, although at times other Books of the "Chilam Balam" texts will list Katuns as a series extending over many cycles. But often events separated by 256, 512, or 1024 years are all listed for the same Katun. Thus when an event is said to occur in Katun 4-Ahau, it could have happened in any 256 year interval of the past, or even be a prediction for the future. It is, in fact, the predictive value of this calendar that forced the Maya to consider that all events of the past had been accomplished in a single repeating cycle, and would happen again. [note 1]

In the text below, I have added the corrections from Gregorian years to solar years, based on the fact that the record probably was composed of Katuns of 360 day years, as understood by the Olmecs who instituted the Long Count in 747 BC.

The corrections are via {date}-({date}-747)*5.25/365.25

Retrocalculation for dates from the sculptures at Palenque (ca AD 700) seems to suggest that this notion is correct. This has been covered in Chapter 9 "The Career of Jupiter." The Olmec accounting of the past prior to 747 BC, similarly is covered in Chapter 17, "The Maya Calendar."

Katun 11-Ahau: History Starts

Bishop Diego Landa had destroyed 27 Maya glyphic manuscripts in AD 1562, but it is likely that many remained, for even 100 years later missionaries are reading prophesies from original bark books (as, for example, the Spanish missionary Avendaño, in AD 1696).

The "Chilam Balam" books had a different status than the original bark books. Written by the Maya in the European script, but in the Mayan language, in European notebooks, these formed a greatly condensed record of the histories before the invasion of the Spanish in AD 1517. It was an efficient method of keeping in touch with their past. The books were kept from the Spanish priests, recited at village meetings, and copied and recopied for 300 years.

The "Chilam Balam" books all insist that the cycle of history starts with Katun 11-Ahau. Although Maya history recorded on monuments does not reach back before AD 300 or 400, their calendar was in universal use throughout Mesoamerica probably since 600 BC or earlier, and the predecessors to the Maya, the Olmecs, were probably responsible for the suggestion that history started with Katun 11-Ahau. Roys claims that this is so because the first day of Katun 11-Ahau starts with the day 1-Imix which is the first day of the 260 day Tzolkin cycle of naming days. But in the grammatical construction of Indian languages, a date (or Katun) does not exist until it is completed, which is why Katuns are named after their last day, not the first. [note 2]

I think the reason for starting history with Katun 11-Ahau is that the ending of this Katun would coincided with a calendar change in the era of 747 BC, when calendars were changed world-wide, and in many cases initiated. It turns out that this guess was correct, a Katun 11-Ahau ended in 747 BC, in fact, on February 28th. This is the ending date for the Roman annual calendar, and two days after the date of the start of the 'Era of Nabonassar' used in the Babylonian Chronicles, and presented by Ptolemy in about AD 150 for his list of Kings of Babylon and his list of eclipses. This is the date that the year changed from 360 days to 365.25 days. [note 3]

This is not just a coincidence. The odds of a single 20 year Katun, out of a cycle of 13 Katuns, ending in the year 747 BC, is small. That it should fall almost exactly on the date which starts the "Era of Nabonasser" is astounding. Considering that the nova event of Venus in 685 BC also coincides with the Katun period of the correct name, perhaps we can place some faith in these Katun dates, although I expected much of the information to be out of place. In fact, as I read through the text, I realized that most of the very old events were arbitrarily assigned to Katun 11-Ahau. I did not initially expect any of the other celestial events to be placed in Katuns which corresponded with known dates from the Middle East. But at the conclusion of investigating this text, it looked like all except two of the events were correctly placed. One had purposely been reassigned during classical times to coincide with what was known about a certain day of the Tzolkin, and the second, I suspect, was a reading error.

Many of the events recorded in Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam," however, seem to be in the wrong order in going from one topic to the next. It is as if some canonical source was misread, perhaps reading the left page before the right page from a book meant to be read from right to left (which, in fact, was the case for the codexes). It would seem that in some cases only the information of single sentences occupied a full page of the original. That suggests an illustrated codex with a text in glyphs.

Additionally, it looks as if the author had accessed three or four separate original sources, which do not match in format, although none of the events are repeated. I will indicate the suspected shift from one source to another where I have become aware of them.

As you can imagine, the "Chilam Balam" represents a giant sequencing puzzle, both because of the obscure sequencing of history and because of a few errors which were incorporated by the original copyist. It took me six months to get through the text initially, and I had to make a number of changes afterwards. Often a resolution of textual elements involved attempting to place myself in the position of a copyist who is earnestly trying to make sense of a document which related events from thousands of years ago.

But thanks to a cultural continuity, we can identify element which were once identified as actual and which (from our point of view) had shifted to become metaphors. The greatest help in this was reading Linda Schele and David Freidel's book "Maya Cosmos" (1993) prior to tackling the "Chilam Balam," for the authors identify many element from the Classical Maya era, 1500 years ago, which still appear among contemporary practices of Maya shamans.

In "Maya Cosmos" Schele and Freidel where eventually forced to consider the stars as a major element in Maya cosmology and show that these were part of religious practices of the Classical era and are still in current use. Thus when I ran into the "timbers at the crossroads" and the "precious objects," the equivalent in our terminology instantly jumped to mind, and without question. It has likewise been shown by Schele and Freidel that many concepts and ideas of the 16th century AD "Popol Vu" were already depicted in Classical times. See Chapter 21 for an analysis of the "Popol Vu."

In the following I have kept the "Chilam Balam" text in the same order as it exists, with a few alternate readings by Bolio (see below), and some footnotes by Roys, added.

A copy of Book 10 is available [here] which collates the text by Roys with some rephrasings by Bolio, some of the material from Roys footnotes, and a few additional insertions, but without my extensive comments.

The Author's Introduction

Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" is the history of the creation of the world, and the appearances of the planetary Gods. With some exceptions, the information never deviates from this purpose. The text is introduced by the original writer with a note of urgency. The information is presented in the context of the new Christian God.

"It is most necessary to believe this. These are the precious stones which our Lord, the Father, has abandoned. This was his first repast, this wine, with which we, the ruling men, revere him here."

This section of the "Chilam Balam" is distinct from most of the other texts of the books in offering an introduction. The comment about the "precious stones" suggest that stones were used to represent events and represent the gods. See in with respect to this the notes on Book 11, further below. The first Christian missionaries also told that the Maya "worshipped stones." The author here turns the "stone worship" of the Maya into a misdirected earlier effort. It might also be suggested that the Maya knew very well that the planetary Gods which were worshipped were indeed nothing more than large rocks. The close passage of Mars would have demonstrated that. In Book 11, "The Ritual of the Angels," a Maya author has the Christian 'God the Father' emerge from one of the "holy stones" seen in the sky. Bolio in this case interprets "tun" as a "holy stone." The author continues with Book 10..

"Very rightly they worshipped as true gods these precious stones, when the true God was established, our Lord God, the Lord of heaven and earth, the true God."

"Nevertheless, the first gods were perishable gods. Their worship came to its inevitable end. They lost their efficacy by the benediction of the Lord of Heaven, after the redemption of the world was accomplished, after the resurrection of the true God, the true Dios, when he blessed heaven and earth. Then was your worship abolished, Maya men. Turn away your hearts from your (old) religion."

"(This is) the history of the world in those times, because it has been written down, because the time has not yet ended for making these books, these many explanations, so that Maya men may be asked if they know how they were born here in this country, when the land was founded."

NOTE: insertions as () are by Ralph L Roys, [] are by me.
I have broken up Roys' long paragraphs.

The writer acknowledges that his sources are other books. He then proceeds to list events, starting, naturally, with Katun 11-Ahau, where the cycle of history starts. The first few lines relate events which happened in 5800 BC and 3100 BC. He then progresses through additional Katuns in turn, but only up to Katun 3-Ahau, which Roys thinks is an interpolation. He then very briefly speaks of the miseries of Katun 13-Ahau and touches on Katun 11-Ahau and Katun 9-Ahau as a recitation of more recent history. This is followed by portraits of Saturn and Jupiter as the two ruling Gods. Here is a list of topics, in brief outline:

• Katun 11-Ahau - The Bee Gods and The Thirteen. The fire, the rope. The capture of The Thirteen by The Nine. Nine-Lives escapes. Four trees.
• Katun 9-Ahau - Uuc Chek-nal comes; Earth and Heaven touch, 1492 BC.
• Katun 7-Ahau - A new world created, after 1440 BC.
• The third Creation, 2542 BC, the Moon rules all of Earth, 2345 BC.
• Jupiter seated, 2349 BC; fire on high, 2250 BC; gravediggers, crossroads revealed.
• Katun 3-Ahau - The Sun, 685 BC.
• Katun 13-Ahau - Misery, foreigners.
• Katun 11-Ahau - Nine-Lives shows, 776 - 747 BC.
• Katun 9-Ahau - Nine-Lives descends, flowers, 747 - 727 BC.
• Fall of the Absu, 2250 BC (wrong date).
• The rulership of the Thirteen.
• The rulership of the Nine; the return of Kukulkan.

For my previously developed chronology of celestial events see the [Brief Chronology] insert.

At first I was not always certain of how some of the descriptions translate to the chronology I had set out earlier in these pages. But allowing for the author's error in reading the order of the original texts, the insistence of sorting events by Katuns, and the additional quirk of failing to note repeating events, all of it eventually fell into place. What I am certain of is that very little seems metaphorical. Much of it is simply descriptive, even though the language is one of the Maya's environment of stones, trees, flowers, and plants.

The specificity of Roys' translation can be compared against a more recent translation, by Suzanne D. Fisher, made from an earlier translation into Spanish made in 1930 by Antonio Mediz Bolio (see [http://myweb.cableone.net/subru/Chilam.html]. But the earlier Spanish translation by Bolio seem to be a composition based on the assumption that the original was written in similes and metaphors.

In a preface to a translation of Bolio's text into French, J. M. Le Clézio wrote, "At times ... he seems to prefer the beauty of the expression to the literal meaning, which results in a profoundly emotional and poetical version."

At times the Fisher translation after Bolio parallels the translation by Roys and is much more readable, but often it is altogether different. Thus the sentence I quoted above, about the Sun..

"Then there came great misery, when it came about that the sun in Katun 3-Ahau was moved from its place for three months. After three years it will come back into place in Katun 3-Ahau."

.. is rendered by Bolio as ..

"That is what is coming, when three moons have fallen in the time of the 3-Ahau Katun, and after three portions of years, trapped within the 3-Ahau Katun; ..."

Bolio, in the text shown above, assumes that the original is a comment on the sense of a previous sentence, which speaks to the coming of an "unending bitterness". Roys assumes the sentence starts with the mention of the "great misery" and places the agent in this phrase. Both the sense and the punctuation have been rendered completely differently. At cause is the original text, where there is no indication of the starting and ending of sentences or paragraphs. Both Roys and Bolio had to guess at the implied punctuation. Bolio has the advantage of speaking Maya, and often he has polished the text, but I feel he has frequently lost the specific details. In Roys' translation, on the other hand, the tense and number of the verbs and nouns often bounce back and forth unpredictably. I will use Roys' text and augment it with the Bolio text as needed.

The distinct advantage, to us, of the "Chilam Balam" -- as a source for a history of the "Age of the Gods" -- is its insistence, based in the original Mayan language, of describing actions rather that static states. In contrast, Egyptian or Mesopotamian sources deal entirely with static states.

The Thirteen: Saturn

The following are the first lines. The author starts at the very beginning, the first sight of Saturn before 5800 BC. I am translating "Oxlahun-ti-ku" as "The Thirteen" on the basis of Roys' footnotes. From the remaining context it is obvious that "The Thirteen" is Saturn, just as "The Nine" will turn out to be Jupiter. Together with the next few lines, we have here a condensation of the 3000 years of history of the Saturnian apparition to a few lines.

"It was (Katun) 11-Ahau when the Ah-Mucenca [the bees] came forth to blindfold the faces of the Oxlahun-ti-ku [The Thirteen]; but they did not know his name, except for his older sister [Uranus?] and his sons [Titan and Mars?]. They said his face had not yet been shown to them also."

Only after reading ahead did I realize what was happening here. First, about the bees. "Ah-Mucenca," Roys relates in a footnote, are supernatural bees or bee-Gods. In conjunction with the following lines, these are likely to be satellites of Saturn, buzzing around the hive like bees, and could very well be the two odd satellites, Iapetus and Phoebe, which have large irregular orbits which do not fall on Saturn's equator. [note 4]

"Oxlahun-ti-ku," Roys notes, "literally the Thirteen Gods, are probably the gods of the thirteen heavens of the Maya cosmos, but they are usually treated as a single god."

