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Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology -- Jno Cook
Chapter 31: The Olmec Record of the Past.


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Contents of this chapter: [Introduction]
BEFORE CREATION:
[A 40,000 Year Record] [The Three-Cornered Stone] [The Endless Night] [God Wakes up] [The Six Winds] [The Opossum] [Peratt Discontinuities] [The Nova Event] [The Rings] [God's Heaven] [Lowering of Mars] [End of Creation] [Large Spans of Time]
A SURVEY OF THE WORLD:
[Beyond the Rivers] [The Bees] [The Survey] [Cozumel]
THE THIRD CREATION:
[The Calendar, the Moon] [The Dates] [The Gallows] [Endnotes]

The Olmec Record of the Past

This chapter will turn out to be dense, obtuse, boring, and unbelievable since we will be dealing with records dating back to 41,000 years ago. I would not make this statement, if I had not seen verification of this against the record of residual Carbon-14 dating back 50,000 years (which was noted in the chapter "Event of the Younger Dryas"), where the Carbon-14 information is from original data by A.H.L. Voelker, et alii, in 1998.

What the earlier chapter, initially written after this chapter, describes is the following:

In the Maya Chilam Balam there is a record of seven sightings of "stones" representing God the Father who was attempting to come into existence. The stones are apparently the Saturnian stack of planets. Enormous spans of time are indicated between approaches of these stones, although more likely "approaches" should be understood as the time of the leave-takings.

In the chapter "The Olmec Record of the Past" [this chapter], written long before the chapter "Event of the Younger Dryas", I had initially suggested that the Chilam Balam record might go back 30,000 or 40,000 years. I would now suggest that this record starts in 41,000 BC. At that time Australia and Southeast Asia were assaulted with an electrical contact from Saturn. The megafauna of Australia and Southeast Asia went extinct.

If this information could be correlated to glaciation and Ice Age temperatures over the last 50,000 years, it might suggest that Earth was captured and released by Saturn seven times before the last event (the Younger Dryas). The temporary capture meets the conditions suggested by Tom Van Flandern, and also follows his suggestion that such capture could be temporary -- although measured in thousands of years.

This history is recorded in Book 11 of the Chilam Balam, which has to be the most arcane and twisted narrative of the whole of the Chilam Balam. It took me over six months to get through the text, line by line, spending an hour a day inquiring into meaning, comparing translations, and associating it to a sequence of known events. Two years after that I was still adding notes from Richard Luxton's The Book of Chumayel (1996). A copy of Book 11 is available locally at [saturniancosmology.org/book11.htm].

But before I was done, I realized that I was looking at records dating back some 30,000 or 40,000 years. Of course it is astounding to suggest that a Mesoamerican tribe, still living in the "Stone Age" in AD 1500, had records dating back to long before those of any other people on Earth. I'll detail the reasoning behind my conviction for this further below. When, however, we see the details of site alignments in Veracruz and the Valley of Mexico since 1400 BC, the suggestion of the existence of such extensive records gains credence as but another aspect of the intellectual abilities of these people.

What is being described in these pages of the Chilam Balam? Let me again emphasize that we are reading texts which are interpretations of what was seen depicted in ancient bark-book codexes. The readings were made by people who had absolutely no idea what most of the depictions and the later added glyphic texts were about. Their only concern was the faithful transmission of sacred history. Today we know more than they did. We can trace events and describe phenomena which remained a total enigma to the readers of the bark-books in the 16th century AD, and probably most others who had looked at these ancient records over the previous 10,000 or 20,000 years.

Introduction

There are three tasks ahead, and three documents:

(1) I will start with an attempt to "read" Book 11 of the Chilam Balam in terms of the chronology of celestial events which I had already established on the basis of information from the European Upper Paleolithic between 31,000 BC and about 10,000 BC, plus the implications of what was seen in the skies, based on the changes in figurines to 4077 BC.

(2) Then follows a single page titled (by me), "A Survey of the World," which describes events after 10,900 BC. This is also the opening page to the Chilam Balam. Part of this was described in the chapter "The Peratt Column and the First Gods."

(3) An additional single page, "The Third Creation" of 2349 BC (an event which is also presented in Book 10), will be addressed last.

The books of the Chilam Balam were kept from the eyes of the Christian priests, were recited at town meetings, and recopied for some 300 years. As public documents, these had to retain their accuracy, even if the writers did not understand what any of the descriptions portrayed. It was history, very old history, and very certain history, which reached back thousands of years before any history brought by the Spanish invaders. The books described past events in graphics, and were thus indisputable as a record of what had been seen. Moreover, the books not only told of the past, but predicted the future. The coming of the Spanish had been known long before they arrived.

I suspect that the Books had circulated in graphic form among many tribes before any text was added after about 600 BC (and perhaps at Monte Alban). That would certainly explain some notable differences in interpretation of events of the remote past, which show up both in the Chilam Balam and in the Popol Vuh. There were thus likely many versions of the original codexes, many distinct derivations of the memories of diverse tribes, although the histories of the remote past are generally cohesive to the sequence of events I have established so far in the text of these pages. The differences in interpretation, which is a difference in "readings" performed in antiquity, show up because Books 10, 11, and the other two loose pages repeat some of the same events.

(1) BEFORE CREATION

In Book 11 of the Chilam Balam, titled by Roys as "The Ritual of the Angels" and by Bolio as "Book of the Spirits," there is recorded a sequence of events which nominally concerns the birth of the Christian God, the Trinity, and the angels. It looks to be in correct order of events, if by "events" we mean what was seen in the skies of Earth during the period before about 10,900 BC, and probably as early as 41,000 BC. This was rather astounding to me, but this section parallels the sequence of images which I had assembled earlier in the chapter "Saturn and Archaeology" on the basis of archaeological information, and augmented with information on the peaks in Carbon-14 fractional differences (from the current measures) in Iceland marine sediment and the details of the Peratt column of 10,900 BC to 8347 BC.

The "Ritual of the Angels" is heavily Christianized. We meet God the Father, the Trinity, and other beings who are part of a Christian theology, but they are conformed to the facts of history as the Maya had recorded them. Thus instead of God the Father existing from all time before the beginning of creation, he calls himself into being -- creates himself -- well after the beginning of time, and officiates over the creation of the world. Most of this, not unfamiliar from mythology worldwide, can parallel Christian theology, but there are some remarkable differences, which would have irked Catholic theologians of the 16th century AD. Before he comes into existence, for example, God the Father resides in a stone.

What is also constantly repeated is the notion that most of the events described in Book 11 happen when "there was neither heaven nor earth." It is a notion expressed by the creation myths of many other people, that creation happened when Saturn started to blaze and the Gods and their land showed up.

There was a considerable congruence between Maya or Mesoamerican concepts of spirituality, grace, and heaven and hell and those of Christianity, so that the Maya and Aztecs easily adopted the Catholic saints and feast days, for example. It is important to realize that the Maya (and probably the other people of Mesoamerica) considered the maize plant to be a free gift of the Gods. And it is. Maize is the most productive and easily managed grain in the world. This is congruent with the Christian concept of grace, as a free gift. Newly sprouting maize plants were called "gracia."

However, the concept of "heaven" as an imagined space might have been elusive, unless that space was delineated with specific objects. Edward T. Hall, in The Hidden Dimension (1966), has pointed out for the Hopi, "[they] cannot, as we think of it, 'imagine' a place such as the missionary's heaven or hell." As for American Indians of the Southwest, so for the Maya, who shared a similar language base.

What we see in "The Ritual of the Angels" is an attempt to bring a new Christian theology, which had no basis in concrete objects, into congruence with the known pre-history of the Maya. The objects in the sky, the sacred stones, sketched in the oldest books of Mesoamerica, were an historical record based on observations, and thus real. The birth of the Christian God could perhaps be deduced from the Maya's history of the deep past. This is what Book 11 attempts to do.

A 40,000 year record

In terms of a history of celestial events dating back tens of thousands of years, it is perhaps not unexpected that the Popol Vuh covers elements from the same period, but in a popularized narrative form, and frequently out of order. I'll discuss the Popol Vuh later, but I should make note of the fact that three-quarters of the narrative of the Popol Vuh is spent discussing the same extremely long time period.

Modern translators are hampered by the fact that they do not understand a single word of the text in terms of a meaningful context. Who would have guessed that the Maya scribe was relating events as seen and understood 7000 and 40,000 years ago? Even the original Maya copyist would have had problems interpreting the graphics before him. This is clearly seen in the wide variety of imagery with which these events are retold, in this Book 11, in Book 10, in the two loose pages, the Palenque engravings, and in the Popol Vuh. Allowing for diverse readings, the events can still be recognized. There is a remarkable consistency in the sequencing.

In terms of what was already known before I started to look at Book 11 of the Chilam Balam, the following list could be made and compared with this text:

It is this list which is maintained in Book 11 without interruption to furnish a narrative sequence. Let me give a short synopsis of each of these events, as follows, before jumping into a longer textual analysis.

(A) The cup and tail marks, before 30,000 years ago.

As far as we can tell, before the European Gravettian period of the Upper Paleolithic, and thus before about 28,000 years ago, we see the ubiquitous cup and tail marking inscribed on rocks and cave walls worldwide. The best dating suggests that these marks start about 40,000 years ago, and appear again 20,000 years later. These are gross estimates of time; there is no finer detail. [note 1]

Book 11 identifies these marks as the "three-cornered precious stone of grace" -- a metaphor for a maize kernel -- a term probably applied interpretively thousands of years later. Some seven separate appearances are noted, each appearance happening "when there was infinite night, when there was no God." The "infinite night" might also have been retroactively applied. A period of 1500 years of considerable shadow was experienced in the Younger Dryas, and might have been applied to the graphical record of the appearances of the "three-cornered stones" because probably nothing else was recorded at the same time. Bolio, by the way, notes these stones to be on fire, as "flames." That would both explain the reason to record these incidents as well as the shape of a line extending from a lozenge or oval.

The description seems to suggest that there was no daylight, but daylight would not have been a likely part of the record. The graphic record was of two planets in arc mode plasma connection -- probably seen at night. The implication of endless night without daylight, however, fits the overall theme of the narrative, which is the establishment of day and night (and heaven and Earth) at the start of creation.

(B) The classical Venus Figurines, after 28,000 years ago.

The classical Venus Figurines appear in Europe in the Gravettian period of 28,000 to 24,000 years before the present. Of note is the fact that figurines are not recognized by the Olmecs (or have remained unrecognized by us), although female figurines occur among other Central American tribes, as late as 2400 BC. The Olmecs saw stones. In their words, these were sacred stones. In this case, and as distinct from descriptions from later paragraphs, the stones are seen as "three generations suddenly augmented in stature" -- which likely represented Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn (with possibly Mars, below). (This could also be interpreted as the three southern ball plasmoids.)

Bolio has a considerably different reading, including "... he of one Age alone, the Very Tall," which seems to skip directly into the elongated figurines of the European Magdalenian period (17,000 to 14,000 years ago). In Europe the figurines disappear for some 7,000 to 10,000 years between the earlier Gravettian and the Magdalenian. This may be the result of an abandonment of Western Europe during a period of increased glaciation, although caves (in Spain and Southern France) continued to be decorated throughout this period as far as I can tell from tabulations I have made.

(C) The darkness of the Younger Dryas, after 10,900 BC.

The shadow of the Younger Dryas, from 10,900 to circa 9500 BC, is mentioned three times, in passing, during the description of (what I assume is) the Saturnian stack of planets. It is even named as "Nilu," which Roys suggests is a reference to the plague of darkness at the time of Exodus. The Popol Vuh describes this period extensively, not only the darkness ("before creation") but also the cold and freezing rains. The text of Book 11 does not. Much more text is spent describing the seven pointed stones since 40,000 years ago.

(D) The chaos of Saturn, after 9000 BC.

It is uncertain when the obscuring clouds appeared or were seen, or how long this lasted. Other mythologies simply have the clouds of chaos appear after the darkness. Book 11 does not neglect the mention of obscuring clouds, called "winds," by naming six winds in a single paragraph. With this the form in the sky was obscured, "he covered the name of the holy heaven."

The Earth at this time was dropping down further below Saturn and was being drawn toward the rotational axis of Saturn, to eventually be relocated to below Saturn's south geographic pole -- a process which would take several thousand years. The chaos, the swirling clouds, was the enclosing coma of Saturn. In dropping below Saturn, the Earth entered into this glow mode plasma coma of Saturn.

(E) The Peratt column, between 10,900 to 8347 BC.

Hardly to be missed, the "beast" (opossum, "white beast") and its tail are mentioned, as well as the establishment of three stones below the feet (or in the "dust" of) the "One Stone." This suggests that Saturn was seen in the north, or at least the terminal location of the tube of plasma could be located, probably as a circular pattern. The Olmecs knew what that was. They had records.

(F) The Peratt column instabilities.

