http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== from de graz, tor earth The Mesoamerican sites magnify the uncertainty. There are many of them. All are thought to have been set up after 1500 B. C. Macgowan, (1945), and now we quote Anthony Aveni extensively [35] , ... seems to have been the first person to suggest that the plans of a large number of Mesoamerican cities exhibited an east of north axiality. Among those sites which evidenced some orderly arrangement, he observed that the orientations fell into three groups: true north, about 7° east of north, and about 17° east of north; he noted that few sites were oriented west of north. In the 17° group were Teotihuacan, Cholula, Tenayuca, Mexican period buildings at Chichen Itza, Tula, and the pyramid adjacent to the Zocalo in Mexico City. A number of sites of the Peten District seemed to belong to the 7° group. Macgowan suggested that a historical pattern might emerge in the sense that early structures such as Cuilcuilco possessed a nearly true north axiality while the 17° east of north orientation showed up in the later buildings. Aveni found by transit that fifty of the fifty-six sites surveyed align east of north; the 17° orientations seems to be prevalent in the valley of Mexico. Yet Carlson, working on centers carbon-dated between 1000- 1400 B. C. says that "Olmec culture is well-characterized by ceremonial centers, which are generally 7° to 12° west of north..." [36] . This would suggest that tilts of different ages are represented in the two regions, or that the Olmecs, who invented the magnetic compass, may have oriented their buildings to a magnetic north. Almost all of them deviate from true north orientation. 35. Anthony Aveni, ed., Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America (Austin, Texas: U. of Texas Press, 1975). 36. John B. Carlson, "Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy?" 189 Science (5 Sept. 1975), 753-60. Teothihuacan was probably the religious center of ancient Mesoamerica, like Rome of medieval Europe. The fundamental Teotihuacan grid as excavated is oriented 15.5° east of north. Of the some 30 symbols that the Aveni group have assembled from elsewhere in Mexico, the orientations of 19 are given. Of the 19, nine are oriented with in 2° of the Teothihuacan grid. Of the nine, all except one (carved on an outcrop) are on a floor. Of the remaining ten with known orientations, all range between 35°42 and 80°24'; all are incised upon outcrops except one that is on a broken flat stone whose "axis points toward Teothihuacan"( TEP3), and another (TUI) that is "pecked on horizontal floor of lava field." Most of these are considered as pointing towards the summer solstice sunrise, which is rather insulting to the intelligence of the humblest pecker. Are we to believe that they could not find the point of farthest advance of the Sun? And why should outcrops be carved east and floors to the north?