I would suggest that "The Thirteen" is Saturn, represented by the nine most prominent satellites which could be visually distinguished because of the close proximity to Earth, plus the count of Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Uranus. This drops the recognition of Neptune, which, from other pages of the "Chilam Balam" was apparently recognized as part of the stack of planets since before 9000 BC. [note 5]

"The Thirteen" also represent the thirteen levels of heaven imagined to be located physically above the Earth in the Maya cosmology. That the upper reaches of the sky are assigned to Saturn would follow from the fact that Saturn had stood above the Earth for a thousand years. On the other hand, Jupiter (known as "The Nine") is assigned to the nine levels of the Underworld, for he was only seen in the ecliptic, and thus dipped below the Earth.

The arcane text about "not knowing his name" may relate to the fact that a theology of these Gods was never adopted by the Maya. It has been noted (Schele and Freidel) that the earliest archaeology of the Pre-Classical Maya shows no signs of the Gods of the (later) Classical era, but I am not sure what that means. It is clear (at least to me) that by classical times the Saturnian planets were incorporated into the theology. A look at the "altars of the cross" at Palenque, erected in ca AD 690, show that the concern is entirely with the most recently active planets: Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. Saturn has been reduced to an old man. [note 6]

Similarly the concern with directional trees (see the text further below) has been found as four trees set in sockets at the top platforms of the earliest temple platforms of the Maya dating back to 200 to 100 BC. The iconography of the four trees first shows at Olmec La Venta, ca 650 BC, as four small sprouts surrounding a central figure, although archaeologists tend to identify the four sprouts as corn seedlings. In terms of this chapter of the "Chilam Balam," this would signify a continuation of Gods, for the directional trees are part of a history or mythology stretching back to 3100 BC -- some 1500 years before the Yucatan was first populated.

I assume here that "they" means the Maya, not the bees. Bolio assumes that The Thirteen did not know the name of the Bee God (which he has as singular).

The "sons" most likely are Titan and Mars. The "older sister" is likely to be the much larger Uranus, which was also involved with this configuration from the very start, and would look to have long hair because of the outpouring of plasma from one end. The smaller outpouring at the other pole is not identified as a bird beak, as in European Upper Paleolithic and early Neolithic iconography, but likely to be understood as the beak-like nose not untypical for the Maya of the Classical Era.

The text continues with the obvious, that this, by declaring that this time is already after the creation of Earth, that is, the world.

"This was after the creation of the world had been completed, but they did not know it was about to occur."

Strange as the tense of this sentence is, it seems to say that something 'unknown' preceded the existence of Oxlahun-ti-ku, Saturn. This is not unlike the myths of other people where we see 'creation' proceding from a misty chaos in the sky. The "Popol Vu," the story of the ball playing twins, written in Guatemala about the same time as the "Chilam Balam," starts creation with the sense of an undifferentiated mass of water or mist as the 'chaos' found in other creation myths elsewhere in the world.

Thus the blindfold stretched across the face of Oxlahun-ti-ku, Saturn, is possibly the creation of the rings in 4200 BC. At that time the satellites (the Bee Gods) would be clearly seen. The next line jumps over 1000 years ahead.

"Then Oxlahun-ti-ku [Saturn] was seized by Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter]."

"Then it was that fire descended, then the rope descended, then rocks and trees descended. Then came the beating of (things) with wood and stone."

Jupiter (Bolon-ti-ku, The Nine) is introduced here, but his mention seems out of place (Jupiter appears again a few lines later). It is also possible that we are being notified of the agent involved in the sudden nova event of Saturn in 4200 BC. It is possible that an earlier near collision with Jupiter started the mass expulsion and explosive plasma discharge of Saturn, although I doubt it.

This is followed, in correct order, by the "descent of fire" and, after the extinction of the plasma flow in arc mode, by a continued discharge in glow mode as a connection to Earth -- the "rope." The 'rope' will continue into post-Classical times as a symbolic connection to heaven which delivers grace and other celestial dispensations to the Maya. The concept is still in use today among Maya shamans.

I have not made much, in the text of previous pages, of differentiating the extreme arc mode plasma discharge from the glow mode plasma, since there is little indication of how long the arc mode plasma lasted. Both are recorded in the petroglyphic records from remote antiquity (although apparently the petroglyphs specifically are in reference to an earlier south polar column) and in the later written myths, and would physically seem to follow the order as presented here -- first the "fire," then the "rope."

• "Trees and rocks" -- Here I am again beset by the fact that repeatedly the order of things seems reversed in lines which follow each other. The "trees" is a phenomenon associated with the plasma instabilities during the time of the "descent of fire," but the "rocks" is more likely a descent of Mars and his followers during the lowering of "the rope." Of course I am reading these lines as sequential because they appear in the text as one following the other. But a story with an orderly sequence in time was never a strong concern of the Mesoamerican languages.

• "The beating of things with wood and stone" -- The "wood and stone" appear again later in the text in a description of the rulership of Saturn, and obviously refer to Uranus as the wood and Venus as the stone. Both might be seen as flailing about Saturn at a time when the rotational axis of Earth and saturn did not line up. Saturn would have been seen revolving in the sky. Vedic sources state that Saturn "rotated without cease." The "Chilam Balam" will address this perambulation later in the text, in a description of Saturn's rulership. What we have here, however, is a description of the visual effect of the rotational axes of the two planets not lining up. The "things" being beaten are the rings which would seem to wobble as seen from Earth. [note 7]

In Classical times rulers are shown holding a "Venus scepter" -- a puppet-like head crowned with a jester headdress and with the tail of a snake. The spikes of the headdress were recorded at other times, as in this example, from the Tang dynasty of China..

"On the morning of March 18, [AD] 904, Venus was observed near the Pleiades blazing like fire. The next morning, to observers, Venus appeared to have developed three horns, somewhat resembling a flower, and then began to tremble and shake."

-- Charles Raspil "Planetary observations of the T'ang" 1994

The 'wood' is probably represented by a jade god-face hung by a chain from the rear of the belts of the rulers. [note 8a]

The Nine: Jupiter

The next line again introduces Jupiter. Saturn is attacked by Jupiter, so it is now 3114 BC.

"Then Oxlahun-ti-ku [Saturn] was seized by Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter]."

This line exactly repeats one of the lines above, which I noted as being out of place. If so, it is an old transcription error.

"Then Oxlahun-ti-ku [Saturn] was seized, his head was wounded, his face was buffeted, he was spit upon, and he was (thrown) on his back as well."

"After that he was despoiled of his insignia and his smut."

About the above text Roys notes..

"Bolon-ti-ku, or Nine Gods, appear to be treated as one god. We find them represented in the inscriptions, and it seems likely that they represent the nine underworlds and correspond to the Nine Lords of the Night of the Mexicans." [note 8]

"The inscriptions" mentioned by Roys are probably the Dresden Codex and other Maya glyphic books which had come to light before 1930.

As I suggested above, the Nine Gods is Jupiter plus its visible satellites (eight seen before the 20th century AD). Jupiter rises in the east from the Caribbean, and sets west in the Pacific, and travels through the sky almost overhead because the Yucatan is at a latitude of 18 to 20 degrees. Jupiter thus seems to travel in a circle over the Earth and underneath. The Maya conceived of the world as floating on water, being aware that they were bordered by the Pacific and almost surrounded by the Caribbean. And they specifically noted water from below welling up in the subterranean limestone caves and surface cenotes. The region below ground became for them the Underworld, as nine levels below ground, each level controlled by one of nine Gods. See also my notes further below on the Absu, the "House of Nine Bushes."

• "Oxlahun-ti-ku (The Thirteen) was seized" -- Saturn was held in close proximity by Jupiter. From Egyptian sources we know the interaction may have lasted 80 years, although by the Egyptian sources this includes the total span of time before the issue of rulership of Egypt (Middle Earth) was resolved. The actual close contact between Saturn and Jupiter may have lasted much less time. The shock of the electrical repulsive forces would have disturbed their orbits but this separating force would have stopped as soon as they moved past each other.

• "... his head was wounded, his face was buffeted" -- This is the initial plasma interaction, probably in large sheets of plasma impinging on Saturn in visible glow level, or as arc contacts.

• "... he was spit upon" -- As Saturn distanced from Jupiter, the plasma connection initiated by Jupiter would have switched to long-distance plasmoid strikes. It might have looked like spittle, since these would take time to travel through space. Egyptian legends make this image into the sperm of Seth (Jupiter) and Horus (normally Mars, but here probably Saturn). When some of the predynastic 'kings' of Egypt take on names like "Crocodile" and "Catfish-Chisel" we are seeing similar interpretations from the other side of the globe. Plasmoid bolts look amazingly like catfish.

• "... he was (thrown) on his back as well." -- The first of the spectacle would have been viewed in the north skies, since Earth was still below Saturn by some three million miles, and probably over four million miles below Jupiter. But as Earth is released to travel its own path around the Sun, the orbit of Earth is lifted to have the Sun again be one of the focusses of the orbit. At that time the perspective of the two battling planets changed and they would have been seen in the ecliptic with Saturn viewed edge-on -- equivalent to having been thrown on his back.

  The earliest Egyptian account of the death of Osiris (Saturn) is found among the fifth dynasty pyramid texts of Unas (2345 BC), where it is related that Osiris dies by falling on his side -- at the river bank. This is not the Nile river, but the river of the ecliptic.

• "After that he was despoiled of his insignia and his smut." -- "Smut" is the face paint used by priests during a period of fast and consecration, Roys notes, although Bolio reads it as plumage, which is more likely to be correct. More on the "insignia" below.

Roys has extensive footnotes on "the despoiling of the insignia," relating the insignia to "something held in the hand" -- a scepter carried by rulers, in the form of a dragon or manikin with a snake tail. "Canhel" (insignia?) translates as "dragon" or "serpent." "Something held in the hand" is most likely Venus connected to Saturn with a plasma trail. It is the scepter held by Maya rulers. This shows up also in the predynastic iconography of the pharaohs of Egypt as the cudgel wielded to strike enemies.

Bolio translates the line as...

"And their [The Thirteen's] Serpent of Life, with rattlers in its tail, was stolen and with it was taken its quetzal plumage."

The "quetzal plumage" of Bolio comes close to referencing the "insignia" to Quetzalcoatl -- the "feathered serpent" of the Mexicans, transliterated as Kukulkan in Mayan, and identified as Venus. The "Serpent of Life" scepter is Venus, as Schele and Freidel have noted. [note 9]

The Maya purposely avoided any reference to Quetzalcoatl (or Kukulkan) in the "Chilam Balam" books, for the Spanish priests were on the lookout for any references to Quetzalcoatl, whom they considered as the chief object of idolatry among the Maya, based on their experience with the Aztecs. Other chapters of the "Chilam Balam" books blame idolatry on the Itza who had moved into the Yucatan 800 years earlier and at some point supposedly brought the worship of Quetzacoatl from Tula. But Venus (Kukulkan) had already been part of the Maya sacred iconography in Classical times as the Vision Serpent and the double-headed serpent bar. [note 10]

Nine-Lives: Mars

Next, and still in Katun 11-Ahau, we are introduced to "Nine-Lives" -- actually, the first "Nine-Lives." This paragraph is clearly out of place for the text describes events before the close of the "Age of the Gods" -- before 3114 BC.

"Then shoots of the yaxum tree were taken. Also Lima beans were taken with crumbled tubercles, hearts of small squash-seeds, large squash-seeds and beans, all crushed."

"He wrapped up the seeds (composing) this first Bolon Dzacab ["Nine-Lives," Mars], and went to the thirteenth heaven."

"Then a mass of maize-dough with the tips of corn-cobs remained here on earth."

"Then its heart departed because of Oxlahun-ti-ku [The Thirteen], but they did not know the heart of the tubercle was gone."

Roys translates "Bolon Dzacab" as "nine generations" and suggests it means "forever." Bolio translates "He who is eternal." Fisher's text has a parenthetical insertion which reads, "Yax Bolon Dzacab -- 'Great Nine-Fertilizer'." "He," at any rate, seems to refer to "Nine-Lives," Mars, not some other undefined God. Schele and Freidel also identify Yax Bolon Dzacab as God GII of the Palenque Triad, Mars.