In the following paragraphs something is happening in the skies, but the only recognizable figure is a "giant" who appears. The plasmoid of the Peratt Column was interpreted as the body and face of a giant in the skies in Australia and additionally in Mesopotamia (as Oannes) and at Lepenski Vir in Serbia as a woman, although the dates are way too late for Lepenski Vir. This could be this giant, but as likely it is the "squatting man" instability of the Peratt column also mentioned in the Norse Elder Edda as existing in the south.

(G) The nova event of Saturn, 4077 BC.

Suddenly we have notice of a fire in the heavens, and as emanating from a single object, "This was one grace, one stone; then fire was created." This is not some legendary discovery of fire by humans, this is a fire in the sky, as suggested by the phrasing, "... the light from that which lighted the heaven" and "... after the light originated in the heavens." This is the most recent nova event of Saturn.

(H) The creation of the rings.

As part of the nova change of Saturn, a bundle of plasma in arc mode was established to Mars via Mercury, noted as the "creation of the star" (at Mercury), and the rings of Saturn would have shown up. The rings are here separately listed by color, following, of course, the colors of the later directional trees, but directions are not mentioned.

There is no indication of how long the arc mode contact with Mercury and Mars (and Earth) lasted, and no mention of this process is ever repeated. From the creation of henges in Northwestern Europe, it would seem that arc mode plasma contacts were experienced periodically, although it is difficult to know anything of this for certain. The next set of sentences identifies a plasma stream in glow mode.

(I) The assembly of God's heaven.

The next sentence describes Saturn as a God, like Oxlahun-ti-ku, or like the pharaoh as Horus of the Narmer Palette -- "grasping in his hand his stone, grasping his 'cangel' [dragon], grasping his wheel on which are hung the four angels of the winds."

There is no question that this represents the image in the north skies shortly after 4077 BC, but there is nothing Christian about this. It is the original chief God of the Olmecs and Maya.

I am skipping (J) and (K) the details of which are listed below.

(L) The lowering of Mars to Earth.

This recounts the lowering of Mars to Earth. In effect this creates the world. The plasma dome (or dome of water vapor) in the northeast (or north) is described as a mountain or a monument base. "Holes" are bored in the mountain, suggesting that, from the latitude of Guatemala, Mars would have been seen as disappearing behind the "mountain" -- "occluded" might be a better description. The holes in the mountain presumably are the fluted areas, hinted at earlier. These are also the "caves" from which humanity sprang in other Mesoamerican and South American creation myths.

(M) The end of the first creation.

This "first creation" ends in the disappearance (being "bitten") of the Sun. The author places this in Katun 13-Ahau, as a way of emphasizing the predictive value of this Katun. In fact, the text segues directly to a description of the forced Christianization in the 16th century AD. To underscore this understanding, the text ends -- in a different hand -- with the date of AD 1539, and signed "Chilam Balam, the prophet."

Following is a more descriptive exposition of the text, by distinct familiar topics.

The Three-Cornered Stone

The following is the translation by Roys. It is labeled as Book 11, "The Ritual of the Angels," and is as obtuse and opaque to interpretation as Book 10.

"'Dominus vobiscum' ended the words of their song when there was neither heaven nor earth."

"When the world was submerged, when there was neither heaven nor earth, the three-cornered precious stone of grace was born, after the divinity of the ruler was created (declared), when there was no heaven."

"Then there were born seven Tuns, seven Katuns, hanging in the heart of the wind [in the heart of the spirit], the seven chosen ones."

Bolio has "seven chosen flames" for "seven chosen ones." Roys interprets "tun" as a holy stone, and "three-cornered precious stone" as symbolic of the maize kernel, writing:

"Maya 'tun': This usually means a precious stone, while an ordinary stone or rock is called Tunich. 'Tun' also means the pit of a fruit as well as the soft surface limestone of the country. In compound words designating things made of stone we find the same term employed; furthermore 'tun' is the name of the Maya time-period of 365 days." [He means 360 days.]

"It is important to the interpretation of this text to note that among the Maya the Spanish word 'gracia', here literally translated as 'grace', is a ritualistic term employed to designate the young maize plant. Consequently the 'three-cornered precious stone of grace' is doubtless also a liturgical term indicating a grain of corn [maize]."

It is interesting that at first "the world" was "submerged" -- but at a time before heaven and earth. The "earth" and "the world" apparently are different. It suggests, as the Popol Vuh does also, that there was only some undefined substance before creation. The phrase "the heart of the wind" is reminiscent of the titles "Heart of Sky, Heart of Land" and "Heart of Sea, Heart of Lake" of the two sets of Gods of the Popol Vuh or their location. Since these were the sky above the far south horizon, seen above the land, and the "lake" above the far north horizon, seen above the sea, it suggests that the "heart of wind" is the center of vapors, clouds, or sky -- assuming that "heart" denotes "center," or, more likely, a central site of an activity. As I have pointed out earlier (in the chapter "The Peratt Column"), these two sets of objects rotated into view from below the horizon (both the south and the north) on a daily basis. But all of that was much later in time.

I would assume that the "three-cornered precious stone" that we are dealing with here is some object seen in the skies and on the basis of what develops later I would suggest that most likely it would be traveling on the ecliptic. It could, however, have appeared anywhere in the sky.

What the seven "tuns" or "Katuns" really are, is not clear. From Bolio's suggested translation as "seven chosen flames" it might be that these describe the cup and tail form of Saturn in arc mode plasma contact to Mars, as I have suggested earlier (in the chapter "Saturn and Archaeology"). More on this below.

I should also note that the number "7" had no particular mystical meaning in Mesoamerica, although it is a significant number in Christianity (representing, among other things, the 7 planets of antiquity, and, of course, the six or seven days of creation). Luxton suggests that these 7 instances of stones represent the seven days of creation of the Bible. Luxton tends to metaphorical and poetic explanations. But there is no narrative of a piecemeal creation, as we see in the Bible, and creation in the Bible took only six days. I might suggest the exact opposite, that the Bible is based on these seven recalled events, instead.

If the scribe were making things up, the number "13" would have been used instead. Adding God the Father to the historic record (as is done further below) is also only a matter of reinterpreting historic evidence. It does not involve inventing something new. [note 2]

The sightings of the "seven stones" seem to span a limited period of years. Each sighting probably lasted only a brief period, at most for a decade (the estimate of 1500 years, at an earlier time, seems not to have been valid anymore), with long stretches of time between appearances of the stones. The span of time is set out at the opening paragraph, "Then there were born seven Tuns, seven Katuns... ." A "tun" is a stone and also a year. A "Katun" is 20 years. This could make it look as if the "seven stones" were seen over a period of one Katun each. This would support my assumption that Saturn was only seen as on fire for a brief time, the time where Saturn was closer to the Sun, as comets do today.

The following text of Book 11 will point that up, when both the stones and the nights are called "infinite." I will suggest that the scribes are using "infinite stone" for "Baktun" periods (which is how "Baktun" is defined: a measure of 400 years). The Katun and Baktun were the standard time-keeping measures among the Maya (and earlier Olmecs), in the same manner that we use decades and centuries to point to events of the past.

The first hint that here we are dealing with a much deeper history was the apparent references to the cup and tail marks. We have to keep in mind that the cup and tail marks were carved worldwide in profusion since remote antiquity. The sight of the flaming planets must have been absolutely spectacular to the humans observing them. It suggests repeated appearances of Saturn with long periods in between.

I am here equating the periodic appearances of this stone to the movement of the object on a cometary orbit, except that there does not seem to be much regularity in its repeated returns. I believe this object is Saturn, traveling with at least Mars below its south pole.

Book 11 of the Chilam Balam continues:

"Then, they say, their seven graces stirred also. Seven also were their holy images. While they were still untarnished, occurred the birth of the first precious stone of grace, the first infinite (innumerable) grace, when there was infinite night, when there was no God. Not yet had he received his Godhead."

There is no question where we are in time -- it is before the birth of God. This fact will be repeated a total of seven times in the following text. The Maya were so convinced of the validity of their illustrated history books, that they attempted to fit the Christian God into their narrative history on their terms.

"Then he remained alone within the grace, within the night, when there was neither heaven nor earth. Then he departed (buki) at the end of the Katun, as he could not be born in the first Katun. There were his long locks of hair, 'adeu ti paramii'; his divinity came to him when he departed."

I have the suspicion that "his divinity" might be the development of an arc mode plasma expulsion at the surface of Mars. Saturn would have entered the Solar System with a coma surrounding the stack of planets. This is the behavior of a comet, but as becomes clear, without a tail. Only on getting closer to the Sun would the arc to Mars have developed. Mercury was not part of the stack at this time yet, so the arc connected directly to Mars.

As I have noted elsewhere, the image of Saturn at the time of the European Gravettian period, was in the shape of a woman -- the Fat Lady. It did not have a bow shock or a tail. All the looks of the figurines are of a closely fitting coma in glow mode -- where "closely fitting" still involved distances of up to an estimated 2 million miles (3 million km).

Saturn came from outside the Solar System, positively charged, for it was a star. From this it would seem obvious that Saturn on these infrequent incursions into the inner reaches of the Solar System would not form a giant coma like what would be expected for an ordinary comet, or a tail 100 million miles (160 million km) long, as we see today. A comet needs to get rid of electrons. If Saturn had had a cometary tail it would have been seen when Saturn was in the eastern or western sky. But a tail is never depicted among the million on millions of Venus Figurines of antiquity. This is easily explained by the fact that Saturn, along with its companion planets, was at a much higher positive charge level, having originated outside the Solar system. Saturn was faced with the need to scavenge for electrons to reduce its positive electric potential.

These incursions into the inner reaches of the Solar System were as infrequent as 4000 years apart. Only during a short period of this would Saturn been seen to approach, perhaps for a decade. This was no ordinary comet which would show only for some months. This was an object that approached for hundreds of years, and on getting closer would light on fire to something below the main object. Then it departed again into total obscurity -- getting smaller year by year. [note 3]

I am suggesting, therefore, that, during the middle portion of the journey of Saturn through the Solar System (which would include leaving), it would suddenly switch to arc mode. This is the suggested solution of the phrasing "his divinity came to him when he departed." It would seem strange that the beings of the stones only became god-like when they left unless something suggested this, keeping in mind also the particular grammar which recognizes only ongoing and completed action. For Saturn to go into arc mode is the obvious solution, for a closer approach to the Sun would require a greater adjustment in electric potential, as also happens with comets. The other seven stones (appearances), except for some textual abbreviation by the transcriber, offer the same solution of "and he obtained his divinity when he left," or words like that.

About "adeu ti paramii" Roys notes this book is filled with Spanish and Latin words heard in the Christian church service. He also writes, "Here 'buki' is translated as though it were 'luki', he departed. 'Buki' means to be beaten up." Roys further suggests that, "the 'long locks of hair' are probably a reference to the corn-silk," except, of course, that these appearances happen some 30,000 years before the introduction of maize.

I disagree with the corn-silk reading of the "long hair." I would suspect that this might be a reference to Uranus, seen above Saturn. This was seen, noted once, and not repeated for the other appearances.

"Departed" is probably appropriate (as "luki"), for the same happens to all the following "precious stones." At first I thought that the seven stones might be describing constituent parts of the stack of Saturnian planets, but these add up to five (at best, and later), not seven.

There are seven stones, each of which appear in the "infinite night," wake up, and then disappear again into the "infinite night" having "obtained their godhead" before leaving. I think that the "infinite night" is an element displaced into this narrative of the remote past from the era of 10,900 to 9000 BC when the Earth was in shadow (although a similar condition could have been experienced at 41,000 bp). It might be suggested to later readers of the original codexes that the fifteen hundred years of darkness between 10,900 and 9000 BC certainly must have pertained from the very beginnings of creation, especially since there was a later well-known lighting up -- a creation event. In suggesting this I am in violation of my supposition that the authenticity of these documents was carefully guarded as we see with myths worldwide. But in this case I think the records span some 40,000 years. It may be that text was added only after about 600 BC. At that point in time the original context of the events would have been hopelessly lost.

Earlier I suggested that these repeated visitations of the stones were probably the seven instances when the Carbon-14 differential rose to a peak -- between 41,000 bp and 13,000 bp. I will stand by that supposition, especially once I realized the coincidence in time between a long disappearance of the Venus Figurines and a very long interval between two of the Carbon-14 peaks.

These visits of Saturn were long lasting, they certainly were spectacular, and were the only thing of interest during generations-long periods. The fact that the last stone, the 8th, actually woke up and caused additional phenomena was reason to keep a record of the previous attempts. [note 4]

At any rate, I think what we are looking at here are events long before what is known as "the first creation" starting in 10,900 BC. The "three-cornered stone" is likely to represent Saturn, in arc mode with the sharp third corner (Mars) pointing down, in the form elsewhere depicted as the "cup and tail" form. This would be before the first cultivation of maize, or at least before a time, 8000 BC, when maize cobs were no larger than an inch in length. But by the end of Book 11 the "three-cornered stone" will be equated with maize (at least, in Roys's reading of the text).

The "three-cornered stone" thus becomes one of a number of datapoints which could be used to produce a chronology for Book 11. But the "cup and tail" form is poorly dated throughout the world. The "cup and tail" form, as I have indicated earlier, is an indication that Earth was located too far from the Saturnian planets to make a sensible distinction of the individual elements, but that Mars was located close below Saturn and being etched by a continuous electrical arc. I have earlier placed this event at 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, at the start of the European Gravettian period, since by 28,000 BC the first classical Venus Figurines show up.

What I am suggesting here it that the predecessors of the Olmecs had significant continuous records dating back 34,000 years, and possibly 41,000 years. Is this possible? Not only do I think it possible, but I think a number of factors conspired to allow this to happen. But first I should remind the reader that in Europe we see a similar continuity in the cave paintings -- a record, if you will, stretching across the western continent for an unbelievable 20,000 years where the imagery remained unchanged, and never a single sensible human form was added to the herds of animals. Only that which was at odds with the normal visible world was recorded. That, in effect, is the status of the Olmec, or pre-Olmec, records also.

If the climate had not turned bad in Southern Europe in about 10,900 BC, perhaps we would today have readings on the significance and meaning of the cave paintings, direct from the mouths of the grandchildren of the original painters, 400 generations later. But the visual record was abandoned as the artists migrated away.

I should also point out again the inviolable nature of these cave decorations. Chauvet cave was decorated about 31,000 years ago and entered again 4000 years later for an inspection tour, but left untouched. There are other examples of humans recognizing the work of other people and respecting the past efforts. Four thousand years is twice as long as all of our sensible recorded history.

The Olmecs (I'll term these people "Olmecs," even though they may have been an entirely different tribe) may have migrated after 10,900 BC, when the northern jungles of Brazil shriveled up with the advent of the shadow days of the Younger Dryas. Or it may have happened later. After 9000 BC climatic conditions improved again, but the jungle and the rains had moved hundreds of miles north. Sometime after 8000 BC maize was first cultivated. [note 5]

Unlike the caves of France, the Olmecs took their records with them, for they were portable, painted on skins or wood slats, and later recopied to folding bark books. The records not only included the extensive sightings of the three-cornered stone, but also the disarticulated form of the Saturnian planets recorded in European archaeology in the Magdalenian period, and life in the cold of the shadows of the period after 10,900 BC, as retold in the Popol Vuh.

All of these records might have been discarded if it had not been for the later recognition that the first record of the world was an image of the maize kernel. The importance of maize to Central America, and eventually to all of the Americas, cannot be underestimated. Maize is the most productive cereal in the world; it is the easiest to alter genetically; it can be forced to grow under widely diverse conditions -- from the cold river valleys of Minnesota to the rain jungles of Guatemala to the high altitude deserts of the Andes.

Maize was life, and the first book of the Olmecs, as noted by the Quiche Maya in the Popol Vuh, was called "The Dawn of Life." It was about the maize kernel in the skies.

The other question, of course, is, were there humans 35,000 years ago in Central America, Venezuela, Columbia, Northern Brazil, or Peru? The conviction of US archaeologists is that the American continent could only have been invaded during the cold spell of 10,900 to 9,000 BC when Asiatics might have walked across the Bering Straits, even though there was no glaciation at this time to remove water from oceans, and Alaska was covered by tundra.

But the archaeology of Chile speaks to occupation by 35,000 years ago. North American archaeology has, in the last decade (2000 - 2010), come around to dates of 30,000 and 40,000 for Clovis and pre-Clovis sites. The period prior to the Clovis people, what is now known as the Paleoindian, has been identified with the European Mousterian tool tradition, which dates back some 300,000 years. This is enough time, certainly, to make it to the American Continent.

From Johanna Nichols we have more succinct data, based on grammars along the Pacific basin (requoted from the chapter "Language and Causality"):

"An enormous and sustained wave of human migration started about 50,000 years ago somewhere in Southeast Asia. Over thousands of years, successive bands of people spread out from the region. They could move relatively quickly because they were coastally adapted -- they knew how to make simple boats and make a living from the sea. Over thousands of years, some carried their languages south and west through coastal New Guinea and into Northern Australia, while others moved clockwise up the coast of Asia, across the Bering Strait into Alaska, then down the west coast of North and South America."

-- Bob Adler, scicom.ucsc.edu

There is no need for "simple boats," for these same people populated all the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii), and left their carved petroglyphs after 10,900 BC -- but were wiped off the islands by the flood of 3147 BC. The Americas could have been populated even long before 50,000 BC. After all, Cro-Magnon types had reached western Australia by 65,000 BC, and may have reached South Africa 10,000 years earlier. By boat; always by boat.

In earlier text I suggested that in the long period preceding the (European) Gravettian period (28,000 years ago) Saturn might have regularized its orbit to equal some multiple of Earth years. It would be highly unlikely that records were kept and engravings made if Saturn had been a constant feature in the night or day skies.

Here are the last six of the seven stones, from Roy's translation:

"Thereupon he became man in the second infinite precious stone of grace. Then there arrived in the second Katun Alpilcon, as the angel was named when he was born. The second grace was permitted to depart in the second infinite night, when no one was present."

"Then he received his divinity, alone and through his own effort, when he came to depart. 'O firmar' he said, when he received his divinity by himself and through his own effort."

"Thereupon he departed and went to the third infinite precious stone of grace. Alba Congel was the name of its angel. This was the third grace."

"Let me proceed to the fourth infinite precious stone of grace, to the fourth night. Atea Ohe was the name of its angel. The fourth grace was born and began to speak, alone and through his own effort. 'Ohgod, the ruler! I am after all nothing in myself.' These were his words in his concealment, in his divinity within the grace."

"'Let me still proceed,' he said. Then he went to the fifth infinite precious stone of grace, to the fifth infinite night. The fifth grace was born in the fifth Katun. Thereupon he was set up to declare his divinity. Then his angel was born; Decipto was the name of his angel when he was set up."

"'Since it is so, let me go. Who might I be? I am a god, a ruler, after all,' and he declared his divinity all alone. 'A ninite dei sin,' he said when he received his divinity all by himself."

"Then he went to the sixth infinite precious stone of grace, to the sixth measured night, to the sixth Katun: 'Ye gods, ye rulers! Make answer to my words. After all, I am nothing in myself alone.'"

"The seventh grace was born. Conlamil was the name of his angel. 'I deliver the things of god to you who are gods. Answer my words. After all, there is no one; no one replies to my words.' Thus he spoke as he caused the seventh grace to be born. And there was joy in his heart at the birth of the seventh Katun, the seven lights, the seventh measured night (and) the seven infinite (things)."

The "measured night" is generally rendered as "immensity of the night" by Bolio. Bolio also translates "Katun" as "warrior" for some poetic reason.

In Europe the series of far-off sightings of Saturn continued past 28,000 BC, when the Fat Lady first shows up in Europe. This would last (in Europe) through the Magdalenian period ending in about 14,000 BC when the figurines stretch to elongated amorphous shapes, the result of seeing the Saturnian planets from an equatorial level. Then much of this ceases in Europe, to be picked up again after 6000 or 4000 BC.

For the Mesoamerican record of the pre-Olmec people a more interesting continuous coincidental chronology can be found in the graph of a record of Carbon-14 differences in marine sediment near Iceland by A.H.L. Voelker (1998), which has become a standard reference, and which shows nine distinct peaks of Carbon-14 differences since 50,000 years before the present.

Except for a peak in 47,000 ya, nothing much happens until 41,000 ya when there is a sudden peak. This date of 41,000 bp is associated with the sudden demise of megafauna in Australia and Southeast Asia, and the appearance of radioactive isotopes above the normal background level. This was presented by Firestone and William Topping in "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times" (Mammoth Trumpet Magazine, 2001) and in the book The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes (2006) by Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith. The last of the remaining series of eight peaks falls in 10,900 BC, the start of the shadow period of the Younger Dryas.

It is possible to misread both this data, as well as this well-intended but absolutely obscure section of the Chilam Balam, so that perhaps there is no relationship. This is pointed out by the fact that in the following paragraphs very little is said about the Younger Dryas. My confidence in seeing a connection stems from the fact that I have consistently been able to penetrate the arcana of the Chilam Balam on the basis of matching details against the model derived from the mythology of China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. This is not the case here, but the match is against chronographical data.

The seventh stone might actually be the very last contact shown in the chart, in 12,900 bp (10,900 BC), which obliterated and burned down the North American landscape. If so, then the first instance of a contact with Saturn has to be dated to 38,000 bp. I can count seven "Carbon-14 events" to the start of the Younger Dryas if I include the Younger Dryas event itself. The cataclysm of 34,000 bp also matches the development of the diverse toolkit of Cro-Magnon in Europe and elsewhere -- suggesting the sudden cultural development of language.

In the next few paragraphs we will move from 38,000 bp to 12,900 bp (10,900 BC), the start of the Younger Dryas. What is missing from the text is the details of the shadow period of the Younger Dryas after 10,900 BC, although this is certainly represented in the descriptions of the earlier seven stones (as being of an infinite night). We will, however, receive notice of the opossum ball plasmoid (after 10,900 BC), the plasma instabilities recorded as petroglyphs (10,900 BC to 8347 BC), the later swirling clouds (after 9000 BC), and the egg standing in the sky (before circa 4900 BC) -- all before the fire in the sky (4077 BC).

We are next given notice of the extensive passage of time, in some conglomerated form, notice of a long night, the rearrangement of other stones, and eventually the birth of God -- in essence the lighting up of Saturn. I should point out that, on the basis of much later claims, it is 10,900 BC, the first appearance of the Peratt column and the plasmoids which starts the "first creation" -- not the lighting up of Saturn in 4077 BC.

The endless night

A paragraph about an extended passage of time follows. It probably pertains to the extended time of the actions of the following paragraphs, or as likely makes the case for the previous text about the stones.

"Abiento bocayento de la zipil na de fente note. Sustina gracia, trece mili, uno cargo bende. The first, the second, the thirteenth unfolding; thirteen banners of the Katuns; three, seven, eight thousand."

The first line is fake Latin and Spanish. The second line delineates a rather large time period, which I will discuss further below, under the heading of "Notes on the large spans of time." Bolio has a similar translation, "three times four hundred epochs, thousands of epochs." This better catches the poetic expression (as a metaphor) for an immense period of time, and was probably meant to pertain to the period from 10,900 BC to 8347 BC, but is also (I suspect) applied retroactively to the appearances of the seven stones.

This is thus perhaps all that is said of what would be the time of shadows, 10,900 BC to 9000 BC. Note that the second book of the Quiche Maya was called "Our Place in the Shadows." The Popol Vuh spends an inordinate amount of time recalling the miseries of the 1500 years of the Younger Dryas -- the dark before the chaos. In fact, the authors of the Popol Vuh warn us that it will take considerable time to set out the details of this period of misery. It was not limited to the Quiche Maya, but involved all the other tribes.

Next comes the birth of God, although it will take time to arrange heaven and start creation -- toward the end of a long period. The long nights of 10,900 to 9,000 BC are mentioned again in passing over the course of the next four paragraphs (and as the "infinite nights" of the previous text).

God wakes up

"Then God the Father awoke to consciousness alone in person; in the three-cornered precious stone of grace he awoke to consciousness, God the Father, as his name was known to be. Unidad and God the Father, these were his names, cleft from the Katun for you."

"There were three generations suddenly augmented in stature when he came. Seven were the generations of his angels. Four times did he first speak. There was one seal in the darkness, one seal on high. 'I am the beginning and I shall be the end.'"

The "three generations ... augmented in stature" probably represent three ball plasmoids of the south.

The "seven generations of his angels" are probably the count of Saturn's readily visible satellites -- the same count as in Egypt, where they are called "the helpers of the King." This should not be so, since Earth was still within the swirling glow mode plasma of Saturn. Maybe this detail was added at a much later time. Or else this is a reference to the appearances of the seven stones.

I cannot easily place the "four times he spoke." This might be a reference to the seven stones. If so, it could be the damaging contacts with Saturn: 41,000 bp, 34,000 bp, 16,000 bp, and 13,000 bp, where 13,000 bp (12,900 bp, 10,900 BC) is the start of the Younger Dryas. [note 6]

"Here are his words in their mighty entirety. 'Datate, here to that which has been received. I am Unidate, I am also Unitata, I am the Dove, I am Unitata Anuni. Unidad cometh.'"

"Nilu was the name of the night. This was the first speech of God; this was the first speech of the Father. Of cleansed stone was his precious stone alone in the night."

The night is mentioned three times, "in the darkness," "the name of the night," and "alone in the night," in addition to "Nilu." It is likely that these last few lines actually reference the shadow of the Younger Dryas (10,900 BC to 9,000 BC), along with the Peratt column (which is usually presented as speech). The rest are fake elements from the Latin liturgy.

The six winds

"Etomas, Cipancas was the name of the wind. Hun Katun was his father. Otahocanil Aucangel was the name of the wind. H(i)eron was the name of the Wind. Xicluto-tu-tanil was the name of the wind. Virtutus was the name of the wind. Joramis was the name of the wind in the second Katun. This was what he said when he changed the stone: 'Jaxyonlacalpa.' He covered the name of the holy heaven which our holy Lord, the Father raised up."