• ".. this first Bolon Dzacab" -- Without a doubt Nine Lives is Mars. Like Horus of the Egyptians, who is called "the first Horus," and "the Horus of the Gods." He is called 'eternal' for he will reappear for ages to come. Although the Sumerians counted repeated visitations of Mars, or repeated incarnations, the Maya neglect repeated visits, both in the period before and after 3100 BC and in the 8th and 7th century BC. It is likely that the 'nine' of "Bolon Dzacab" should tell us that this event happened nine times -- one more than the Sumerian "kings before the flood." For the Mesoamerican writer there was no reason to tell of repeated visits of Mars. Additionally, it is the nine risings to Saturn which apparently are counted here, not the eight lowerings, as in Sumer.

• "Then shoots of the yaxum tree were taken... etc" -- and other assorted small granular matter. On the one hand, the look of a planet wrapped in squashed beans and seeds would be the look of the lower half of Mars which is pockmarked with craters. But I will suggest another understanding further below.

• "Then a mass of maize-dough with the tips of corn-cobs remained here on earth." -- This obviously refers to one of the 'creation of man' events recorded in the Popol Vu and other sources, when humans were fashioned by the Gods out of maize dough. Bolio makes it read as, "And then his [Mars'] skin and the tips of his bones fell here on the land."

If what is described here records the descent of Mars before 3114 BC, then the "skin and bones" would represent the massive uprising of water in the north Atlantic or the inverted dome of plasma (at the same location) which is featured as a mountain in other creation myths. The Yucatan is located only a little further from this site than Mesopotamia or Egypt. The clouds reaching beyond the stratosphere could have looked like a mountain of corn mash. This is also the location of the "Seven Caves," which repeatedly show up in other Mesoamerican creation myths down to the Aztecs (as well as with the Incas), where humanity originated.

• "Then its heart departed because of Oxlahun-ti-ku [The Thirteen]." -- Both translators have the heart of Mars depart for the highest heaven. Bolio has, "...because the Thirteen gods [Saturn] did not want his heart and seed to be gone from them." This is the departure of Mars from Earth, and seemingly composed of the image of Mars climbing up the plasma stream in the era before 3114 BC. If this is so, then the "shoots of the yaxum tree, etc," mentioned above, might also represent the nodes in the plasma stream which seem to follow Mars on the returns.

Note that the Mars events described here are out of place. The return of Mars to Saturn happens before 3114 BC, not afterwards. In fact, the visits of Horus which the Egyptians experienced after 3000 BC are missing here, although they are described further below.

The final drama shortly after 3114 BC is the second battle described by Hesiod, probably taking place within 100 to 150 years. The two planets retreating from the inner reaches of the Solar System have to move through the asteroid belt, with the consequence that asteroids were 'attacked' with plasma strikes -- with plasmoid bolts by Jupiter, as would be likely under the circumstances of enormous amounts of ionized material and increasing amounts of fine silicate dust in the ecliptic mainly from the plasmoid bolts of Jupiter which could travel millions of miles through space.

"After that the fatherless ones, the miserable ones, and those without husbands were all pierced through; they were alive though they had no hearts. Then they were buried in the sands, in the sea."

Roys notes that two other "Chilam Balam" versions read "fell to pieces" for "pierced through." The "fatherless ones" are asteroids large enough to be distinguished. If surrounded with a coma they would certainly be seen from Earth.

The "sea" is the whole of the southern sky below the equatorial, identified as the Absu by the Sumerians and the Duat by the Egyptians -- alive with glowing moving concentric wavy rings of particulate matter looking like a sea.

The "sand" is the glowing ecliptic, the edge of this sea (which dips into the Absu for part of its length). The ecliptic would start to glow and differentiate into smaller visible particles as the dust from plasma contacts from Jupiter started to accumulate.

"There would be a sudden rush of water when the theft of the insignia of Oxlahun-ti-ku [The Thirteen] occurred."

This is the massive flood which I have placed in the year 3114 BC in the narrative, the flood of Gilgamesh. It would, in any event, happen immediately after Earth managed to break away from the gravitational effects of Saturn. Again we have here, as above, a dislocation of the order of events, as if, as I have suggested, the folio pages of a book were read in the wrong order.

"Then the sky would fall, it would fall down upon the earth, when the four gods, the four Bacabs, were set up, who brought about the destruction of the world."

Here the "fallen sky" is related to the time directly after 3114 BC. I presume that this mention is not more of the "rush of water," but represents a severely darkened sky, as later recollected from 2193 BC, when Akkad and Egypt both collapse, and there are complaints from Akkad of the "heavy skies" which produce no rains, or 1500 BC, when a 20 year cloud cover darkened the Earth.

The four Bacabs are the gods of the cardinal points. They will hold up the sky, and set up four trees holding up the sky. These trees now hold up the dome of the stars -- something perhaps never seen before. The following text will also repeatedly note that the four trees are set up as "a sign of the destruction of the world."

The Four Trees

The text here launches into a description of the four colored trees which are set up at the cardinal points, each surmounted with a bird (of the same color), and also a central tree and bird. We should welcome this side-trip into geography. Mapping the Earth is a very central element to the Mesoamerican (and American Indian) conception of the world, and as a result we have details not available in other parts of the world.

"Then, after the destruction of the world was completed, they placed (a tree) to set up in its order the yellow cock oriole."

"Then the white tree of abundance was set up. A pillar of the sky was set up, a sign of the destruction of the world; that was the white tree of abundance in the north."

"Then the black tree of abundance was set up (in the west) for the black-breasted pi¢oy to sit upon."

"Then the yellow tree of abundance was set up (in the south), as a symbol of the destruction of the world, for the yellow-breasted pi¢oy to sit upon, for the yellow cock oriole to sit upon, the yellow timid mut."

"Then the green tree of abundance was set up in the center (of the world) as a record of the destruction of the world."

My first inclination was to suggest that these trees were versions -- real or not -- of the tree seen in the north, connecting Earth with the Saturnian planets. Saturn at the top would look like a bird, for the equatorial outpouring of plasma (the rings) of Saturn (before 3114 BC) looked like the colorfull plumage of a bird. The ball-shape of Venus connected with a long thin swirl to Saturn (as in the Egyptian "Eye of Ra") could pass as the head of a bird (as could Uranus).

When the tree of the north with Saturn on top disappeared after 3114 BC, another stellar bird appeared in its place, the constellation Ursa Major, with the location of the axis of the sky piercing the center of its body.

At a much later date the Milky Way was substituted for the "white tree" of the north. The Milky Way rotates through the night sky on a daily basis, starting off at different angles at different seasons, standing as a tree in the sky at the equinoxes, stretching from north to south horizon, and is described in Classical times. (See especially the book "Maya Cosmos" by Schele and Freidel.)

Other have suggested that these four directional trees are imaginary markers, implicit in the solstitual rising and setting of the Sun, some 25 degrees north and south of the east and west cardinal direction after 685 BC.

However, in previous chapters I have already presented details of the four trees (under the subject heading of "The Return of the Axis Mundi"). The north and south trees can be described in some detail as plasma plumes. These match the descriptions of a bird at the top, as seen here in the "Chilam Balam," and the illustrations of either a manikin or a ball at the end of the bent-over plume from Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Initially, after 3114 BC, the white tree of the north was probably the most significant as well as the most prominent plasma plume. The first tree of the north is mentioned in the sculptures at Palenque, and held at equal value with the end of the previous epoch, and the appearance of the planetary Gods (their births) 700 years later.

In a footnote Schele and Freidel translate the event of 3112 BC (a year and about six months after the start of the present epoch), known as "Wacah chan xaman waxac na GI," to 'raised-up-sky north-eight-house GI,' but also translate "Wacan chan" as 'six-sky.' The 'raised-up-sky' is based on reading "Wacan chan" as "Wac ah chan." Schele also identifies 'raised-up-sky' as the Milky Way.

If "wacan chan" is read as six-sky it would make a closer fit to the practice in the "Chilam Balam" of prefixing celestial objects with the number of times they will appear in 3000 years of history. "Six-sky" would have appeared six times, if the plasma column were to be generated with the six known changes in the Earth's orbit, or change in the electrical field of the Sun. However, this reading leaves the sense of north-eight-house unresolved, which is better supported by the name of the north tree -- "Nine Successions" -- of the ball court markers at Copan (noted in Chapter 7). [note 58c]

The raised-up-sky north-eight-house (edifice) of Venus was dedicated a year and a half after the start of the current era, as retrocalculated by the Maya. It is within expectations that it would take perhaps a year to develop a plasma stream in glow mode in response to a change in the electrical field surround the Earth's plasmasphere. The event is noted here (and in other records) because the raised-up-sky north-eight-house was much larger than anything else ever seen in the skies up to this point in time. It rose far above the previous polar location of Saturn. Seen from Mesoamerica, the Saturnian planets had hovered only some 20 degrees above the north horizon. "Saturn entered the sky," is noted because the planet had now moved (within a year and 9 months) across the sky and to the south. This had to be established first (in this text) because otherwise Saturn (GI') would not have been able to construct his edifice. [note 58b]

About the tree which "was set up in the center," Roys writes, "This last tree was remembered by the Maya." The green celestial tree is the massive outpouring of plasma from the south pole of Jupiter, which I have noted in earlier texts. This was seen directly after 3114 BC, and again twice after Jupiter had passed through the asteroid belt, although at these later times the 'mountain' had turned red. There is a fourth appearance in 685 BC.

Initially this is the green tree of Jupiter with its lower plasma outpouring between 3114 BC and 2880 BC, before Jupiter entered the asteroid belt. The mountain was topped by the image of a bird -- recorded as two owl-like eyes peering out from the top of the head of the coma, and a beak-like form below it. These were recorded in profusion at this time -- carved on the interior walls of barrows, as petroglyphs, and as carved as amulets.

"Peratt ... identified the 'eye mask' as a 'low opacity torus' or thick ring, seen from a vantage point substantially off-axis, not too far from the plane of the torus."
-- Talbott and Thornhill, "Thunderbolts of the Gods" (2004)

In the first hundred years or so after 3114 BC, the planet Jupiter is here the green tree of the center, whereas in later text Jupiter and its lower plasma expulsion are specifically noted as being red. Both the green and red colors will be generated by excited hydrogen ions at diffuse densities.

In Egyptian mythology and funeral imagery Osiris is almost always shown in green. In early Egyptian iconography, and in phrases recorded in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Jupiter is identified as Osiris.

The image of a tree of the south will reappear in much later Olmec iconography, as seen at La Venta (ca 650 BC). Here Jupiter, which developed another plasma outpouring in 685 BC, is shown with a headdress of three flower-like petals, and legs composed of the open jaws of a crocodile. The crocodile form is the much more extensive plasma at the south pole of Jupiter (its magnetic north pole).

In much later Classical era Maya imagery the "tree of the center" (at that time represented by the Milky Way) is frequently transformed into an upended crocodile with its jaws at the bottom and branches at the top. It is, however, a direct transcription of the imagery recorded by the Olmecs in 685 BC. The "center" of the "tree of the center" is denoted in Olmec stela and inscribed celts with the addition of four sprouts (trees) at the corners of the image.

The east and west trees might very well be recollections of the same plasma streams, or auroras, seen in other directions. Don Scott and Anthony Peratt have published a paper which notes that in northern Brazil the plasma discontinuities seen in the "Age of the Gods" were oriented toward the east. The east and west trees, however, are most likely the sun-lit edges of the ring of debris at the equator of the Earth which had existed already before 3114 BC -- the Absu. As the earth's shadow moved across the rings, the sun-lit segments would be seen in the east, stretching toward the southeast, and in the west bending to the southwest.

At the latitude of the Yucatan these would rise almost straight up into the sky. The repeated phrase of the text, "set up as a record of the destruction of the world," suggests, however, that the trees of the cardinal point appeared directly after 3114 BC, and may not have existed long. It is possible, therefore that the Earth's rings responded to electrical conditions, growing or brightening with an influx of electrons.

There are problems also with the suggestion that the east and west trees might have been the edge of the Absu. First, the Absu had fallen by the second 'return of the Axis Mundi,' leaving only a single red ring. But a red spike standing up from the east and bending south (as seen in the northern hemisphere) entirely fits the looks of the north and south polar plasma plumes. What is missing is the colored bird at the tops of the east and west trees. [note 12a]

Implicit in the imagery of the four trees at the cardinal points is the fact that they were established to hold up the dome of the sky and the stars. They (or the four Bacab Gods responsible for the cardinal points) last unharmed through other destructions of the world.