Here we have the mention of six winds. Roys writes, "Maya /ik/, here translated as wind, also means breath, life and spirit." If so, then I would suggest it could be the haze of the chaos surrounding Saturn -- a coma -- or could be beams of electrons, seen near Earth as six of the 28 which surrounded Earth. All other descriptions in antiquity reduce these to four visible streamers.

The Peratt Column, the opossum

At this point a serpent is introduced which initially seemed entirely out of place, since I first thought it to be Venus and its plasma tail connection to Saturn. But it is the tail of the opossum, the column extending from the far plasmoid, up toward the south polar region of the Earth (which, of course, looked like it extended up from the beast).

"Bolay [beast] was the name of the serpent of the second [other] heaven. He was in the dust at the feet of Sustinal Gracia [sustinal grace, Saturn in the north], as he was called. Then Lonmias was formed. The sharp stone was his stone within the night. Zihontun was his stone, when these stones were fixed in their places."

"Three times they were set at the foot of Sustinal Gracia [sustinal grace, Saturn]. These stones were born, they were beneath the one stone, the mighty pointed stone [Saturn], the stone column, the mighty pointed clashing stone. They were manifested [shown] all over the world (by) God the Father, the first ruler."

"Three times they were set" we know from other sources, including the Popol Vuh. Three times the ball plasmoids collapsed and reformed. I have described that earlier.

The "beast" is of course the Great White Opossum in the south, discussed in the chapter "The Peratt Column." The serpent is probably its tail, or there could be a translation glitch, since "serpent" and "sky" is the same word in Mayan.

"The mighty pointed clashing stone" is an interesting concept. It would suggest a changing plasma connection between the Saturnian planets, or a change in the point of view, since Earth was not directly below Saturn at first.

Although the Peratt column was well outside the Earth's atmosphere, electrical discharges above the stratosphere were perhaps "heard" within the atmosphere of Earth, as with exploding bolides today. The earlier mention of "four times did he first speak," could be accounted for then as the thunderous sound of the electron streams switching to arc mode.

The Popol Vuh assigns the first four fathers of the Quiche nation to these four electron beams. Amazing as this is, there is no question on this assignment in the Popol Vuh. The text reads:

"Perfectly they saw, perfectly they knew everything under the sky, whenever they looked."

Bolio ends the first paragraph above with the following, perhaps skipping the references to Lonmias and Zihontun:

"There wisdom is formed, beating the stone inside the darkness."

"Beating the stone inside the darkness" might express the same idea as the clashing stone. On the other hand, it could refer to the three plasmoids seen in the south, and this would probably mean that the ball plasmoid would be seen rising daily in the sky, and then lowering again. They most likely appeared in the southeast and disappeared later in the southwest. "Inside the darkness," most likely recalls the time of the shadow of the Younger Dryas.

The following is Bolio's somewhat more lucid translation of the second paragraph:

"And the Archetypal Stone was created that founds the stones that followed, the three Stones that were to be seated at the feet of the Sustinal Grace. The stones that were born were beneath the First Stone. And they were equal sisters."

This at least clearly points to a count of three plasmoids. The "Survey of the World" (to be discussed separately below) calls them trees or bushes: "the white 'guaje', the 'ixculun' (and) the gumbo-limbo (tree)." These lumps in the plasma column are noted as being "at the feet of" or "born beneath the First Stone."

The Olmecs knew where Saturn was, even though it might have been clouded in mists -- and perhaps for as much as 5000 years after 10,9000 BC. "At the feet of the Sustinal Grace" (Roys has "in the dust at the feet") also implies that the plasma streams continued through the sky to the north and contacted the globe of Saturn. In arc mode this would certainly have been seen (although terminating at Mars and Mercury). This much is also strongly suggested by the existence of oval rings of standing stones at the northeast ends of some of the causeways at Carnac (in addition to the circles of stones at the southwestern ends).

The "three stones" are not what archaeologists identified as the "three hearth stones" in Orion which were thought to be referenced by the Maya in stelae. The "three stones" were placed in the skies at the start of the "first creation" in 10,900 BC.

The Peratt discontinuities

Then follows a totally opaque paragraph:

"In the first Katun was born the only son of God; in the second Katun, the Father. In the third Katun was Expleo-ucaan, as he was called, who chastised him named Chac Opilla ['great work,' from 'opera,' but Luxton reads "lightning" for opilla] when he set up the heavens. Enpileo-u-caan ['complete the sky' reads Edmonson] was his name. Expleo [a name for the sky] was his name within the first noose of God. Hebones was the only son of God. (Like) a mirror he was borne astride on the shoulder of his father, on the stone of his father."

Bolio has a text considerably more lucid:

"Then entered Chac the giant, through the crevice of the Stone. Everyone then was a giant, in one lone town, those of all the lands. And God was the first king."

"In the First epoch, the only Son of God was created. In the Second epoch, the Word. In the Third epoch, Expleo [the name of the sky] was created."

"And Chac, the Giant, was born, whose name was Opilla [lightning], at the same time as his heaven, Empileo, was formed. Expleo [sky] is its name inside the first Book of God. Hebones. The only Son of God, mirror that will open his beauty, is the Lord of the Stone, Father."

At best I would assume this to be about various forms of plasma instabilities -- including a giant "squatting man" form. The text suggests that the plasma instabilities showed up at three different times. Since the periods are called "epochs" these would hardly consist of yearly intervals. Although Peratt has suggested that there were apparently three periods when the cliff-wall forms were carved, he also suggested that any instabilities of the plasma column would have lasted for decades.

The previous paragraph by Roys also noted that "three times they [the stones] were set at the foot of Sustinal Gracia," although Bolio translates "three times" as "three stones." There are three main causeways of standing stones at Carnac also (geographically all in a line). This detail from Carnac could certainly indicate the number of appearances of the Peratt column.

The change of "noose of God" to the "book of God" is an interesting change in translation. I'm happier with "the book of God." I wonder if this was one of the sacred books of antiquity.

The nova event of Saturn of 4077 BC

The third book of the Quiche Maya was called "The Light that Came from Beside the Sea" (perhaps this is the "first Book of God" mentioned above). This book recalls the "nova event" of 4077 BC. To have Saturn appear "beside the sea" the Olmec observers would have been on the north coast of South America or the east coast of Central America. [note 7]

"Then, it is said, the boldness of the heaven on high was created. This was one grace, one stone; then fire was created, Tixitate was his name, the light of the heavens. Sustinal, they say, was the light from that which lighted the heaven. Acpa, it was, who made the Katun after the light originated in the heavens. Alpa-u-manga was his name after it ended."

Luxton reads "Alpa-u-manga" as "Alpha and Omega." This is typical of attempts to give this text a sort of Christian flavor, as if Christian priests had to be mollified.

Luxton also notes that in a translation by Edmonson "sustinal" is not used as a name, but with the remainder of the line. The text is translated as, "sustaining will be the lightning, the shining of heaven." I would agree with Edmonson's translation.

There is no question that this is a celestial light, and associated with the "one stone" seen in the sky. The composite image of Saturn would have been reduced to a single orb as Earth dropped further below the Saturnian planets. The exceptions are Venus and Uranus, both of which were offset from the stack of planets. I would suggest that Uranus showed at the right edge, somewhat below Saturn.

Venus would show to the left of Saturn, so that, if Saturn is understood as a large person in the sky, Venus, with its tail connected to Saturn, would be understood as his right arm, holding some object. This is the scepter of kings and chiefs, both in Mesoamerica and elsewhere in the world, the cudgel of Narmer, as well as the "strong right arm" of the "Ancient of Days" figure of the Kabbalah.

As I have suggested elsewhere, this particular imagery depends on the assumption that Saturn rotated at the same rate as Earth, so that it would seem to stand still, or nearly so.

Interestingly, the paragraph suggests that the light (assumed here to be the nova event and blazing of Saturn in 4077 BC) only lasted a Katun, 20 years, for it receives a different name after the Katun ends. The two lines are, "Acpa, it was, who made the Katun after the light originated in the heavens. Alpa-u-manga was his name after it ended."

The names, as elsewhere, are nonsense.

The creation of the rings

(These are) the angels of the winds which were set up while he created the star, when the world was not yet lighted, when there was neither heaven nor earth:
the Red Pauahtun,
the White Pauahtun,
the Black Pauahtun,
the Yellow Pauahtun."

Bolio has, "the angels, spirits of the winds, were raised while the stars were created." I would go with "star" as singular. This describes the star form of a glow mode plasma impinging on Mercury from Saturn. "Star" as plural does not happen until a thousand years later, when the southern stars show up.

There are footnotes on these directional Pauahtuns being the winds or the rain gods of the four cardinal directions, cited even by Landa, but perhaps more significant is Roy's note:

"The word, Pauahtun, is difficult to translate. The last two syllables, Uah and Tun, suggest a stone or a pillar set up or erected; but they are evidently personages, and the writer is inclined to identify them with the 'angels' described by Landa in his account of the ceremonies preceding the New Year."

The suggestion of "pillars" by Roys equates the four Pauahtuns not with winds, but with the four supports of the heavens found also in Egyptian and Chinese mythology (and Landa too). From Egypt, quoting Budge:

"At a very early date the four pillars were identified with 'the four ancient khu's who dwell in the hair of Horus,' who are also said to be 'the four gods who stand by the pillar-sceptres of heaven.' These four gods are 'children of Horus,' and their names are Amset, Hapi, Tuamautef, and Qebhsennuf. They were supposed to preside over the four quarters of the world, and subsequently were acknowledged to be the gods of the cardinal points."

-- E. A. Budge in The Book of the Dead (1895)

"He," in Roy's translation ("while he created the star"), is perhaps God the Father, identified earlier. "He" sort of weaves in and out of this narrative, and the identity of "he" is not always certain. At times it seems as if "he" is the personification of the original book that these histories were being read from.

At any rate, "he" created the star. The star has been identified by the Saturnians of Thunderbolts.info as four or more streams of plasma, in columnar form from (what looked like) the equatorial region of Saturn, impinging on Mercury (identified by them as Venus), which occupied a position below Saturn and above Mars, with the streams changing to glow mode on approaching Mercury.

But there is a completely different reading for the four winds. The four "winds" or "angels of the winds" are color-coded in the manner of the later directional trees. I suspect it may just have meant to signify that these were colorful. I also would suggest that these represent the rings which would have exploded outward from Saturn's equatorial region. Despite the association with the directional colors, there is no indication that these "winds" are meant to be assigned to the cardinal directions in the sky, except, of course, as suggested in the paragraph above.

We could thus assume, that they may represent four equatorial rings of Saturn of differing colors. Later indications are that eventually there were three sets of clearly seen rings, as in the I Ching and many other sources, and as mostly true today.

Creation of the rings would take time, and would only happen after the surface of Saturn lighted up, which is why it would be recorded in a separate paragraph (or set of sentences, since the Chilam Balam indicates no paragraphs).

What is astounding is that seemingly we have here a step-by-step description of the process of a gas-giant planet going nova, which fully matches our expectations as determined from the nature of plasma, and the reconstruction made by other researchers from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Vedic sources. No other people in the world recorded these events in books to be passed down for thousands of years.

The assembly of God's heaven

"Here was the first heaven where God the Father was set up, grasping in his hand his stone, grasping his 'cangel' [dragon], grasping his wheel on which are hung the four angels of the winds. Cerpinus was the name of him who, under Orele, measured the land."

God the father (Saturn, already established as on fire, "the light of heaven") here holds Uranus (his stone), Venus (the dragon), he sits on his rings (the wheel) or holds them, and is accompanied by four other prominent satellites (the four angels of the winds), and (below him) Mars (Cerpinus) "measured the land." This last was a single white streak (a plasma column in glow mode) extending from below Mars to Earth. The imagery of the main god (here God the Father), holding his tools, is duplicated for Oxlahun-ti-ku in the world history of Book 10 of the Chilam Balam.

The Palette of Narmer duplicates the above image (of God the Father) also, except that the appliances are held by Mars during one of its lowerings to Earth. Saturn, in the Palette of Narmer, has been reduced to the knob at the top of the crown of the pharaoh. This might have been Mercury, which would account for the fact that the rings are not shown at all.

I might be in error about who Cerpinus is. Luxton suggests that "Cerpinus" is the constellation Cerpinus (which I cannot locate, unless Serpens is meant), rather than Mars, and located below "Orele" which he suggests is the constellation Orion. The very bright star Canopus is located below Orion. This might have become a model of the earlier southern plasmoids and the lines drawn north "to measure the land."

If this line stands on its own, then it might be the single white column, noted as "the rope" in Book 10 of the Chilam Balam, which reads "then it was that fire descended, then the rope descended."

Following the establishment of God's heaven, Christian names for major planets are given.

"He set up the planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, which he said were held in the grasp of the god in heaven when he created them. This was the name of the heaven, cristalino. Here were the Angels."

It is disappointing to see these planets, which were the Gods of the Maya, assigned here to a Christian cosmology. At the actual time of this history, there was only Saturn in concert with Venus (Mercury) and Mars. Jupiter was still unrecognized as an actor in the creation drama, although recalled from earlier times. It seems likely, therefore, that the four large satellites of Saturn are meant here, rather than four planets.