The four trees were represented in Maya temples before the start of the Classical era in AD 300 or 400 as actual tree trunks socketed into the upper platform of temples (as at Cerros before 50 BC). At the close of the Classical era, in AD 900, these had been replaced by stelae (te-tun -- tree stones), now associated with the commemoration of the passage of time and with the celebration of various rulers.

By the time of the Spanish invasion the trees signify the geographical division of the land into four quadrants, and define the local domain of individual rulers. The trees also represent the winds from the four directions. The Gods of the four trees are all named after the God of rain, Chac. These Gods also held up the sky in the form of an altar. Maya shamans today still construct these altar tables in 'creation' ceremonies. The imagery dates from the Olmec era, where stubby gods hold up 6 foot high stone altars like atlantes, as, for example, at San Lorenzo, the oldest Olmec site, dating to 1450 BC. In one instance an Olmec table edge is carved with cloud glyphs.

A listing of the directional trees, or the colors of the cardinal directions, occurs three times in the text. Each happens (I suspect) at a new creation, signifying a radical change in the skies, or a renewed sky. Thus by the last listing of the trees we should have reached the third creation after the beginning of time. But I suspect the count may not accurately recount an agreed-upon number of recreations of Earth (the text of the "Chilam Balam" was obviously transcribed from diverse orginals).

Mesoamerica uniformly professed a belief in four creations, called "suns," except for the Aztecs who counted their own arrival at the central Mexican plateau as the fifth creation. The first creation thus happens at the beginning of time (ca 4200 BC), the second in 3114 BC, the third in 2349 BC, and a fourth may have been attributed to 1492 BC. The cardinal direction trees and colors are invoked three times, each time when a new sky is established, after 3114 BC, after 2349 BC, and after 1492 BC. I will return to the question of ages and eras below.

Other researchers have suggested that the tree imagery was inherited from the Mexicans, and it is true that a concern with geography and directions runs deep throughout the Americas. This is unlike the concerns with "paths" as a world view seen in Indo-European and Semitic languages. The directional Gods occur also among North American Plains Indians. Schele and Feidel suggest that wherever the Maya finds himself, is the center of the world.

The text above listed only three distinct trees (plus the green tree of the center). The tree of the east is not mentioned (it would have been red), but the yellow tree of the south is mentioned twice -- once at the beginning and once at the end of the list of four trees. This is likely to be a very old transcription error, for apparently other "Chilam Balam" books make the same mistake.

There is, however, a much more elegant solution, which is to suggest that in 3114 BC the east tree was indeed yellow because the Absu was yellow, like the rings of Saturn an Jupiter are yellow, golden, and buff. The only suggestion that the Absu might have been red are the drawings of the vultures at Catal Huyuk, and the much later world-wide amazement at the blood of humans or dragons which appeared in the sky briefly after 2349 BC (or, as some eastern Mediterranean records have, for three years). This thinking offers a solution more in line with expectations.

I should point out that Bolio here reads the first mention of the yellow tree as,

"The four gods, the Four Bacab leveled everything. At the moment when the leveling was finished, they were secured in their places in order to ordain the yellow men."

The distinction of the Maya as yellow men, differing from the Europeans as white men, seems like a modern imposition. I doubt if the distinction dates from the 16th century AD, although mention of the "white men" is found in Book 5 of the "Chilam Balam," but the reference is probably to the white-robed priests of Quetzalcoatl.

Bolio's translation differs in some other respects. Of interest is the altogether differing translation of..

"A pillar of the sky was set up, a sign of the destruction of the world."

Bolio has that as...

"And the arch of heaven was raised, sign of the destruction below."

This may describe the rings of debris surrounding the Earth, the Absu, although these obviously existed from long before after 3114 BC, as recounted (graphically) by other people at earlier dates. Roys' rendition mixes the "pillar" with the list of trees.

This concludes the events of Katun 11-Ahau. I don't doubt the veracity of these sources, even though often presented in somewhat disorderely fashion, and describing events much older than the earliest recognized archaeology of the Maya or the Olmecs. This is not unexpected, since, as recounted in the "Popol Vu," individual tribes acquired their own copies of the history books which had been kept at certain important sites.

In the text of the following Katuns additional details are developed, which again, with some extension of the strange names we are presented with, can be matched to worldwide catastrophic events we know from other sources. But the following events are more difficult to sort out. Whereas events before the start of the current era (starting in 3114 BC) are all listed as happening in Katun 11-Ahua, the text which follows reads as if events separated by a thousand years or more are simply listed by the Katuns during which they might have occurred -- Katun 9-Ahau, 7-Ahau, 5-Ahau, and 3-Ahau. Following these are two sections separately describing the rulership of Saturn and Jupiter.

Katun 9-Ahau: Ten-Sky

The next Katun in order, Katun 9-Ahau, is introduced with..

"The plate of another katun was set up and fixed in its place by the messengers of their lord."

The "plate" is often used to reference a Katun together with "cup," as in, "nine was its cup, nine was its plate," used to describe Katun 9-Ahau, and similar readings in the "Chilam Balam" for other Katuns. The "cup and plate" may be the "dot and bar" of the Mesoamerican numerical notation inherited by the Maya from the Olmecs. Tedlock reads "plate and cup" as the dedicatory vessels used at shrines.

At this point the four trees of the cardinal points are introduced again...

"The red Piltec was set at the east of the world to conduct people to his lord."

"The white Piltec was set at the north of the world to conduct people to his lord."

"Lahun Chaan was set (at the west) to bring things to his lord."

"The yellow Piltec was set (at the south) to bring things to his lord."

In the third line quoted above, "Lahun Chaan" (Ten-Sky) is not one of the colored trees of the cardinal points, but is Mars. So thinks Roys, who writes, in a footnote on this matter...

"Lahun Chaan is doubtless the same as the 'Lakunchan' described by Cogolludo as an idol with very ugly teeth. 'Lahun' means ten in both Maya and Chol, and 'chan' means sky, heaven, and serpent in Chol. The Maya word for sky is 'caan'."

He continues at length, and adds..

"We recall that a fleshless jawbone is one of the symbols of the number ten on the monuments; but the figure appears to be the regent of the second Venus period in the Dresden Codex, and the regent of the first of these periods in the Mexican Codex Bologna also has a fleshless lower jaw. Since the above passage in the Chumayel implies that Lahun Chaan was set in the west, the translator is inclined to believe that this god was closely connected with the appearance of Venus as an evening star."

I have doubts that "Ten-Sky " is a reference to Venus, for Venus is seen both in the east and in the west, not just in the west as an evening star, as Roys' insertion suggests (although, because of its brightness, Venus was seen crossing the sky). Mars is seen crossing the sky. The phrase "at the west" is, in fact, an insertion based on the fact that a tree of the west is not mentioned. The line actually reads, without the addition by Roys..

"Lahun Chaan was set to bring things to his lord."

I think "Ten-Sky" is Mars. We see nothing else of the repeated close calls by Mars during the period of 3000 BC to 2700 BC except the title "Ten-Sky." From Egyptian and Mesopotamian records it appears Mars/Horus cruised close to Earth some ten times after 3100 BC. My original estimate for the first appearance of Mars/Horus was the year 3000 BC or 3025 BC, depending on when Gilgamesh of Uruk can be placed. The Katun 9-Ahau period -- when "Ten-Sky" first appeared -- ends in 3033 BC (but the date should be corrected to end in 3000.1 BC). The start of Katun 9-Ahau starts twenty years earlier, close to my estimate of 3025 BC.

Katun 9-Ahau: Venus

The next lines are without question about Venus. But this Katun 9-Ahau ends in 1497 BC, not 3033 BC, as above. This grouping of events by Katun names, or some other parameter other than chronology, is typical of the other chapters of the "Chilam Balam," as it is, for example, of the Popol Vu. The "Chilam Balam" continues..

"But it was (over) the whole world that Ah Uuc Cheknal was set up. He came from the seventh stratum of the earth, when he came to fecundate Itzam-kab-ain, [the Earth] when he came with the vitality of the angle between earth (and) heaven."

Roys translates "Ah Uuc Chek-nal" as "he who fertilizes the maize seven times," which suggests that "Ah Uuc Chek-nal" appeared seven times. I suspect "Ah Uuc Chek-nal" is Venus.

"Itzam-kab-ain" is the Earth, the whole Earth, designated as a "crocodile-footed whale." The Maya conceived of the Earth as floating on water, and as supported by a giant whale-crocodile creature. Bolio translates this passage as..

"At that moment, Uuc-cheknal came from the seventh layer of the sky. When he came down, he trodded on the backs of Itzeam-cab-Aim, so-called. He came while the earth and sky were being cleaned."

The imagery is not far removed from a close passage of Venus. The phrase "while the earth and sky were being cleaned" suggests hurricanes and tsunamis, which would certainly have been experienced on the four or more approaches by Venus between 2349 and 2193 BC and again in 1492 and 1440 BC. The first close approach involves the fall of the Absu -- the 'Flood of Noah.'

Roys suggests another translation of "when he came the vitality of the angle between earth and heaven," which reads, "then he descended while the heavens rubbed against the earth." That makes sense as the condition of a fallen sky in 1492 BC.

Elsewhere I have assumed that approaches by Venus happened repeatedly between 2349 BC (the 'Flood of Noah') and 2193 BC (the fall of Akkad), for a total of four contacts. Earlier occurrences of Katun 9-Ahau do not match these dates. Katun 9-Ahau in Baktun 1 ends in 2523 BC (corrected to 2497 BC), too early for the 'Flood of Noah' by 200 years, and Katun 9-Ahau in Baktun 2 ends in 2266 BC (corrected to 2244 BC), to late for the Fall of Akkad by one hundred years.

Katun 9-Ahau in Baktun 4 ends in 1497 BC, but should be corrected to end in 1486 BC, and thus corresponds to the time of the Exodus of 1492 BC (or other estimates from 1495 to 1491 BC).

I have to make note again of the fact that, because of the Maya understanding of the cyclical nature of time, repeated appearance of visiting planets are not separately listed, except in their titles, as in "Nine-Lives," "Ten Skies," and "He Who Fertilizes the Maize Seven Times." I do not know why there is no notice of Venus between 2350 and 2293 BC, unless it is simply that the earlier visits by Venus fell in Katuns of a different number. However, the events of the period of 2400 to 2300 BC are listed separately further below.

To return to the seven appearances of "Ah Uuc Chek-nal," I count four close passages of Venus between 2349 BC and 2193 BC, and, 701 years later, two in 1492 BC and ca 1440 BC. This adds up to six overflights. It is possible that the nova event of Venus in 685 BC, another 755 years later, represented the seventh. But this last event is not attributed to Venus, except as the Sun going off course in 685 BC (further below). I think, however, that all references to Venus in 685 BC, when Quetzalcoatl lived and died, were carefully deleted from the record for fear of revealing information to the Spanish priests.

The "Chilam Balam" continues with how the people walked in darkness...

"They moved among the four lights, among the four layers of the stars. The world was not lighted; there was neither day nor night nor moon. Then they perceived that the world was being created. Then creation dawned upon the world."

Just as a note, the words "and" and "then" are translated from the same Mayan word, which doesn't have the oblique distinctions between "concurrent" and "consecutive" of its use in the English language.

"They" probably refers to the people, but could also refer to the Gods. That they (the people) "moved" may suggest a migration, as is likely under the conditions of the climatic turndown of 1492 BC. The whole of the paragraph seems almost lifted from the Bible -- speaking of the wanderings of Israel in the desert after 1492 BC.

The "four lights" might be the great luminaries -- the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn, although the same line read that there was no Moon yet. In 1492 BC there was a Moon. Roys suggests "candles" also for the "lights," but the Maya used torches, not candles. Bolio uses "the fourth fire" for the "four lights." The reference may be to the earlier event (2349 BC), since the Moon only showed up at that time. I think that the "four lights" are the four "trees" at the cardinal points, the impinging plasma plumes. It would be doubtful if these were seen under the condition of clouded skies. The use of "the four lights," even if meant to signify the directional trees, might thus be a simile for wandering over a wide geographical area.

"During the creation thirteen infinite series (added) to seven was the count of the creation of the world. Then a new world dawned for them."

The word translated as "series" can also mean "steps" or "degrees." The "seven" is probably the count of the next Katun. Thus the "infinite series of steps" might represents a long time, but perhaps arbitrarily assigned to Katun 7-Ahau. A Katun 7-Ahau ended in 1477 BC, following a Katun 9-Ahau which had ended in 1497 BC. On the other hand, thirteen plus seven is 20 years -- one Katun. Other Mesoamerican sources speak to "a generation" of darkness. Bolio translates as..

"Infinite rungs of the ladder of time and seven moons later were counted since Earth woke up and then the dawn came for them."

Seven moons would only represent a half year. Most of this phrasing remains unclear except to suggesting the passage of a lot of time, or, as I have indicated, some twenty years.

2349 BC

The following, although grouped with the start of a new creation, is, I suspect, from a different source. It details events starting in about 2400 BC, and events at the time of Noah, but not all of them. The events are not introduced by listing a Katun name. I think, from the following text, that the copyist is opening a new book, perhaps one titled "The Third Creation." Unlike before, he copies the pages in the correct order, but leaves out the fall of the Absu, which is recounted much later.

The information is, in fact, not out of 'literary' order, since the previous text ended with mention of the start of a new creation. (We see this sort of connection used much later to describe events of the 8th century BC.) We know that the events of the previous text are to be placed after 1492 BC. The 'Third Creation,' however, points to events in 2349 BC. The text starts with..

"The two-day throne was declared, the three-day throne."

The phrase "two-day throne, three-day throne" is used elsewhere in the "Chilam Balam" to denote short-term leadership, especially in reference to the governing councils of the Itza. Bolio, however, has a more sensible reading..

"the reign of the second period, the reign of the third period was felt."

That makes a lot more sense. The alliteration of the text makes it look like a chapter heading. The question will be, where are we in the Katun counts? They are not mentioned in the following texts. Suggesting that the text simply continues with the next Katun in order should be used (Katun 7-Ahau), results in events which cannot be placed at dates known from other sources. I will therefore suggest that the listing of events continues with Katun 9-Ahau.

There are five events listed before we return to naming Katuns. These are the plasma mountain of Jupiter (starting and presumably dated to a Katun 9-Ahau ending in 2523 BC, corrected to 2498 BC), the appearance of the Moon (at which time the coma of Jupiter had disappeared), the return of a coma for Jupiter, the extinction of Jupiter, and the first view of the "planted timber." Overall, these are in the correct order, but the copyist has cheated with the Katun names. By not listing them he has forced the reader to assume that the events follow each other in the usual 'historical' sequence of Katun 9-Ahau, Katun 7-Ahau, and Katun 5-Ahau. But in actuality some of the the events fall in even numbered Katuns (mention of which is generally avoided throughout the book of the "Chilam Balam"), are separated from each other by large spans of time, or happen in rapid sequence. This part of the "Chilam Balam" is truly muddled.

There is still a question if this represents the second or the third creation. We are, in fact, first presented what seems to be an elements of the second reign. Saturn, the "Chilam Balam" reads, develops a cometary tail. I think there is an error here.

"Then began the weeping of Oxlahun-ti-ku [Saturn] They wept in this reign. The reign became red; the mat became red; (because of them) the first tree of the world was rooted fast."

Bolio has,

".. the tree became red."

And Bolio also has,

"And then the three gods began to cry."

The "three gods" would have been Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. These are the "three gods" of the Classical era of the Maya. Roys, however, only has Saturn (not one of the "three gods" above) crying, which perhaps makes more sense. The "three" of the "three gods" could be a misreading of the "three" of "the thirteen" by Bolio. "Crying" has to represent a plasma discharge -- a coma and tail.

But I wonder if what we read here is a transcription error, that is, the author meant to write that "Bolon-ti-ku," that is, Jupiter, developed a coma and a polar tail (started weeping) rather than "Oxlahun-ti-ku," Saturn. We have no record of either Saturn or Mars ever developing a coma or tail, with the exception that Saturn probably went into a massive plasma discharge upon the initial plasmasphere contact with Jupiter, directly after 3114 BC.

I don't think that Saturn is meant above. Saturn by this time had receded into insignificance. The date of 2542 to 2523 BC (for Katum 9-Ahau) coincides with the time (corrected to 2497 BC, thus shortly after 2500 BC) when the Egyptian pharaohs first add "Re" to their names. From Egyptian records, the mountain plasma form is clearly a phenomena related to Re (Jupiter).

If we assume that we are indeed in Katun 9-Ahau, then likely we see here the record of the first appearance of the plasma discharge of Jupiter as it cleared the asteroid belt in receding from the Sun, about 500 years after 3114 BC. A Katun 9-Ahau ends in 2523 BC, corrected to 2497 BC. My diagramatic estimate of when Jupiter first exited from the asteroid belt (shown in another chapter) is the year 2595 BC, which is a century before the start of Katun 9-Ahau, but clearly on target, considering my order-of-magnitude estimates.

The redness of the apparition also cannot be neglected. Although Mesopotamian sources do not mention colors, the Egyptians always depicted Jupiter as a huge red ball. The Egyptians also retell (although very late) a flood story (the only one) where, after a council of the Gods (similar to both the Babylonian and the earlier Sumerian flood tales), it is decided to destroy mankind. Leonard King, in "Legends of Babylon and Egypt" (1918), writes..

"The slaughter of men by the Eye of Ra in the form of the goddess Hathor, who during the night wades in their blood, [..] drinking of men's blood mixed with the narcotic mandrake and with seven thousand vessels of beer, with the result that through drunkenness she ceased from slaughter."

Hathor is the planet Venus. This is of course much later than the Katun ending in 2523 BC. This clearly recounts the 'flood' of 2349 BC which is actually the fall of the Absu after a close approach by Venus (the Babylonian Tiamat, or the Egyptian Hathor), with the added detail that the world, or at least the sky, turned red, or as the "Chilam Balam" reads, "The reign became red; the mat became red." It was after the 'flood of Noah' of 2349 BC that Jupiter again develops a mountainous lower extrusion. We thus might alternately be in the period of 2350 BC, or after. But the era which brackets the 'flood of Noah' of 2349 BC is defined by a Katun 4-Ahau.

The "rooting fast" of the first tree is probably not the Milky way. The Milky Way will play a large role in the religious iconography of the classical Maya. I suspect that the Milky Way is a substitute for the original tree which was seen as a plasma discharge in the north before 3114 BC, and later as the lower plasma expulsion of Jupiter. Although after 3114 BC the Milky Way would have been seen standing straight up and down during some portion of the night, but would not have been seen in the southern skies which were obscured by the rings of the Absu.

The "tree," which Bolio translates as a "red tree," is probably what Mesopotamian cultures had identified as a mountain. It is the plasma discharge of Jupiter from its southern polar regions. Notice that the plasma expulsion has changed from green to red. This could mark a change in the ionized gasses at the outer edges of the plasmasphere, but it could as likely be a change in the density of these ions. This last is more than likely with a change in caused by the experience of a lower electrical potential (or gradient).

I am not altogether sure if this transposition from Saturn to Jupiter is legitimate, nor am I at all certain which Katun we are in. Saturn, since it was already at the potential of deep space, did not form a plasma discharge in moving away from the Sun. Certainly Saturn, by the 23rd century BC, would have become a mere pinpoint of light.

Jupiter, on the other hand, would have developed a much larger coma, at right angle to the ecliptic and pointing down, as it distanced from the Sun. What the Egyptians called a mountain, the Olmecs identified as a tree. This 'mountain' first appeared directly after 3114 BC, but would have disappeared soon (150 years) as Jupiter entered the asteroid belt, not to reappear until 350 years later, in ca 2600 BC, upon leaving the asteroid belt. This was soon interrupted (some time between 2600 and 2350 BC), but the coma returned very soon after 2350 BC and remained for 100 additional years, to 2250 BC.

That the "Chilam Balam" equates the renewed plasma discharge of Jupiter with the "third creation," or the "third reign," would make sense for someone sorting out events at a much later date, probably some time before the 8th century BC. Although the "third creation" of the world was initiated by the fall of the Absu (the flood of Noah), the record of the reappearance of the chief deity would have been more convincing than what is later called the "second baptism" -- that is, the flood of Noah.

The Moon

At the following part of the text we still seem to be in the time of the third creation, the period after 2400 BC. But again, a Katun name is not disclosed. The following text is about the Moon, and reports that Jupiter was not weeping. The "Chilam Balam" reads...

"The entire world was proclaimed by Uuc-yol-zip; but it was not at the time of this reign that Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter] wept."

There is no indication, from the translators, of who "Uuc-yol-zip" is. I would make a wild guess and suggest that, if we are chronologically in the period around 2349 BC, that Uuc-yol-zip is the Moon, which was an independent inner planet already orbiting the Sun at the location to which the Earth moved after 2349 BC. (Lunar calendars are established worldwide after 2349 BC.)

Earth suddenly picked up a satellite, or, more properly, started to share an orbital location with the Moon, for the Moon travels in the ecliptic, not on the Earth's equatorial. A rapid discharge of the Earth via the Moon, would have destroyed any of the remaining Absu in record time. More on that below.

Uuc-yol-zip is never mentioned again and remains unidentified, unless, as I suggested, it is the Moon. Roys, on the basis of other informants, suggests a Deer God, which makes some sense if you have never seen the Moon before and you are suddenly confronted by its changing shape and speedy movement through the night skies. The Moon will relocate from the southeast sky to the northeast in the course of a week. But what Katun are we in?

The first appearance of the Moon (the Deer God) should be placed to ca 2350 BC, but this is a Katun 4-Ahau event, rather than the implied Katun 9-Ahau. [note 14]

I should point out another source, in fact the only other Maya source of ancient history other than the "Popol Vu." The Temples of the Cross at Palenque (built in ca AD 690) claims that Jupiter, Mars, and Venus were all born in 2360 BC. The Moon was their mother. The Moon "lets blood" in 2325 BC (corrected to 2303 BC) and the Moon "crowns herself" as ruler in 2305 BC (corrected to 2277 BC). [note 12]

We don't know exactly what these last two events were. But they can be placed, the first ('letting blood') in Katun 11-Ahau (ending in 2286 BC, corrected to 2263 BC), and the second event ('crowning herself') in Katun 9-Ahau (ending in 2266 BC, corrected to 2244 BC). Probably the second Palenque event records the regularization of the Moon's orbit. The wording, "the entire world was proclaimed," from the "Chilam Balam" suggests the same assumption of rulership, which was as deep a concern of the Maya as it seemed to have been for most civilizations in the world. I would thus suggest that the event quoted from the "Chilam Balam" above should probably be assigned to Katun 9-Ahau, and equated to the Palenque record of the Moon 'crowning herself' as ruler. This would place it in Katun 9-Ahau (a Long Count of 2.3.0.0.0), even though this is about 90 years later than what I think it should be. The following will elucidate where this concern comes from.

That Jupiter did not "weep" at the time the Moon appeared or assumed rulership, is interesting. It suggests that Jupiter had lost its coma and tail. I know that this happened at some time between 2400 and 2000 BC, but I have been unable to determine exactly when. In Egypt the title 'Son of Re' had been in use already by the pharaohs who completed the Giza pyramids shortly before 2500 BC, and was used by all the following pharaohs. During the following sixth dynasty, from 2490 BC to 2350 BC, 'Sun Temples' were built along with the pyramid graves of six pharaohs. 'Sun Temples' are squat pyramids on a flat base. Elsewhere in Egypt these are the 'symbol' of Re, Jupiter.

Further construction of 'Sun Temples' was abandoned before the end of the sixth dynasty. These dates suggest that the coma and tail of Jupiter (Re) might have disappeared, but we do not know exactly when, or how long it took before this showed up as a change in religious monuments.

On the basis of the above information the loss of a coma would be before 2350 BC. The Chinese "Annals of Shu" speak of Yao (Jupiter) gaining the throne as emperor in 2357 BC, as if to say that Jupiter again developed a coma at that time. The first few dates of the "Annals of Shu" should probably be placed about a decade later, thus the above date should probably be near 2349 BC.

There is also an interesting passage in the Babylonian "Enuma Elish" which recalls the disappearance of Jupiter's coma tail (as a garment) and its reappearance. See Chapter 9, "The Career of Jupiter," for details. Since the "Enuma Elish" clearly recounts the contact by Venus in 2349 BC, it would be suggested that the disappearance of the coma tail should be placed before 2349 BC.