"Corpinus was the name of him who held aloft on the palm of his hand the Blessed Father (or, the blessing of the Father) when there was neither heaven nor earth. Inpicco was his name when all the angels were asperged [sprinkled]. Baloyo was his name when (the water) was sprinkled [or, when the angels were scattered]. Seros was his name, Et sepeuas. Laus Deo."

Luxton: Corpinus is likely Scorpio; Seros might be Sirius.

Holding "the blessing of the Father" on "the palm of his hand" seems like a gesture which should be assigned to Venus, in that we can imagine Venus, appearing left of the apparition, looking like a hand held in blessing. Of course there is a problem in that the "hand" here is personified, and I am not sure if the upheld hand was also recognized as a blessing in Mesoamerica. But possibly the scribe here again applies Christian symbols to a reading of ancient texts. His references to sprinkling -- presumably with Holy Water -- is clearly a Christian sacramental form.

The four angels, as I noted earlier, are most likely the four largest satellites of Saturn. What the sprinkling otherwise represents, I do not know. At first I thought it might simply be the continuous radial lightning strokes between the rings. But Bolio has, "[Inpicco] scattered all the angels." Bolio's rendering is confusing, and does not seem to relate to any expected process except the obvious movement of the satellites of Saturn.

The lowering of Mars to Earth.

"Below were Chac Bolay Balam and the cacao called balamté [a species of cacao]. Esperas was the name of the sixth heaven; Isperas was the name of the seventh heaven."

Chac Bolay Balam translates as Giant Jaguar Beast. It is Mars, not only because Chac Bolay Balam is located below, meaning below the One Stone (or God), but primarily because of the row of cacao beans below. This is a feature of Mars which I have been unable to identify, yet it recurs in Maya iconography -- a head with a missing lower jaw and with protruding teeth. It may, visually, represent the lower edge of the jagged lower hemisphere of Mars. This suggests, correctly, that when Mars was lit by the Sun (the Sun was now in the sky), part of the lower hemisphere would disappear from view from the vantage point of Earth, because the Earth occupied a position lower than Mars with respect to the direction from which sunlight came -- just as, during the day today, the part of the Moon which is in shadow is not seen.

Chac Bolay Balam is thus Bolon Dzacab, "Nine Generations," of Book 10, who has been identified by archaeologists as Mars, and who appeared to lower itself toward Earth 8 times between 4077 BC and 3147 BC. Having identified Mars as located below the One Stone, the text continues with the assertion that now the world was about to be created by God.

"Then the world was created by God the ruler in the seventh Katun, created in the darkness named Espiritu."

The "seventh Katun" raises my suspicions that the seventh stone gave us God the Father (instead of the 8th). Additional considerations are listed further below.

"St. Edendeus (and) St. Eluceo were the saints who witnessed the birth of him who was hidden within the stone, hidden within the night."

Roys comments on the word "stone," in the line above about St. Edendeus and St. Eluceo:

"Maya, 'u lamay Tun,' probably the planted seed corn. The definition of this phrase, 'the square stone,' symbolizing the twenty years of the Katun, has long been accepted. The word for squared, however, is 'amay,' not 'lamay,' which means sunk out of sight, hidden."

But "lamay" probably is correct. What is being described, as the creation of the world, is actually the lowering of Mars from Saturn -- the first of some eight approaches to Earth between 4077 BC and 3147 BC. Book 10 of the Chilam Balam describes the mass of maize mash left behind, from which humanity was created, according to the Popol Vuh. Thus certainly we have here the creation of humans -- but after the creation of the world.

We should also not forget that we have, in this manuscript, the efforts of 16th century AD scribes at interpreting a mostly graphic record dating back to remote antiquity. If the original scribes had failed to note that the world and humanity were already in existence in 4077 BC, then there was no way for the later readers of these records to assume anything other. Only after 4077 BC, when a cloud dome appears at the north horizon, anchored to Earth, do we have a record for the existence of Earth itself. This is no different from the cave decorations in Western Europe, where for 20,000 years not a single human figure was depicted -- from which it could be concluded that there were as yet no humans at that time.

I probably do not need to point out to the reader that St. Edendeus and St. Eluceo, who witnessed the descent of Mars -- described as the birth of God -- are probably the two satellites of Mars.

Now we also need to get back to the earlier comment by Roys, about the "square stone," which he thinks is a misspelling of "amay," meaning "squared," as "lamay," meaning "sunk out of sight." Knowing that we are seeing a description of Mars sinking toward Earth, it is obvious that "sunk out of sight" was indeed intended. The "sinking out of sight" will be repeated two paragraphs further down. I will get back to this below.

Interestingly, Bolio adds, "It is repeated," and "then it burned, during the night," to the line about St. Edendeus and St. Eluceo where Roys has, "hidden within the night." This is likely a series of the arc mode anode displays at the lower hemisphere of Mars, aimed at Earth, and clearly seen as Mars drew closer.

Next we have an incantation in the manner of a Christian prayer, composed, however, of nonsense words:

"These were the words said by him who was hidden within the stone, hidden within the night: 'Tronas Aleseyo de mundo de gracia. En apedia tejo çipi dia te en pieted gracia. Santo Esuleptun jam estum est gracia. Suplilis el timeo me firme abin finitis gracia, y metis absolutum ti metis de gracia. Abegintis gracia, Edendeo gracia, de fentis de gracia, fenoplis Tun gracia. Locom dar yme gracia, tretris u mis gracia. Noçi luçi de gracia, in pricio de gracia, trese mili uno de cargo, leonte.'"

Roys comments, "Little, if any, of this hocus-pocus is Maya, and it is the conjecture of the translator that its source was some itinerant Spanish fortune-teller or astrologer. The repetition of the word 'gracia' suggests an incantation to make the corn grow."

Bolio similarly has, "This corrupted Latin text appears to be some sort of incantation to favor the creation of corn."

The discussion on creation can now reach a recap and a conclusion, starting with another mention of the immense span of time which lapsed before creation. (To be discussed further below.) Notice that God the Father is soon forgotten. What comes forward, and what is claimed to have its genesis in heaven, is maize.

"One, two, thirteen, one division, thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns. Three, seven, eight thousand was the creation of the world, when he who was hidden within the stone, hidden within the night, was born, when there was neither heaven nor earth."

Bolio has, "before the land was to awaken," for "creation of the world," which clearly indicates that this is a restatement, not an additional long span of time.

"Then God the Father spoke alone, by his own efforts, in the darkness that clung like a thrice withered fruit (to the tree). This was the first word of God, when there was neither heaven nor earth, when he came out of the stone and fell into the second stone. Then it was that he declared his divinity."

Notice that God the Father moves to Earth via the second stone, Mars.

"Then resounded eight thousand Katuns at the word of the first stone of grace, the first ornamented [embroidered] stone of grace. It was the macaw that warmed it well behind the 'acantun.'"

"Who was born when our father descended?"

"Thou knowest. There was born the first macaw who cast the stones behind the 'acantun' [pedestal]."

The macaw is the assembly of Saturn, Uranus, Venus, and the rings of Saturn. This becomes clear with the second use of macaw, above. The Saturnian assembly is here no longer identified with God the Father, who has slipped into the "second stone" and visited Earth to deliver maize.

I do not think that "eight thousand Katuns" can be taken literally, for this would represent 160,000 years if this were a time span of Katuns. Even if they were meant to be Tuns, it would still be way too long -- 8000 years. I'll get back to this use of "8000" further below.

Roys notes, "acantun could be translated as a stone set up on a foundation." It could also be just the pedestal; Bolio has "mountains" for "acantun."

"Warmed it well" makes sense. It refers to a change of perspective (because Mars was closer to Earth) which allowed the lower hemisphere of Mars to be seen as "on fire" from anode arcs. If this was the case as Mars was approaching closer to Earth, it would have looked as if Mars was "warming" the acantun -- dome, mountain, or pedestal -- being just above (or near) the dome of steam at the north horizon.

Bolio has "And its word was a measurement of grace, a spark of grace, and it broke and pierced the back of the mountains."

I wonder if "a spark [of grace]" is verbally equivalent to the fires seen at the lower half of Mars. Piercing the back of the mountains, drilling holes in the back of mountains, or for that matter, throwing stones behind the pedestal or mounted stone (which has to be the vapor dome at the north horizon), may describe the disappearance of Mars from view (seen from 20 or 10 degrees latitude) when it reached the closest position to Earth.

Mars was headed for the Earth's north geographic pole as the nearest gravitational contact point. The plasma stream from Saturn, enclosing Mars, would have to bend as it neared Earth to land at the north magnetic pole. The holes pierced in the mountain, the cloud bank at the north horizon, are the shadowed fluted areas which would show up in the morning and evening light of the Sun, as I have pointed out in earlier texts.

The north magnetic pole and the water vapor dome most likely were located at this time at about Hudson Bay. This is the reason why the Olmec record contains much more detail of the close approaches of Mars than recollections from other locations on Earth. Other recollections only note that Mars became a giant at times. Mesoamerica is directly south of Hudson Bay.

"How was the grain of maize born? How, indeed, father?"

"Thou knowest. The tender green (shoot) was born in heaven."

The text continues with more nonsense:

"'Ciripacte, horca mundo. Ni mompan est noche. Amanena, omonena, apa opa,' (was said) when the wind emerged from the great stone of grace. 'Cipiones ted coruna, pater profecido,' were his words when he arrived at the seventh stratum of the solid rock of grace."

"'Bal te piones, orteçipio, reçi quenta noche. Hun ebrietate, hun cute profeciado,' were the words of the Angel, Jerupiter. Then the sky was put in its place, 'Corporales ti ojales,' by the first pope, the face of the Katun, the burden of the Katun 13 Ahau."

Bolio has "High Priest" for "pope." Suzanne D. Fisher inserts "buttonholes" after Bolio's use of "Corporales ti ojales." The mention of Katun 13-Ahau is included with these lines by Roys. Bolio moves it to the beginning of the next paragraph, which makes more sense, since Katun 13-Ahau will signal the end of the creation event, followed directly by Katun 11-Ahau, which is always understood as the start of history.

The end of creation.

The translation by Roys has, as the next few lines:

"The face of the sun shall be turned from its course, it shall be turned face down during the reign of the perishable men, the perishable rulers. Five days the sun is eclipsed, and then shall be seen the torch of (Katun) 13 Ahau, a sign given by God that death shall come to the rulers of this land."

The "five days" is a reference to an event of the far future: the 685 BC nova event, when the Sun (our current Sun) in fact "turned from its course" and was occluded for five days by the arrival of the plasmoid from Jupiter. These events, as was well known, happened in Katun 3-Ahau which ends in 668 BC (6.4.0.0.0), not in Katun 13-Ahau.

All of this is then put in the service of prophecy of an end-of-creation scenario in the arrival of Katun 13-Ahau.

"Thus it shall come about that the first rulers are driven from their towns. Then Christianity (shall) have come here to the land."

"Thus it is that God, our Father, gives a sign when they shall come, because there is no agreement. The descendants (of the former rulers) are dishonored and brought to misery; we are christianized, while they treat us like animals. There is sorrow in the heart of God because of these "suckers" [a reference to the Spanish]."

Bolio starts with:

"This is the face of the Katun, the face of the Katun, of the Thirteen Ahau: the face of the Sun will be broken. It will fall, breaking up on the gods of now. Five days the sun will be bitten and [not] seen. This is the representation of the Thirteen Ahau."

Katun 13-Ahau (real or not) is selected in this narrative because it precedes Katun 11-Ahau. The appeal to Katun 13-Ahau is probably a literary device, based on the well-established supposition that all pre-history happens during a Katun 11-Ahau (which follows directly on Katun 13-Ahau). Book 10 places all the action of the end of the "first creation" in a Katun 11-Ahau.

What is more important to notice is that Katun 13-Ahau is here used predictively to signal the intrusion of Christianity. Roys gives recognition to this with the wording, "thus it shall come about... ." It is not certain, in fact, if this description of Katun 13-Ahau belongs with this text.

The following page (of the original manuscript) is written in a different hand, and reads:

"In the year Fifteen hundred and thirty-nine, 1539, to the east was the door of the House of Don Juan Montejo, to introduce Christianity here to the land of Yucalpeten, Yucatan."

[signed:] "Chilam Balam, the prophet."

Roys writes, about Don Juan Montejo, and the door facing east:

"Here as elsewhere Don Juan de Montejo is confused with his father, Don Francisco, the Spanish conqueror. The door of the old Montejo mansion in Merida faces north, not east, and it is the belief of the translator that this reference is not to the actual house of Montejo, but to the compartment, or so-called 'house,' of the Katun-wheel in which is pictured Katun 11 Ahau, the first Katun of the Spanish Conquest in which Montejo ruled the country."

Notes on the large spans of time

A number of times in this text, there are suggestions of enormous spans of time. These are, as it turns out, poetic constructs. We should be able to recognize these poetic (that is, metaphorical) references to large spans of time, like "three times four hundred epochs, thousands of epochs," in the texts.