Jupiter Returns

This is Katun 7-Ahau, or what we might be led to believe is Katun 7-Ahau, and starts with the seating of Jupiter, as follows...

"Then came the counting of the mat in its order. Red was the mat on which Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter] sat. His buttock is sharply rounded, as he sits on his mat."

The "counting of the mat" is the start of a new Katun. The proper order of this Katun cannot be ascertained. It should be Katun 7-Ahau if the appearance of the Moon is dated to Katun 9-Ahau as I suggested above. (Otherwise this is Katun 2-Ahau, following a Katun 4-Ahau for the Moon.)

Now we have another plasma outpouring of Jupiter, and again without reference to what Katun has turned. If I am correct, this is a return of a coma and tail after 2349 BC, not the start.

Roys suggests that "his buttock is sharply rounded" could also mean pointed or rounded like a hat. I do not know what to make of this except that it would perhaps fit the emblem -- a circle above a horizontal line -- used for Jupiter (Marduk) in Mesopotamia, and one of the magic symbols of the Egyptians, called the 'shen,' where the circular part is rendered in red. Both look like hats in outline. In Egypt Re (Jupiter) is always shown as a large solid red disk.

Jupiter must have remained prominent in the sky until some time around 2250 BC (a hundred years after the 'food of Noah,' see below). A few centuries later the Babylonian priests write the "Enuma Elish," elevating Jupiter to the position of chief God. This could be used as an index of how long Jupiter had remained clearly in view. Unfortunately we have no indication of the first date of the composition of the "Enuma Elish." Jupiter is assigned this third period of rulership, after Saturn, in the "Chilam Balam." His rulership, as elsewhere in the world, remains secure until the arrival of the Christian God.

"Then descended greed from the heart of the sky, greed for power, greed for rule."

The phrase, "Then descended greed from the heart of the sky, greed for power, greed for rule" exactly expresses the earlier parallel experience after 2700 or 2600 BC in Mesopotamia (the kingship at Uruk) and Egypt (the third dynasty which starts the Old Kingdom). It was coincident (within a hundred years) in both cases with the first appearance of Jupiter on his mountain that the first kingships developed.

I would guess that in this case we are at about 2300 BC, but it is as likely to be after 1500 BC. The lowland Maya (of AD 1500) were well aware of the individual leaders who had reigned over various cities or cult centers in the past (600 years earlier), a few of which still persisted, and the Maya seemed to have had no particular liking for this aspect of the past. This attitude is repeatedly expressed by the writer of this history. The Itza who had invaded the northern Yucatan after AD 1000 were similarly despised -- 500 years later -- as is very evident from later paragraphs of this text as well as other chapters of the "Chilam Balam." This points up the phenomenal capacity of the Maya to hold grudges (as they still do today). Thus complaints about leadership dating back 2500 years or more do not surprise me.

This is also the third listing of trees. It looks as if all of the directional trees follow the start of a massive lower plasma form of Jupiter, after 3114 BC, shortly after 2349 BC, and after 1492 BC here.

The remainder of this section deals with rulers, but in association with the color of the trees at the cardinal points.

"Then the red foundation was established; the white foundation of the ruler was established; the black foundation was established; the yellow foundation was established."

"Then the Red Ruler was set up, he who was raised upon the mat, raised upon the throne."

"The White Ruler was set up, he who was raised upon the mat, raised upon the throne."

"The Black Ruler was set up, he who was raised upon the mat, raised upon the throne."

"The Yellow Ruler was set up, he who was raised upon the mat, raised upon the throne."

This is followed by complaints about these rulers, and their limitations. It is interesting that the geographical concerns (the colors of the cardinal directions) have shifted to actual leaders at this time. It is the third listing of the colors of the cardinal directions, and I would thus assume that the above list actually deals with conditions after 1500 BC. It is, in fact, after 1500 BC that we see the first ceremonial centers of the Olmecs established (San Lorenzo). (The earliest solid archaeological record of the Maya date to after 600 BC.) [note 13a]

"As a god, it is said; whether or not gods, their bread is lacking, their water is lacking. There was only a portion (of what was needed) for them to eat together (...) but there was nowhere from which the quantity needed for existence could come."

"Compulsion and force were the tidings, when he [Jupiter] was seated (in authority); compulsion was the tidings, compulsion by misery; it came during his reign, when he arrived to sit upon the mat (...)"

NOTE: "(...)" above represent a lacuna in the original text.

There are similar sentiments about rulers expressed in a later section. I should point out that later text will claim the rulership of Saturn extended over the era before 3114 BC, and the rulership of Jupiter extended from after 3114 BC to the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Thus Jupiter's rulership extends over all of the second and third creation -- and a fourth which is not explicitly mentioned.

The above text, and the ones following below, will seems confusing if the actual sequence of events in the era of 2500 BC to 2200 BC are lost sight of. A recap of events from other sources, added to the events related in the "Chilam Balam," may be found in Chapter 9, "The Career of Jupiter and the Tower of Babel."

The Burning Tower

Still in (what is assumed to be) Katun 7-Ahau, we have a strange incident described..

"Suddenly on high fire flamed up. The face of the sun was snatched away, taken from earth."

"This was his garment in his reign. This was the reason for mourning his power, at that time there was too much vigor. At that time there was the riddle for the rulers."

This duplicates the "Tower of Babylon" stories worldwide. We are between the year 2500 BC and 2000 BC. Since it follows the description of the rulership of Jupiter, it suggests the sudden demise of Jupiter, especially when we consider the phrase, "The face of the sun was snatched away, taken from earth." The Sun's face, after all, has not been taken away from Earth. This could only be a reference to Jupiter, who was still called "the Midnight Sun" by the Maya in Classical times, and "Lord Sun."

In Chinese mythology, Yao dies in 2257 BC. In another chapter I have suggested that the Chinese dates for Yao should probably be moved 10 years into the future, thus to 2247 BC. Katun 7-Ahau (2266 to 2246 BC, corrected to 2244 to 2224 BC) would match this date, as it also matches Ussher's estimate for the 'Tower of Babel' event which he places after 2247 BC. At least, close enough.

The Planted Timbers

The following text follows on the 'burning tower' without notification of a change in Katun...

"The planted timber was set up. Perishable things are assembled at that time. The timber of the grave-digger is set up at the crossroads, at the four resting places. Sad is the general havoc, at that time the butterflies swarmed."

Roys reads this paragraph as a local event, suggesting that rulers were assembled and executed at the intersection of two roads in the land of the Maya. I doubt if it has this specificity, for the few other political events which are recalled on other pages of the "Chilam Balam" list the names of the actors, in one instance from 700 years earlier. If this execution of chiefs had happened within the last 1000 years, we would have been told the names of the assailants and victims.

I would suggest that this paragraph, following directly on the "fire on high," instead describes the new conditions in the sky after "the face of the sun was taken from Earth." If Jupiter had blazed like a sun for a thousand years, then only a little would have been visible of the stars in the sky as long as Jupiter shone brightly in the night sky and as long as the Absu obscured the southern skies. The Absu fell in 2349 BC, but Jupiter kept blazing for another 100 years.

The "assembly of perishable things" are the Pleiades. Even in postclassical times the Maya held that the Pleiades were a sprinkling of seed maize. Certainly "precious things" is appropriate, for maize held the highest status in all the Classical Maya iconography. Before 685 BC, and since 2349 BC, the Pleiades were located at the intersection of the ecliptic and the equatorial, that is, at the location of the equinox, at the start of the constellation Taurus, as I have pointed out in other texts. As I have also pointed out previously, both the ecliptic and the equatorial were outlined as bright bands a few thousand years ago.

The equatorial showed at night as a band of glowing matter because of the debris still circling the Earth far above the equator -- left over from previous ages. After the Absu collapsed the material which dispersed away from Earth would have visually approached even closer to the actual equatorial, although it may have thinned out to only show as spikes rising up out of the sky at the east and west cardinal points. These regions, being far from Earth, would always be lighted by the Sun. These two might have been two of the trees of the cardinal points. Today these still show, although very dimly, and only near sunrise or sunset.

The ecliptic showed as a band of reflecting material which did not fade away until AD 1840. This is the "Yellow Road" of the Chinese.

The two bands intersected at Taurus, just below the Pleiades. Mention of the assembly of "precious things" occurs directly before the mention of the timbers at the crossroads. In southern Mexico and the Yucatan these two band were displaced only some 20 degrees from being directly overhead where they cross. The sight appears as the crossed bars (the Saint Andrew's Cross) in depictions of the sky and the "sky band" iconography of the Classical Maya.

In remote antiquity these bands appeared only after the Absu had fallen and after Jupiter stopped polluting the night sky with light. The Maya saw them as the roof timbers to the sky, and because the planets traveled in one of the bands, called them crossroads. Two timbers are mentioned. The "planted timber" is the north polar plasma plume, the other, the "beam of the gravedigger" is the south polar plume, located at the crossroads, since this happened at the fall equinox. At a much later time (AD 400 to AD 700) the Milky Way is substituted, which became a primary symbol of creation and access to the underworld for the Classical Maya. The Milky Way crosses the ecliptic at Taurus. The Milky Way had not been seen in the south skies before the fall of the Absu and the extinction of Jupiter. [note 13]

The word "gravedigger," Roys notes, can also be translated as "hiders" -- "anyone who buries or hides things." I have no idea what the Maya had in mind in attributing the new view of the bands of the sky (or the south polar beam) to the action of "hiders," but, typical of Mesoamerican grammatical constructions, anything that appears has to be attributed, via an action-oriented tense, to some being. Perhaps the Absu or the moving waves of the rings were meant as the "hiders." However, from the "Popol Vu" we have the interesting tale of the Giant called "Mountain" who effectively digs the grave for the Four Hundred Lost Boys, the Pleiades, and is nearly impaled by the timber which was to be the center post of the house of the Four Hundred Boys. This timber was set up at the crossroads.

The swarming butterflies probably visually represent the dispersal of the Absu.

Interestingly, although we have here been presented with the "Third Creation" starting in about 2350 BC, the events have all clustered around 2350 BC and 2250 BC. It would be assumed from the text that the events progressed from Katun 9-Ahau through Katun 5-Ahau, but if such a sequence is followed, some of the dates do not match any information from other sources. The exception is the demise of Jupiter, which could be assigned to Katun 7-Ahau, a time period which correctly includes the date of 2250 BC.

Despite his demise, Jupiter certainly remained as the chief celestial deity. Of course his status of the ruler of creation would be reinforced by the returning plasma, called a "flower" later in the text, and the plasma bolt delivered in 685 BC. He will appear in Classical times as "God GIII" of the Palenque triad, and there called "Lord Sun."

More on the discrepant dates below.

Katun 3-Ahau: the Sun

The following describes the flare-up of Venus in 685 BC. It is, however, also listed out of place, because the event of 685 BC follows the repeated close calls by Mars in the 8th and 7th century BC, which are described (out of place) further below. The Katuns are here named. The individual pages are again being read in the wrong order.

"Then there came great misery, when it came about that the sun in Katun 3-Ahau was moved from its place for three months."

First, as I have noted earlier, the period of three months (60 days) exceeds the best estimate (from Zoroasterian sources) of the duration of the flare-up of Venus by a month. Since the movement of the Sun was most likely charted to sunset locations along the horizon, this would represent the earliest time that the axis of the Earth had started to relocate. I doubt if the phrase "moved from its place" has anything to do with the flare-up of Venus per se. The sixty days deal with the horizon setting location of the Sun. It is not a comment about Venus blazing in the sky.

The time interval given here is one of three instances in this Book of the "Chilam Balam" where the interval is given as an inclusive count. I first realized this for another instance, which caused me to look again at the other two. The three months of 20 days are thus an interval of 2 months, 40 days. Having determined, individually, the ending date of the flare-up of Venus and Mercury as July 25th, and a starting date as the first new Moon before that, June 15th, it was satisfying to realize that the "three months" mentioned here represent (as two months) the 40 day interval between June 15 and July 25.

I think we can suggest the veracity of these data from the fact that in all three instance, by allowing for the inclusive counting, the intervals can be matched against other known dates and made sense of. This also again verifies the fact that the Long Count existed since 747 BC, for no such accurate dates or intervals exist before 747 BC. (The inscriptions at Palenque were, I feel sure, retrocalculated.)

"After three years [three heaps of years] it will come back into place in Katun 3-Ahau. Then another katun will be set (in its place)."

Roys notes that "three years" literally reads "three heaps of years" which could be a longer period than three 'tun' years (of 360 days), or it could mean a longer period, but apparently not longer than the 17 or 18 years it would take to reach the end of Katun 3-Ahau. I think a "heap" is likely to be a span of five years, but of the 260 day Tzolkin calendar. (As explained by other contemporary commentators on the mathematics of the Maya, this would be a 'bundle' -- a line representing a count of five dots in the numeric notation. Of course a group of 20 is also called a bundle, as is, in later central Mexico, a group of 52 years.)

The fifteen years is probably a measure on the Tzolkin calendar which rotated the same day-name and day-number combination into place at the same horizon sunset location for a zenithal passage of the Sun. (I am assuming a zenithal passsage because these were deemed to be very important to each ceremonial site. See Chapter 19, "The Olmec Crisis.") In actuallity the location along the horizon of the zenithal sunset remained the same after 685 BC as it had been before 685 BC, within a fraction of a degree, but the calender day (our calendar) would move back by 10 to 17 days, as follows, depending on the latitude..

zenithal passage of the Sun difference location latitude before 685 BC after 685 BC in days Izapa 14.960 August 21 August 11 9 Monte Alban 17.033 August 16 August 4 12 La Venta 18.125 August 14 July 31 14 Teotihuacan 19.638 August 10 July 25 16

The Tzolkin calendar, not being an annual calendar, would rotate a different day-name into place each following year. After some measures of the Tzolkin, the same day-name and day-number combination would appear again at the proper angle of the sunset along the horizon, but on a different annual calendar date.

As so tersely expressed by the "Chilam Balam," it would take 15 rotations of the Tzolkin ("bundles of years") for the Sun to again return to the same day-name and day-number combination. We can find this easily, for we do not need to access the Long Count calendar, and we do not need to know the starting date or ending date. But we will have to 'discount' the author's quirky inclusive accounting. 'Fifteen years until' will mean a difference of 'fourteen years.' This is the second instance of an interval expressed as an inclusive count. It is then a simple matter to subtract multiples of the 260 day Tzolkin from multiples of the 365.25 day year, until a difference is found which matches the differences in calendar days in the chart above.

In fact, 14 Tzolkin rounds are 12.5 days short of ten 365.25 day years. 14 * 260 - 10 * 365.25 = -12.50 days. This is the change in days experienced at Monte Alban. Monte Alban may thus be the source of the lowland Yucatan Maya author's original books. Already 600 years old at the time they were read in the 16th century AD, the original sources dated back to 685 BC.

The first date of a zenithal passage of the Sun, before 685 BC, would have been August 16, 686 BC, 6.3.3.6.11 7-Chuen. Fourteen times 260 days is 0.0.10.2.0 days. Adding, this gives 6.3.13.8.11 7-Chuen. This falls on August 3rd, 676 BC. One more day needs to be advanced to complete the month, thus August 4.

The same addition of 14 Tzolkin periods to the pre-685 BC dates results in (subtracting 12.5 days):

• Izapa: August 8, not 11;
• La Venta: August 1, not July 31;
• Teotihuacan: July 28, not 25.

La Venta is close, however, and might stand as an alternate source for the original glyphic books from which Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" was composed. It is also at nearly the same latitude as Monte Alban.

This Katun start in 689 BC and ends in 669 BC, bracketing the nova event of Venus in 685 BC, corrected from 680 BC in eastern Mediterranean chronology. (The Katuns require no correction for this period.) Only a short paragraph is recorded for all of Katun 3-Ahau, although the writer will repeatedly return to the event of Katun 3-Ahau. This was the most monumental event in prehistory. It changed the religions and probably the enterprises of Mesoamerica and started people on a path of independent thinking, as elsewhere in the world. Details of this in Chapter 12, "Modern History."

The writer continues with laments, presumably related to Katun 3-Ahau..

"The 'ramon' fruit is their bread, the 'ramon' fruit is their drink; the 'jícama cimarrona' is their bread, the 'jícama cimarrona' is their drink; what they eat and what they drink."

"The 'ix-batun,' the 'chimchim-chay,' are what they eat. These things were present here when misery settled, father, in Tun 9."

The foods listed are those eaten at a time of famine. If "Tun 9" is the ninth year of Katun 3-Ahau, then "these things" would happen in 680 BC, following the nova event of Venus in 685 BC. The word "father" remains unexplained.

Roys notes, however, "Most of the preceding paragraph concerning Katun 3 Ahau appears to be an interpolation. It is not found in the Tizimin and Mani versions," and notes that two other versions of the "Chilam Balam" list the misfortunes ("for each of the twenty years") of Katun 5-Ahau instead.

The Katun 3-Ahau text missing from other copies of the "Chilam Balam" may reflect the care the Maya took in hiding all notice of Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl) from the Spanish priests. Is the meaning of "father" from a statement about of the exact genesis of Kukulkan, made to a Spanish priest?

It might very well be that this interpolation is a confession to a Spanish priest. If so, we have here the most valuable aspect of this document, a clear statement about the Kukulkan event -- the earthly appearance of Quetzalcoatl, and his death.

But the scribe has the Tun date wrong. If before I suggested a possible misreading of a Katun number, here we have a certain misreading of a Tun number. The event happened in Tun-4 of Katun-3, not in Tun-9. This year can be established from the date of the plasmoid from Jupiter (July 25, 685 BC, Gregorian) detailed further below, and from the investigation of the "Tablets of Ammizaduga" undertaken in Chapter 11, "Quetzalcoatl." It is a matter of seeing a bar with the four dots ("9") when there is none ("4") which, coincidentally, I also entertain as a possibility in establishing the "day of Kan," detailed further below.

At this point the list of Katuns in interrupted. Up to this point the phanthom Katuns have progressed in the correct order, that is, Katun 9-Ahau, Katun 7-Ahau, Katun 5-Ahau, and Katun 3-Ahau, even though I have some problems locating Katun 5-Ahau. Katun 9-Ahau was used at the beginning simply from the notion that all history starts again after Katun 11-Ahau. (Some of the other historical listings of the "Chilam Balam" books start in, rather than after, Katun 11-Ahau.) But Katun 3-Ahau can certainly be assigned to a definite time in the past which matches what we know from other sources.

The next Katun should have been Katun 1-Ahau, but now the writer introduces Katun 13-Ahau, with a single line about foreigners.

Introducing Katun 13-Ahau, the "Chilam Balam" continues with a radically different listing of events. Events are now listed by Katuns in order, in the manner of the 'prophecies' of the other Books of the "Chilam Balam." This has all the look of an additional record from another original source. Near the end, when the writer restarts in Katun 11-Ahau, yet another primary source is accessed.

"At that time there were the foreigners. The charge (of misery) was sought for all the years of (Katun) 13 Ahau."

It is possible that the mention of Katun 13-Ahau is a very early transcription error, or this may be a reflection of the expected content similar to other Books of the "Chilam Balam," where Katun 13-Ahau is indeed associated with prophesies of foreigners, the Spanish. In another Book the foreigners arrive in Katun 5-Ahau and are Caribs.

The first Katun 13-Ahau (when these foreigners may have arrived) after 747 BC spans 511 BC to 491 BC. It would be interesting to speculate that the first traders from the Olmecs of Mexico reached the Maya during this Katun, bringing new religious concepts.

The 8th Century BC

The approaches by Mars in the 8th century BC (and the 7th century), which devastated Anatolia, Greece, and Italy, at 35 to 40 degrees latitude, did the same damage in Central America, as indicated by the fact that the number of villages in Mesoamerica decreased markedly in the 8th century BC.

But the "Chilam Balam" at this point is given over to descriptions of flowers, colors, and fragrances -- arcane celestial details never noticed (or mentioned) in the Middle East. Perhaps we are now seeing the transcription from yet another source, "The Book of Flowers." Mars is only mentioned twice.

From dates extracted from the records of the Middle East the destructive events of the 8th and 7th century should be spread over four Katuns, from 747 BC to about 687 BC. This would be the time span of Katun 11-Ahau (767 BC to 747 BC), Katun 9-Ahau, Katun 7-Ahau, and Katun 5-Ahau (ends in 687 BC). There is no reference to the last two, but the first two are listed and the events are described.

"Then it was that the lord of (Katun) 11 Ahau spread his feet apart."

"Then it was that the word of Bolon Dzacab [Mars] descended to the tip of his tongue."

Bolon Dzacab ("Nine Lives") is Mars, to be distinguished, from the Mars seen before 3114 BC who is called "this first Bolon Dzacab," and also differing from Lahun Chaan ("Ten Sky") who appears to be Mars shortly after 3000 BC. The "tip of the tongue" is the bottom of the electrical arc from Mars. Mars, as God K or God G-III, is often depicted in Maya iconography with a single leg, acknowledged as representing lightning.

The text here is with reference to the period of 767 BC to 747 BC. Notice that, as elsewhere, nothing is said of the change in calendars which happened after 747 BC. Except for the families of rulers imposing themselves on the Olmecs or Maya, no civil events are ever touched upon.

With respect to the phrase "tip of his tongue," there are some Olmec rock carvings from this era of an iguana (or what looks like an iguana) with his tongue reaching up and touching the bottom of cloud glyphs. Cloud glyphs look like pancakes with down-curled edges. It would be appropriate of Mars appearing in the skies, reaching down to Earth with a sustained lightning bolt.

But the following Katun 9-Ahau, from 747 BC to 727 BC (further below) includes a surplus of observations, mostly in terms of flowers. Fragances are also mentioned, which we recognize from Velikovsky's collected anecdotes, although Velikovsky places these in 1492 BC during the interaction with Venus. [note 15]

The day of Kan

Another event is inserted here, related, as the text states, to Katun 9-Ahau, but we are no longer in the 8th century BC. This would have to be placed in Katun 9-Ahau which ends in 2266 BC (starting in 2.2.0.0.0, and corrected to end in 2244.1 BC), except that, as I will suggest below, this event may be transcribed in error from an original glyph reading of Katun 4-Ahau to a text reading of Katun 9-Ahau. It may also be an alteration of the original text which was made on purpose. More on this below.

"Then the charge of the katun was sought; nine was its charge when it descended from heaven. Kan was the day when its burden was bound to it."

"Then the water descended, it came from the heart of the sky for the baptism of the House of Nine Bushes.

Except for the fact that we are presented with a deluge, the rest does not make much sense at first. In fact, this Katun 9-Ahua misses the Flood of Noah by 83 years.

Bolio translates these two lines as...

"Nine were their cargoes when he came from the sky. The day of Kan was the day when his cargo was tied up. It was when the water came from the sky for the second birth, from the house of the one of the "innumerable years."

Three events are here confused, the 2349 BC flood of Noah, and the nine appearances of Mercury in the eighth and seventh century (developed further below in the section on Flowers), and the start of the plasmoid lightning bolt from Jupiter (also addresses further below). The "nine cargoes" might thus be properly transliterated by Bolio. The author of the "Chilam Balam," however, on the basis of his sources, has full confidence that the "day of Kan" should be associated with the "second baptism." I will address this first.

The meaning of "second birth" is not clear, unless 'rebirth' is meant, and the text "second birth" suggests that this is a second flood. The history we are dealing with ignores hurricanes and tsunamies, except for the flood event of 3114 BC. The flood mentioned here is the only other mention of a flood. Notice that it "came from the center of the sky" and that it baptizes the "House of Nine Bushes." Elsewhere, the use of the term "house" invariable means a celestial mansion, including among the texts of Palenque.

I think we are looking at the event which in other parts of the world is recognized as the Flood of Noah. The "house of nine bushes" is the Absu or Duat, the last described in Egypt (at 30 degrees latitude) as consisting of seven rings. In the Yucatan (at 20 degrees latitude) it was seen as consisting of nine rings -- or rows of bushes. The Maya or their predecessors saw an additional two rings closer to the earth's equator.

The seven rings of the Duat or Absu were in Egypt and Mesopotamia understood to be the 'Underworld.' In the Yucatan the 9 layers were also the underworld, the domain of 'The Nine.' But the Olmecs or Maya did not equate the rings to a sea, as far as I know. This may be because of the steep angle at which the rings stood in the sky, and the intimate contact of the Maya with real oceans.