For the period of the seven triangular stones each line is augmented with phrases like, "in the second infinite night, when no one was present." We know (assuming there is a correspondence between the seven stones and the seven Carbon-14 peaks) that the intervals between appearances of the three-cornered stones spanned thousands of years, for if Saturn were a constant element in the skies, no record would have been made in the Americas, Europe, Asia, or Africa.

At the end of the series of the seven three-cornered stones is a phrase expressing an astounding time span, "The first, the second, the thirteenth unfolding; thirteen banners of the Katuns; three, seven, eight thousand."

Assuming Roys's translation is accurate, the "first, the second, the thirteenth unfolding" seems like a literary lead-up to the statement "the thirteenth unfolding; thirteen banners of the Katuns."

The "thirteenth unfolding" is of course the extent of the whole of the "second creation" (not the "first creation"), which would have been the 13 Baktuns from 8347 BC to 3147 BC. A complete rotation of the calendar is 13 Baktuns.

This is exactly what other records claim: that in 3147 BC, 13 Baktuns were completed. Although it is possible to dismiss the text as metaphorical for "large spans of time" we should keep in mind that the Maya were convinced that the previous creation (the "first creation"), which ended in 8347 BC, had lasted 13 Baktuns, or at least ended when the Baktun count reached 13.

The next phrase, "three, seven, eight thousand," would seem to refer to the time before the "first creation," that is, the time of the seven stones. If taken together with the next line, "then God the Father awoke to consciousness alone in person," it would certainly seem to point to the start of the "first creation" as a terminal event of a yet larger span of time.

Here we need to account for perhaps 20,000 years (to about 34,000 bp), If we add the "three, seven, [and] eight thousand," and assume these to be Tuns (years) rather than Katuns, we have a time span of 18,000 years, which is not unreasonable. It takes the history of the "seven stones" back to about 30,500 bp (18,000 years before 12,900 bp, 10,900 BC), which is about the time when caves in Western Europe were first decorated.

The second use of multiple Katuns reads, "One, two, thirteen, one division, thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns. Three, seven, eight thousand was the creation of the world, when he who was hidden within the stone, hidden within the night, was born." This is almost an exact restatement of the earlier phrase about the span of time before the start of the "first creation."

As I have mentioned earlier, the Chilam Balam has no punctuation, and no indication of where sentences and paragraphs start or end. Additionally, translators are hampered by the fact that without a structure of events such as proposed here, they were faced with a tale of utter nonsense. This shows in the divergence between the two translations, and in the fact that, even with the structure I have introduced, at most we have only hints at what is being told.

There is another solution, however. The repeated use of the phrase:

"One, two, thirteen, one division,
thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns.
Three, seven, eight thousand
was the creation of the world,"

... of Book 11 of the Chilam Balam can be explained as a metaphor for an exceedingly large measure of time, without reference to any specific count of years.

Additionally, it is almost certain that "Katuns" in the phrase "thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns" is in error. A 'bakam of Katuns' is, I suspect, a Baktun. That is the only way to make sense of the large numbers.

Looking at the methods of computation of the people of Mesoamerica it becomes clear that "One, two ... three, seven, eight thousand" is a statement about the content of the "400s" register, the third row of the Mesoamerican 3x3 calculation board. The third row represented values of 2000, 4000, and 8000. [note 8]

The value of 8000, the multiplier for the last space on the board, is thus representative of the highest value of any use in commerce or in the accumulation of years. The numbers "one, two ... three, seven" are the multipliers for the values represented on the 3x3 board, and signify the progressive filling of the spaces of a row -- a metonym for counting. This seems to be the idea behind "one, two, ... three, seven, eight thousand."

This becomes clear when the full quote from the "Chilam Balam" is expanded line by line:

"One, two,
    thirteen, one division,
    thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns.
Three, seven,
    eight thousand
    was the creation of the world"

As poetry this might be parsed differently, but what should be obvious is that "One, two" are the values filling the first (1 0 0) and the second (0 1 0) counting spaces -- while "three" and "seven" designate the additional binary values filling in the first and second (1 1 0) and the first, second, and third (1 1 1) spaces. For the third row this ends in a multiplier value of 8000. I realize that this skips "four" (0 0 1), "five" (1 0 1), and "six" (0 1 1), but we are dealing with poetry here, not math.

Thus the four lines from Book 11 of the Chilam Balam signify a "filling out" of the counting spaces to what would be the largest accumulation of a number count most likely used by the Maya (assuming no trader would pack more than 8000 cacao beans).

On the other hand, the other phrase, "Thirteen 'bakam' of Katuns," represents thirteen measures of 400 years, a total of 5200 years, "one rotation" of the calendar -- the same calendar which recycled in 3147 BC.

That the Maya used poetry in the Chilam Balam is affirmed by Munro Edmonson, in "Some Postclassic Questions About The Classic Maya" (Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1978), where he writes:

"Did the Classic Maya use parallelistic couplets? It now seems well established that they did. ... Despite criticisms and refinements of my argument (1971) that all formal Maya discourse is in parallelistic couplets, I remain persuaded that the exceptions to this rule are rare enough that it has positive utility in working out the syntactic and orthographic problems of Colonial texts, and I suspect that the same may ultimately prove true of the Classic inscriptions as well. The form is almost the definition of native 'poetry' from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego."

"Did the Classic Maya use couplet kennings? Couplet kennings or 'disfrazismos' are ubiquitous in Nahuatl poetry and in the supposedly prose texts of the Yucatecan Books [the Chilam Balam] as well."

"They are markedly rarer in the Popol Vuh, though they do occur. The device depends on the dialectic process of combining the elements of a dichotomy or other dyad to produce a third and esoteric meaning (e.g. rope and cord means war). I am inclined to think this particular form may have been introduced into Yucatan from Central Mexico and hence may not occur among the Classic Maya, but the evidence is insufficient for a strong supposition."

With respect to the Popol Vuh, Tedlock, in his notes on his translation (1996 edition), offers syntactical uses of "pairing of words or phrases that are partly the same and partly different." Tedlock points up the uses of dyads and couplets, used metonymically, and quatrains in a manner not entirely different from Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry, and gives examples of each. He also gives instances where onomatopoeia is used. The lines from Book 11 quoted above would certainly qualify for the use of kenning, even if only available in a translation.

This clearly brings forward the use of "one, two ... three, seven, eight thousand" as a metaphor for something entirely different from the actual meaning of the words in use. In that the phrase clearly fits the manipulation of the 3x3 calculation board of the Maya, the suggestion that it was meant to stand for an enormous span of time would seem to be correct.

"Eight thousand" is used once more to signify a very large time span used near the end of Book 11, "Then resounded eight thousand Katuns at the word of the first stone of grace, the first ornamented stone of grace."

(2) A SURVEY OF THE WORLD

This second item is actually the opening page of Book 1 of the Chilam Balam, titled by the translators Ralph L. Roys as "The Ritual of the Four World-Quarters," and by Antonio Mediz Bolio as "The Book of the Lineages." Roys sees the present page as standing alone, and starts the translation of the following page as Book 2, under the title of "The Rise of Hunac Ceel to Power," which describes the migration of the Itza into the Yucatan. Bolio takes the present page to be part of the Itza history.

The page deals with the time of the "Survey of the World" -- the appearance of the Peratt Column and the attempts made by people to grasp the meaning of the phenomena. As I suggested earlier, the details of the "survey of the world" extend back to 10,900 BC.

The visual effects of the Peratt Column was a series of brilliant lines of electrons, passing over the Earth from north to south, and stationary. The lines would follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, and thus the lines rotated as the Earth rotated. In effect three or four of the surrounding streams of electrons would be seen above any location on Earth.

Beyond the Rivers

Roys starts the translation with a note that apparently the previous page is missing. So he starts in mid-sentence, as follows:

"... the first man [idol] of the Canul family. The white 'guaje', the 'ixculun' (and) the 'gumbo-limbo' [three tree species] are his little hut, ... The logwood tree is the hut [lean-to] of Yaxum, the first of the men of the Cauich family."

"The lord of the people of the south is the first of the men of the Noh ["South"] family. Ix-Kan-tacay is the name of the first of the men of the Puch family. They guard nine rivers; they guard nine mountains."

"Nine mountains," Roys suggests, is from "Bolonppel-uitz," which is, he writes, "probably a place-name in the south." But Bolio has, "Nine rivers guarded them."

Rather than guessing at what much of these texts mean, I will just propose the historic narrative, and see how close the texts come descriptively to the narrative. Let me thus propose that the three trees are the three ball plasmoids of the "great white opossum" in the far south. The logwood shelter is composed of the overlaid nearby lines of electrons closer at hand, in the south, where the streams of electrons contracted (pinched) before diverging to ride over the Earth. Peratt offers a convincing graphic of this, from the perspective of Peru at about 14 degrees south latitude which has all the looks of a lean-to. The nine rivers, I would propose, are the nine rings of the Absu which were seen from the Yucatan or other locations at 10 or 20 degrees latitude north of the equator which interfered with the clarity of the image of the plasmoids. South of the equator the plasmoids would be seen in much greater detail. The nine mountains I cannot place.

Bolio's translation, here rendered in English by Suzanne D. Fisher, is easier to read. Bolio reverses the subject and predicate of the sentence about the rivers. Bolio writes:

"The Lord of the South is the root of the lineage of the great Uc. Xkantacay is his name. And it is the stock of the lineage of Ah Puch. Nine rivers guarded them. Nine mountains guarded them."

As the reader knows, there are no titles in the original, nor is there any punctuation. Roys sees the present page as standing alone, and starts the translation of the following page as Book 2. Book 2 is a long piece, mostly coherent except for two interruptions which describe migrations of the Itza into the Yucatan in the 9th or 10th century AD (which may have been the Toltecs). Hunac Ceel is a 12th century Itza ruler. Bolio, on the other hand, takes the present page to be part of the Itza history, but separates out the last page of the history of the Itza as dealing with a different topic, the fall of the Absu in 2349 BC (described as item 3 below).

[Image: Nazca lines, and electron beams as seen from below.]
[Image: Nazca lines, aerial view and electron beams as seen from below. After Peratt, 2007. The view at 20 degrees north would certainly make this look like a lean-to.]

I am making note of the context here because the page of the Chilam Balam under consideration stands out in three distinct ways from the "history of the Itza." First of all, if this description is part of the history of the Itza, it starts out far too early -- some 6000 years before the Itza arrive in Maya territory.

Second, the origin of a people is here placed in the south, in fact, beyond the nine rivers. The Itza came from the west, from the Valley of Mexico (as did the Toltecs).

Third, as I will quote further below, the first major task was a survey of the land. This is a land of mountains, as in the Guatemalan Peten region. The flatland of the Northern Yucatan was not occupied by humans until quite late.

The Colored Bees

But first, before mention of the survey, there is an interruption in the text. It is a list of the directional colors and properties of the cardinal points -- east, north, west, and south, always in this order, and always assigned the colors red, white, black, and yellow, in order. In all cases in the Chilam Balam the directions and colors are assigned to four individual trees, except on this page, where the assignment is to "flints" and other assorted things. Two of the flints (red and white) are also associated with Bee Gods. From Roys:

"The red [east] flint stone is the stone of the red Mucencab [Bee God]. The red ceiba tree of abundance is his arbor which is set in the east. The red bullet-tree is their tree. The red zapote . . . The red-vine . . . Reddish are their yellow turkeys. Red toasted is their corn [maize]."

Bolio has something similar, except that he writes "sacred stone" for "stone" and where Roys has "is his arbor" Bolio translates "its Hidden Center." The other flints (white, black, yellow) use a similar text (see below).

"Mucencab" is a Bee God. Mucencab is only mentioned in the first two paragraphs, and not again in the following two paragraphs about black and yellow flints. We have no idea what this Bee God represents. In the 500 years since the beginning of the 16th century AD, not a single Maya informant has managed to say anything coherent about Bee Gods.

The other three "flint texts" read as follows:

"The white flint stone is their stone in the north. The white ceiba tree of abundance is the arbor of the white Mucencab [Bee God]. White-breasted are their turkeys. White Lima-beans are their Lima-beans. White corn is their corn."

"The black flint stone is their stone in the west. The black ceiba tree of abundance is their arbor. Black speckled corn is their corn. Black tipped camotes are their camotes. Black wild pigeons are their turkeys. Black /akab-chan/ is their green corn. Black beans are their beans. Black Lima-beans are their Lima-beans."

"The yellow flint stone is the stone of the south. The ceiba tree of abundance, the yellow ceiba tree of abundance, is their arbor. The yellow bullet-tree is their tree. (Colored like) the yellow bullet-tree are their camotes. (Colored like) the yellow bullet-tree are the wild pigeons which are their turkeys. Yellow green corn is their green corn. Yellow-backed are their beans."
[note 9]

I think the significance of this insertion of descriptions of the color-coded cardinal points is to delineate an inventory of the Earth. Considering all the other items inventoried for each of the colored flints (trees, fruits, birds, corn, squash), these four paragraphs read more like geographic descriptions -- an inventory of the Earth. The colors of the cardinal directions were (probably) a late addition since 3100 BC, and were probably added to the source codexes as a helpful aid in identifying the directions. After the geography has been declared, the surveyor arrives.