This passage, like so many others, is not only displaced from its proper sequence, but also seems referenced to the wrong double decade (Katun). The question thus remains, if most of the other events are properly slotted in Katuns of the correct names, why is this event, which deals with the Flood of Noah, late by 83 years? The 'Flood of Noah' can be placed with good certainty in 2349 BC from the efforts of many chronographers of the Mediterranean region (and matches good guesswork from China in 200 BC). But this Katun extends from 2286 to 2266 BC.

It is possible to suggest that the "charge of nine" is a reference to the "House of Nine Bushes" and that the scribe misread this as an indication of the Katun. But, except for the altogether different translation by Bolio, "Nine were their cargoes when he came from the sky," it is doubtful.

The day-name 'Kan' is the fourth day of any Katun. The first day of Kan in Katun 9-Ahau is July 26, 2286 BC (2.2.0.0.4 2-Kan, on the 'August 11' correlation). If the year is wrong, it is the only one in all of the "Chilam Balam." With both the Katun and the day listed, it would seem to pinpoint a very certain date. It may also signify the completion of the fall of the Absu. This could have been accomplished in a few days, but not 83 years.

It is more likely that the "first day of Kan" is a reference to the start of a new calendar, rather than a specific date in the 20 year period of Katun 9-Ahau. July 26th was the celebration of New Year (as "the day of Kan") among the Maya when the Spanish invaded in the 16th century. Bishop Landa (in ca AD 1590) mentions that the new-year day of the Maya was on July 26 and always fell on the Tzolkin days Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac -- in rotation. July 26 was celebrated as the new-year day, not only by the Yucatan Maya and regulated by the priests of the ceremonial center of Edzna, but apparently also at Teotihuacan in Mexico. Teotihuacan was established in ca 200 BC as an Olmec outpost. Of course it should be understood that this was not our calendar date of July 26th, but is the day when the Sun rose and set at a certain location along the horizon. For Edzna and Teotihuacan this included the passage of the Sun directly overhead. (See Chapter 19, "The Olmec Crisis," for more on this.)

First it could be suggested is that the assignment of the "second baptism" to Katun 9-Ahau is a transcription error and that Katun 9-Ahau was misread from Katun 4-Ahua.

4-Ahau and 9-Ahau

It is perhaps strange that the writer of the "Chilam Balam" would have seen an additional bar in the original source. It is more likely that the change from Katun 4-Ahau to Katun 9-Ahau had happened at an earlier time. It could be suggested, for example, that some scribe hundreds of years earlier had looked at the glyphic texts and determined that "4-Ahau" had to be in error, for nothing of interest had ever happened in a Katun 4-Ahau, except for the repeated displacement of the Itza tribe after AD 900.

Errors in transcription, both at the time the "Chilam Balam" was written and at earlier times, are certain. Roys notes a number of them for the "Chilam Balam" text. J. E. Thompson has noted some dozen errors in the Dresden Codex. Vincent H. Malmström, in "Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon" (1997), has noted a transcription error in Stele C from Tres Zapotes -- carving three bars rather than two to accompany the three dots for the glyph Kin. The task of transcribing the codexes to new plaster coated bark books by painting the glyphs, illustrations, and diagrams, must have represented a mind-numbing task which could easily result in subtle errors, like the addition of a bar to the glyph for 4-Ahau.

The double decade of Katun 4-Ahau is actually close to the accepted date of Noah's Flood of 2349 BC, for the Katun ends in 2345 BC. But the first day of Kan of Katun 4-Ahau would be September 19, 2365 BC (1.18.0.0.4), which is far too early and additionally does not fall on July 26th.

The resolution probably lies in recognizing that, first, it was known that the calendar had changed at the time of the "second baptism" (as was true worldwide) and secondly, that the start of the year was celebrated among the Maya, as at Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico, on July 26th, a very important date which reflected the delivery at the Sun of the plasmoid from Jupiter in 685 BC. If this was a fourth recreation of the world, it might seem reasonable to the Maya that the previous re-creation of the world would also start on the same date.

We must allow that the Maya were perfectly capable of calculating backwards to discover on what day in prehistory the rising Sun on July 26th coincided with the fourth day, named Kan, of a newly started Katun. Of course, a day named Kan falls on July 26th every four years (at about 20 year intervals). However, the Long Count date of 2.2.0.0.4 2-Kan is the only instance in the whole Long Count calendar -- 5000 years, to today -- that this first day of Kan falls on July 26.

"The day of Kan," July 26th, I suspect, probably marks the end of the nova event of the Sun in 685 BC (the termination by the plasmoid of Jupiter) as it was celebrated a few hundred years later. July 26, 685 BC, Gregorian, however, which is August 2, Julian, falls on 6.3.4.5.16 9-Yax 1-Cib (August 13 correlation). This is 12 days after a day named 'Kan.' It became celebrated as the "new year day" among the Maya, having inherited this significant date from the teachings of Olmec Teotihuacan. [note 16a]

Much later, after 685 BC and before perhaps 300 BC, scribes assigned this "important date" to the event of the "second baptism." The Katun, during which July 26 fell on the first day of Kan, was researched and found to have occured only once in four thousand years since the start of the current era -- in the second Katun of the second Baktun (2.2.0.0.4). [note 16]

This has to be the solution to this apparent error in chronology. We are looking at a correction to the historical records, made in antiquity, which seemed eminently reasonable at the time. There is no way that we can manipulate Katuns and Baktuns to account for the difference of 83 years and find the 'day of Kan' elsewhere in the past. We could attempt to add together surplus days to the solar year for the periods between 747 BC, 1492 BC, 2193 BC, and 2349 BC, but these will not add up to 83 years. [note 17]

If the Olmecs, in antiquity, investigated the "day of Kan" for the start of the Third Creation, they must have had something to go on besides the notion that the recreation of the world had happened when the day of Kan fell on July 26th. I would suggest that, just as Jupiter had shown up in a full display within a few days after September 8th, 2349 BC, it also had done this, after having disappeared for a long time in about 2500 BC, which the "Chilam Balam" places in a Katun 9-Ahau ending in 2497.4 BC (corrected).

Thus if a "day of Kan," as the fourth day of a starting Katun, which coincided with an equivalent calendar date of July 26th, was found in the next occurrence of a Katun 9-Ahau (2.2.0.0.4), then the Olmecs would have been justified in suggesting that during this double decade the world had been recreated.

Thus the following sentence ..

"Kan was the day when its burden was bound to it."

.. may need to be separated from the the previous sentence. The day of Kan here is 6.3.4.5.4 17-Chen 2-Kan which is July 14, Gregorian, 685 BC (July 21, Julian). It is the day the plasma bolt left Jupiter in 685 BC. The "burden" which "was bound to it" is the plasmoid from Jupiter. The day of binding was the start of the travel from Jupiter. "It" is the day, Kan, not any other entity.

The "day of Kan" had been known to be the day that creation ended in remote times, both in 2349 BC (although assigned to the wrong Katun) and in 1492 BC (of which the time-keepers were more sure). A change to the August 13 Tzolkin calendar, perhaps justified on the basis of two missing days at the time of February 28th, 747 BC, had found that the equivalent calender date of the latest change, July 14, 685 BC, also happened on "the day of Kan."

The calendar dates mentioned above become clear on an inspection of alignments with horizon location for Olmec coastal and Valley of Mexico ceremonial sites, spanning dates from 1440 BC through about 300 BC. Alignments were made, at different sites, for April 19th (representing the Earth shock of 1492 BC), February 28th (the shock of 747 BC), and July 9th, 14th, and 25th (all dealing with Jupiter in 685 BC). The start of the flare-up of Venus in 685 BC, 40 days before July 25th, was not celebrated.

The Flowers

The next few lines attribute the deluge to Mars. The reading seems to presents a simultaneous close passage of Mars, as Bolio's translation, above, suggests. Any passage of Mars would have brought torrential rain storms and hurricanes to the region, in addition to destruction. The next few lines do not return the topic to Mars, but introduce a new player, Mercury. [note 18b]

"With it descended Bolon Mayel [Nine Fragrances]; sweet was his mouth and the tip of his tongue. Sweet were his brains."

I suspect that the insertion further above is meant to relate the "water from the sky" (at the time of Noah's Flood) to Mars in the 8th century BC (or Mercury, as here), even though no mention is made of rains or hurricanes associated with Mars -- except the phrasing "with it descended...." I have a note further below on the sudden topical grouping of events by the author. The collation of these events, located diversely in time, would presume the existence of references to hurricanes in the original codex which were not copied over to this written text.

"Sweet was his mouth, etc" -- This celestial agent was not a threat to humans.

"Bolon" -- nine -- would suggest nine appearances of Mercury. After 747 BC Mercury would have been on an orbit which came to within 250,000 to 500,000 miles of the orbit of the Earth, or crossed over Earth's orbit, and would have been seen close to Earth nine times. Since the orbit of Mercury is smaller than the orbit of Earth, the other times when Mercury reached the aphelion of its orbit, it did not simultaneously also reach inferior conjunction with Earth.

More on Mercury after another interruption. At this point the text returns to Mars, or the satellites of Mars, rather than Mercury, except that the "honey of the flowers" would have to refer to Mercury.

"Then descended the four mighty supernatural jars [two mighty demon bats], this was the honey of the flowers."

Roys' footnote reads,

"For this sentence the following is substituted in the Mani and Tizimin versions of this narrative: 'Then descended two mighty demon bats who sucked the honey of the flowers.'"

That makes sense in representing the two satellites of Mars, which are elsewhere in the world describes as raging spirits, scorpions, snakes, and chariot wheels.

Both the flowers and the "mighty demon bats" (note that there might be two, not four, bats) are also recognized in South America, the flowers as feathers decorating the supreme deity of the Andes, the round-faced "Staff Goddess," and the bats as the two staffs held by her.

The alternative is to suggest, that after having mentioned the appearance of Bolon Dzacab, Mars, in 747 BC, the "Chilam Balam" now has reference to the four additional appearances of Mars -- as "Mighty demon bats" rather than as Bolon Dzacab. This coincides with the four giant heads found at La Venta, which were buried in a line north of the pyramid.

Since the Mighty Demon Bats suck the honey of the flowers (mentioned below), it suggests the simultaneous appearance of Mars and Mercury in the skies. The Olmec Jaguar sculptures at La Venta, and later, start to add the snout and fangs of a snubnosed bat on the jaguar face. [note 18a]

In the next few lines, all about flowers, the text clearly refers to Mercury, which has a minor magnetic field, and would thus support a tri-lobed plasma form at its poles. Mars, without a magnetic field, would not.

"Then there grew up for it the red unfolded calyx, the white unfolded calyx, the black unfolded calyx and the yellow unfolded calyx, those which were half a palm (broad) and those which were a whole palm (in breadth)."

"Then there sprang up the [1] five-leafed flower, [2] the five drooping (petals), [3] the cacao (with grains like) a row of teeth, [4] the 'ix-chabil-tok,' [5] the little flower, 'Ix Macuil Xuchit,' [6] the flower with the brightly colored tip, [7] the 'laurel' flower, and [8] the limping flower."

On a whim I decided to count the specific flower species, as listed above, to see if this would account for the name Bolon Mayel, "Nine Fragrances." I have not counted the four colored "calyxes" because they again look like a distribution to the four compass directions. The half palm and full palm widths describe the lower and upper tri-lobed plasma cones below and above the magnetic poles of Mercury. The north magnetic pole would have a much larger size flower form.

We are one flower species short of a count of nine. But by adding Bolon Dzacab, who had descended at the end of the previous Katun (above), we reach a count of nine. Mars, however, does not have a magnetic field, and three-petaled plasma plumes would not be expected. More likely it is a reference to the upper plasma tines which developed at Jupiter soon after the last sight of Mercury.

"After these flowers sprang up, there were the vendors of fragrant odors, there was the mother of the flowers."

Fisher adds the following to Bolio's translation,

"These flowers that came out were the 'Comayeles' [Ah Con Mayeles, "the offerers of perfume"], the mother of flowers."

Roys notes,

"In the Tizimin and Mani versions we find: 'there was the house of the flowers'",

.. meaning that it was seen as a celestial house.

This is followed by yet additional complaints about rulers. But first let me point out again that both the "flowers" and the "fragrances" could only refer to a planet with a magnetic field and with an atmos