The Survey

Roys writes:

"11 Ahau was the Katun when they carried (burdens) on their backs. Then the land-surveyor first came; this was Ah Ppizte [Measuring Man] who measured the leagues. Then there came the 'chacté' shrub for marking the leagues with their walking sticks."

"Then he came (to) Uac-hab-nal to pull the weeds along the leagues, when Mizcit Ahau came to sweep clean the leagues, when the land-surveyor came. These were long leagues that he measured."

Bolio has, not altogether different:

"With the 'Eleven Ahau Katun' appears the retinue of their servants."

"And Ah Ppisté [Measuring Man] began to come. This Ah Ppisté [Measuring Man] was the measure of the earth. And then came Chacté Abán, to prepare the measurings of land to be cultivated."

"And Uac Habnal came to mark the measurings with signs of the herb; while Miscit Ahau came to clean the marked out lands and Ah Ppipsul, the measurer, came, who measured wide areas.

Katun 11-Ahau is the name of a double-decade period which is understood by the Maya as starting all history, if all of history is always repeated every 13 Katuns. As a result, Katun 11-Ahau is also the complete period before history.

The names upon names should not worry the reader. Mesoamerican languages, like most American Indian languages are action oriented, not time based. If an action happens, it has to be attributed to an agent. Additionally, as Roys points out, frequently the names are puns.

I have made note of the sweepers who cleared the lines in the chapter "The Peratt Column." The sweepers will recur a few lines down as bees that swarm at Cozumel.

"These were long leagues that he measured" and "who measured wide areas" both show that the survey was no small project. I would suggest that we are looking at a recollection of the brilliant stripes in the sky. To the later scribes of the Olmecs, and other peoples who came before the Maya, the recorded events suggested that the survey was done for humans, and possibly by humans, and was a necessary task before settlement of a land after a migration from the south, although I am only suggesting this by implication from the opening statement of this page, "the lord of the people of the south is the first of the men of the Noh family." It is thus not specifically said that anyone migrated. The Popol Vuh, however, will suggest a migration from the east.

The use of this information as the opening page of the Chilam Balam makes sense in its use at the beginning of the history of the later Itza migration. It localizes the information from remote antiquity to the time and conditions of AD 1000 in the Yucatan.

The Popol Vuh also has reference to a "measuring, staking, and stretching the cord in the sky, [and] on the earth" -- all accomplished before any creation activity at all is started.

The ending paragraph of Book 11, "The Ritual of the Angels" (above), also references the measuring of the land, although I think the wrong white stripe is referenced -- it equates the plasma stream in glow mode (from Saturn via Mars) with the four stripes seen earlier.

Next after the "survey" we have a division of the east, north, west, and south of the land of the Yucatan to well-known and established families. Bolio, for example, has:

"Then a spokesman was established at the head of the mat."

"Ix Noh Uc presides to the east. Ox Tocoy-moo presides to the east. Ox Pauah Ek presides to the east. Ah Miz presides to the east."

Following the list of chiefs of the east, there are three more lines for the other cardinal directions. All of this is obviously an effort to make ancient history fit contemporary facts. The Yucatan, a flat dry region, was not populated until 1000 BC to 300 BC (there are also suggestions of 2500 BC).

Interestingly, the Popol Vuh takes the same stance to the first humans, not only associating the first creation of people to this particular time of antiquity (although the Popol Vuh, probably in error, claims this is a time before light returned to Earth), but listing the four overhead streaks of electrons as the first created humans -- four brothers named "Jaguar Quitze," "Jaguar Night," "Not Right Now," and "Dark Jaguar." There is no question that the authors of the Popol Vuh have equated these first four fathers with the streaks in the sky. See the later chapter "The Popol Vuh."

Cozumel

The text about the families is followed by "directionally colored" bees. Roys has:

"The red wild bees are in the east. A large red blossom is their cup. The red Plumeria is their flower."

"The white wild bees are in the north. The white pachca is their flower. A large white blossom is their cup."

"The black wild bees are in the west. The black laurel flower is their flower. A large black blossom is their cup."

"The yellow wild bees are in the south. A large yellow blossom is their cup . . . is their flower."

These bees, as I mentioned earlier, are not the satellites of Saturn, tempting as it might be to simply assign them to the era of Saturn. They are distinguished from being satellites by their association with the cardinal directions. These bees are geographically distributed. Roys continues:

"Then they swarmed at Cecuzamil [Little Cozumel] in great numbers among the magueys [or "sweet things"] of the land, the calabash trees of the land, the ceiba trees of the land and the 'chulul' trees of the land."

Bolio has:

"When the multitude of the children of the bees multiplied itself, the small 'Cuzamil' was the flower of the honey; the mug of honey was the first apiary and the heart of the earth."

Let me at least point out that, as the bees were swarming, it could be presumed that they were seen to move south to Cozumel, or actually the plasmoids, here identified as the hive and as "the heart of the Earth." The "heart of the Earth" will be identified securely as the three plasmoids of the south in the Popol Vuh (in a following chapter).

So, to complete a sensible image, imagine that the bees travel overhead along the four electron beams -- like the brooms of the Ley Line sweepers, or Mizcit Ahau who "came to sweep clean the leagues," or "Measuring Man" Ah Ppizte who came to "pull the weeds along the leagues."

Fuzzy, furry, moving shapes traveled south along the visible streaks in the sky. The shapes diminished in size as they reached the region above the South Pole, and came to a halt (probably) at the first ball plasmoid. The ball plasmoids had sprung into existence in response to the isolating layer of carbon dust in the Earth's stratosphere. The ball plasmoids might have looked like a hive or a swarm of bees. As seen through the shimmering and moving Absu, it would look as if the individual "bees" of the swarm continued to be actively in motion.

Worldwide the interpretations differed considerably. There is a progression starting with the dead herd animals painted by Cro-Magnons on the walls and ceilings of caves in Southwestern Europe between 30,000 to 10,000 BC. From the herds of dead animals in Europe, the extended concept 5000 years later in Europe, as well as in Western Asia and Northeastern Africa, is of the travel of the dead to a final destination in the far south -- often interpreted as a set of islands floating in a sea.

In Mesoamerica we have the same imagery in the skies, but here it is understood as bees traveling south along the beams of electrons. In the next paragraph these bees are converted into arrows or armies of archers.

Roys continues with:

"Kin Pauahtun [Kan Pauahtun, the wind-god of the south] was their priest. He commanded the numerous army which guarded Ah Hulneb [the Archer] at Tantun in Cozumel, (also) Ah Yax-ac [first turtle], [a] chinab [a handspan measure], and Kinich Kakmo [fire macaw]."

Roys has "chinab" with a leading capital. Bolio has something very similar:

"Kin Pauah was the great priest, the one who governed the army of the warriors and was the guardian of Ah Hulneb [the archer], on the altar of 'Cuzamil'; and of Ah Yax Ac-chinab [dwarf] and of Kinich Kakmo; [the sun-eyed fire macaw]."

This paragraph is, of course, about the three ball plasmoids. I am not buying "dwarf" as a designation of the second plasmoid. Peratt, in an illustration based on a reconstruction from extensive data, has the second plasmoid larger than the first (nearer) plasmoid. But the order may not be as I would have assumed.

Here Cozumel, or Cuzamil, an island off the east coast of the Yucatan, is equated with the southern ball plasmoid as an island rising out of the sea of the Absu, similar to how the Sumerians held the island of Dilmun (Bahrein) in the Persian Gulf to be the city of the Gods. Malta had a similar status, as did Crete. All four islands developed a funeral business in antiquity.

The "wind-god of the south" might be any vaporous formation (plasma) extending from the ball plasmoids (when they existed) or more likely the streams of electrons.

And who is the archer? In a footnote about the Archer and Cozumel, Roys writes:

"Ah Hulneb, the Archer, was one of the principal deities of Cozumel which was a center of pilgrimage not only from every part of Yucatan but from Tabasco as well."

I am more inclined to equate the Archer with the first (near) plasmoid which was the source of the lines of electrons shooting into the north sky. The arrows were likely dispatched from the south to the north. The sporadic interruption of the lines of electrons could make these look like arrows shooting north. It brings to mind the "crossed arrow" emblem of the North African goddess Neith, as well as the assembly of shield and spears known as the "War Stack" altar at Palenque.

Kinich Kakmo, the sun-eyed fire macaw, will be recognized as the name for the whole structure of Saturn as the body, its rings as its colorful feathers, and with Venus as the head. The problem here is that this text might simultaneously point to the earlier ball plasmoid after 10,900 BC and to Saturn after 4077 BC.

As listed above, the handspan might have been meant to represent the width of the third and largest plasmoid. A handspan subtends 2 or 3 degrees in the sky (a half degree per finger). At a distance of 425,000 miles (685,000 km) from earth, this would represent a very large object.

Of course there are a number of other instances in mythology where the southern ball plasmoids are referred to in the same breath that the northern Saturnian apparition is mentioned. The Japanese Konjiki starts with names for the three ball plasmoids (as "born first") followed immediately with the names of two entities "born next from a thing that sprouted up like unto a reed-shoot."

The Mesoamerican Popol Vuh, despite its extensive anthropomorphizing, does the same, that is, it recognizes the simultaneous existence of the southern and the northern forms. And last, the standing stones at Carnac reiterate the same concept of spheres existing at both ends of the causeways.

(3) THE THIRD CREATION

I have quoted a first portion of the following in "The Day of the Dead," under the topic of "The Ten Suns." I have noted that this text describes the event of 2349 BC. As the most impressive event of the past it is perhaps not unexpected to find this description also on a separate page. It follows directly on a history of the Itza, and both Bolio and Roys have taken it to be such, but it has nothing to do with the Itzas. The beginning and end of the page are missing. The text below is from Bolio. Roys has a reading of the original texts which is radically different. The difference, I think, is that an attempt is made by Roys to integrate the action of this page into the more mundane activities of the history of the Itzas of the previous pages. [note 10]

"'Our gods have grown!' their priests said (those from the Sun). And then days of the year were introduced."

"'Behold abundant suns come,' they said. And the hoofs of the animals burned and the edge of the sea burned."

"'This is the sea of bitterness!' they said."

"And the face of the sun was corroded, and its face became darkened and was put out."

"And then, above, they became frightened. 'It has burned up! Our god has died!' their priests said. "

"And they were beginning to think about making a picture of the figure of the sun, when the earth shook and they saw the moon."

The Calendar and the Moon

All of this I have addressed in an earlier chapter. The page obviously relates to the event of 2349 BC, with the references to the "growth" of the Sun (what was seen of the primary plasmoid in the east), the nine secondary plasmoids seen above Central America and later in East Asia (abundant suns), the introduction of a new calendar (but not the Haab), the disappearance of the Sun as the axis of the Earth tilted, the burning edge of the "sea" (the Absu), the radiant heat felt on Earth, and the first appearance of the Moon, following an Earth shock.

"And then came the Beetle gods, the dishonest ones, those who put sin among us, those who were the mud of the earth. ('It was Ix-Tziu-nene who introduced sin among us, the slaves of the land when he came.')"

The "Beetle Gods" must be equivalent to the "swarming of butterflies" mentioned in Book 10 of the Chilam Balam (also in reference to 2349 BC). This is probably portions of the dust of the Absu coalescing into larger entities and moving about or falling to Earth. Roys suggests that "Ix-Tziu-nene" is a woman ("Ix") of the "Tziu" family, but offers that on the basis that this page is a continuation of the history of the Itza of the previous page. He also notes that "nene" translates as "mirror."

This last makes it look more like a reference to the Moon, which is feminine among the Maya. Thus it might be suggested that we are here dealing with a celestial being (or apparition) and not with a lady of the Tziu family. Ix-Tziu-nene is probably the Moon. The Moon, in fact, has been the only Goddess ever to appear among the Maya (although other minor goddesses were added after the invasion). "Ix" (a feminine prefix) would thus be appropriate, despite the fact that the Moon is here referred to as "he." The "mirror" would also be appropriate.

The "sin," I need not point out again, is plasma in glow mode, or long distance lightning among the rings. Further below this is equated with arrows.

"When they came, the Katun was ending. 'The Cursed Katun' was that which was ordered. 'Speak carefully, thus are the gods of this land!'"

"When the time of the next Katun commenced, and the Katun in which the dishonest ones were brought ended, the multitude of their warriors was seen. And they began to kill them. And they erected gallows so they would die."

I'll address the "gallows" and the "warriors" further below.

The Question of Dates

The question of dates for the 2349 BC event remains unresolved. As I pointed out earlier, the Maya source for Book 10 moved the event to a Katun 9-Ahau for the sake of establishing that the day of the "third creation" had fallen on a "Day of Kan" which fell on an equivalent Gregorian date of July 26th. We would hope that the present page would clarify this, but it does not. Of some interest is the fact that these events seem to have happened near the end of a Katun -- if that can be read from the text. In standard chronology, the events of 2349 BC should have been experienced near the end of Katun 4-Ahau, 1.19.0.0.0 (using the accepted method of retrocalculation). But the next Katun which is listed (see below) is 11-Ahau, 2.2.0.0.0, which could only follow Katun 13-Ahau. This is 80 years after Katun 4-Ahau. The problem with the date of the 2349 BC event is addressed in the previous chapter on Book 10 of the Chilam Balam.

The "multitude of warriors" must be celestial, and represent some aspect of the falling Absu. The "killing" repeats the action of parallel legends in India, the Levant, and Egypt. Killing was assumed on the basis of the amount of "blood" seen in the sky.

The Gallows

The "gallows" is what Book 10 describes as the "timber planted at the crossroads" -- the plume of plasma suddenly developing at the South Pole of Earth and extending probably some 20,000 miles (30,000 km) into the part of the Earth's magnetosphere away from the Sun. The bend in this, which would be seen rotating nightly as the view of the sky changed because of the rotation of the Earth, would be enough to mark it as a gallows.

"And Ox-halal-chan began to shoot them with arrows. And the gods of the country began to be evoked. And their blood spilled and they were seized by the Lords of the Deer and then they were astonished and their war ended"

Note, first of all, that warfare in Mesoamerica did not use bows and arrows. Bows were only used by hunters (and in executions by the Toltecs). This reiterates the fact that we are looking at lightning across the remaining rings of the Absu. The same is noted in Chinese legend -- that the nine additional suns were shot down with arrows.

Roys translates Ox-halal-chan as "Chan of the three arrows." A description seems to continue a few sentences further below. More blood is spilled there. And notice that the "Lords of the Deer" are invoked here as agents, which could refer to my earlier suggestion that Uuc-yol-zip should be identified as the Moon.

"The Eleventh Ahau Katun is seated on his mat, sits on his throne. There his voice is raised, there his nobility manifests. The face of their god emits rays."

"Leaves come down from the sky, flowered arches come down from the sky. Celestial is their perfume. Music sounds, the tambourines announce the Eleventh Ahau. He enters at dusk and happily covers the sun with his canopy, the sun that there is in Sulim chan [wet serpent], the sun in Chikinputun [Chakanputun, Sabana-de-chiles]. Trees will be eaten, stones will be eaten, all sustenance will be lost within the Eleventh Ahau Katun."

This seems to continue the exploits of Ox-halal-chan, "Chan of the three arrows." The leaves and "flowered arches" coming down from the sky, plus the perfumed air (the smell of alcohol in the Eastern Mediterranean region), only suggest a continued disassembly of the rings of the Absu. Music sounding like tambourines seems like the constant crackle of particulate matter from the Absu falling into and exploding in the atmosphere or ionosphere. This, by the way, is the only mention of something akin to cometary showers, but of course it was only heard at latitudes close to the equator.

Covering the Sun, now traveling in the "wet serpent" of the remaining ring of the Absu, with a canopy of nightfall is an interesting notion. Before this time the night would always have been partially lighted by the Sun-lit Absu. After 2349 BC true darkness was first experienced. Since "he" enters at dusk, "he" is likely a planet. I would suggest Jupiter, but the text could be referring to the Moon.

The quotation ends, typically, with warnings of dire starvation conditions.

Endnotes

Note 1--

Estimates are that the cup and tail marks extend from remote times to about 20,000 years before the present. Thus the classical Venus figurines of the European Gravettian interrupt the series of cup and tail marks. Since the figurines reappear in the Magdalenian period, starting about 17,000 years ago (although they now look elongated and distorted), it could be suggested that for an extended period of time, perhaps something on the order of 10,000 years, Saturn's orbit took it away from periodically being close enough to Earth to have the Saturnian planets observed individually.

The text of the Chilam Balam does not clearly define two differing periods and two differing "looks" for Venus figurines or the Saturnian stack (in the Gravettian and the Magdelenian). It is thus possible that the Olmec record only starts at this intermediate period after the Gravettian.
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Note 2--

The number "7" does have metaphorical meaning in signifying the filling up of a counting board register, as described later in the endnotes. But since "7" is here used by itself and is not presented as part of some compound poetic trope, I think it exactly represents seven occurrences.
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Note 3--

The intervals found from the plot of fractional global radio-carbon since 50,000 bp, shown below, suggests 500- to 4000-year intervals between electrical contacts with Saturn.

From these a range of orbital parameters can be derived from Kepler's third law, (T1/T2)^2 = (R1/R2)^3, by setting T1 equal to one year (for Earth) and setting R1 equal to one AU (for Earth).

The formula then reduces to finding the cube root of the square of the period.

The "fraction" of the total orbital period is, as before, determined by (2*pi*100*AU/2) / (2*pi*{radius}*AU). From this the time in the Solar System is estimated from {fraction}*{period}. This is a very rough estimate. The actual time that Saturn would be seen by humans would only be a fraction of the "years within the Solar System" -- the time that Saturn spent closing in on the Sun. 


 Possible period and orbital radius for Saturn in the Paleolithic
    period          orbit radius        fraction      years within
    (years)             (AU)            of period     Solar System

    4000 years         252 AU            .1984         793 yrs
    2000               160               .3125         625
    1000               100               .5000         500
     500                63               .7936         397

Of the values for a period listed above, 4000 year seems the most likely, if the time span is 41,000 BC to about 12,000 BC, which is 29,000 years. Dividing 29,000 by 7 results in a period of 4142 years.
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Note 4--

Although the text might imply that Saturn appeared regularly, the graph of changes in the Carbon-14 level over the last 50,000 years holds otherwise.

[Image: Fractional global radio-carbon since 50,000 bp]
[Image: Fractional global radio-carbon since 50,000 bp.
After Firestone; from A.H.L. Voelker(1998).]

The peaks of 41,000 bp (#1), 34,000 bp (#3), and 13,000 bp (#7, the last peak) produced not only Carbon-14 spikes, but also radioactive residue and magnetic anomalies. All the peaks of Carbon-14 spikes suggest interactions with Saturn. At 41,000 bp, the megafauna of Australia disappeared, and a magnetic anomaly was experienced (as pointed out in Chapter 9, "Events of the Younger Dryas"). At 13,000 bp (10,900 BC) the megafauna of North America disappeared, followed soon by similar losses everywhere else. I did not mark 12,900 BC (the last peak at 10,900 BC), for it was apparently not distinguished by the Olmecs. This last peak became the starting point for a telling of the darkness, which eventually resulted in creation. So this peak was not one of the series of seven failed attempts by God to come into being.

Since the peak previous to 41,000 bp is nearly 8,000 years earlier, the cataclysmic event of 41,000 bp may mark the start of record keeping. But 34,000 bp may be more meaningful. It represents one of the two largest cataclysms, but at an unknown location. And it is also followed soon (29,000 bp) with the first decorated caves in Southern France and Northern Spain. It also matches the dates of the start of the first lithic blade industry (the Châtelperronian), much more advanced than the 300,000-year-old Mousterian tool tradition of the Neanderthals and earliest Cro-Magnon. That is true in Southwestern Europe. A Mousterian lithic industry existed in the Americas also.
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Note 5--

The dates of 8000 to 7000 BC for the first appearance of maize are from stratigraphic estimates made in the 1960s and 1970s. Carbon-14 dates for maize reach only to 3500 BC. Plant domestication worldwide first occurs independently in about 8000 BC in China (millet) and in Anatolia (wheat), where it is noted as "in development" as early as 9000 BC. But then, the Levant and Anatolia are better studied archaeologically than most other areas of the world.

Both the domestication of grains and the domestication of sheep and goats in the Levant might very well have been hedges against starvation during the dark and cold period of the Younger Dryas. But with the improved (if displaced) climate after 9000 BC, the lure of scavenging and hunting returned. Hunting is a lot less work than agriculture, and more fun if there is game. Sheep herding spread west into Greece, Italy, and Spain -- dry regions with little game. In Italy and Spain the cultivation of grains did not take hold until much later.

The domestication of a variety of plants probably took place during the Younger Dryas in Southeast Asia, West Africa, Ethiopia, the Andes, and the Amazon, but in none of these places is it clearly noted in the archaeological record until after 3100 BC, at which time agriculture might have been the only choice for a livelihood.
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Note 6--

Of the seven stones, only for four is it actually remarked that they received their divinity. The first and second and the fourth and fifth.
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Note 7--

The oldest Olmec archaeological site is along the Pacific coast. This suggests that the Olmecs abandoned the coast of the Caribbean after the flood of 3147 BC, and settled on the Pacific. The Pacific site of Monte Alto, a ceremonial center established circa 2000 BC, was abandoned by 1440 or earlier. The abandonment was likely the result of the Pacific ocean impact of 1492 BC, but may also have been a reaction to the worldwide climatic downturn. The next ceremonial center was established along the Caribbean again, at San Lorenzo, in 1367 BC. As if there was still a lingering apprehension of immense ocean tides, the San Lorenzo ceremonial center was located far from the ocean and high up on a manmade mound which would have taken massive efforts to construct.
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Note 8--

Let me introduce the methods of computation used by Mesoamerica for counting and calculations. These are based on the binary manipulation of numbers in base-5 and base-20.

Nexus Tzacol (Reuben McDavid) of Project Ahau, originally at fortunecity.com/tattooine/replicant/29/, claims that, at the time of the Spanish invasion, a 3x3 checkerboard was in use by the Maya to do calculations. McDavid, however, gives no indication of its operation.

A 3x3 board certainly is a very small space. But it becomes believable when it is realized that the calculation in effect replicates the operation of an abacus, a calculating instrument based on base-5 and base-10. But unlike an abacus, the special rules for moving tokens from one square to another of the 3x3 board are very simple.

I will outline addition of base-5 and base-20 numbers on this 3x3 checkerboard, using only one or two markers per square. Subtraction would be similar.

Each row of the 3x3 board has to be augmented with a second space (perhaps as the lower part of any row), where the sums reached with calculations of the main space can accumulate. The main space of a row is thus used for calculations; the second space accumulates values which can be bumped to the next register (the next row of the 3x3 board) -- as needed.

[Image: Maya 3x3 counting board]
[Image: Maya 3x3 counting board. Main area is used for addition, inset areas accumulate counts. Values for token positions are shown. Illustration by J. Cook.]

Let me now introduce the calculation area of the top row of the board. Here we are counting in units of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 -- except that on reaching 5 we will advance the count to the accumulation area of the same row, which will count 5's.

The spaces of the calculation area of the first row of the 3x3 board can have a count value, left to right, of 1, 2, and 4. The tokens thus actually represent a binary count. I point this out because it will also hold for all greater values of numbers -- 5's, 20's, 100's, 400's, and 2000's.

The top level of the first row thus can represent 1, 2, 3 (which is 1 plus 2), and 4. I'll use parenthesis () for the tokens, square brackets [] for the multipliers, and curly brackets {} for the values. The placed tokens thus are, in order: 

        (1 0 0)  value of {1}
        (0 1 0)  value of {2}
        (1 1 0)  value of {3}
        (0 0 1)  value of {4}
        (1 0 1)  value of {5}

As a binary representation we could also represent the values of five (1 0 1), six (0 1 1), and 7 (1 1 1), but the values higher than five are of no interest in these calculations.

The rules for addition are simple: When any square holds two tokens, they are replaced by one token on the next square to the right -- which has double the value of the previous square. The operation is entirely similar to abacus usage: tokens can accumulate at a particular square, and be moved (carried to a higher value) when convenient.

The one additional rule to be invoked is that when five (1 0 1) is reached in the calculation space of a row, these tokens are removed, and one token is placed in the first square of the accumulation space of a row, which counts accumulated 5s. We could simply call this "the rule" or the (1 0 1) rule. It is marked (where applicable) below. 

(1 0 1) becomes (0 0 0) - units (upper level)
                (1 0 0) - fives (lower level)

The 5s register (the accumulation space of the top row) accumulates value in the same manner: anytime there are two tokens on a square, they are replaced by a single token in the next (right) square. The 5s register thus counts 1-five, 2-fives, and 4-fives. But it can also hold values of 5-fives, 6-fives, and 7-fives -- to be moved as convenient.

Recognize that the 4-fives count (the third square) has a value of 20, which is the next higher value in Maya enumeration.

There is no 1-0-1 rule for the accumulation space of a row. When a value of 20 is reached (4-fives -- which is one token in the third space) it can be moved to a next row of the 3x3 board, which will count 20's. So far we have: 

 Multipliers of each row:
row 1 calculation:  [1 2 4] -- units, {1 2 4} 
row 1 accumulation: [1 2 4] -- 5's, {5 10 20} 
row 2 calculation:  [1 2 4] -- 20's, {20 40 80}

Notice that the third line above, the 20's, which is the calculation space of the second row, will not progress in an orderly manner unless we again invoke the 1-0-1 rule. So, when five of the 20's (1 0 1) is reached, {20 0 80}, the tokens are removed and replaced with a token in the calculation register of the next row, which counts 100s. Now we have: 

  first row:
upper [1 2 4] -- {1 2 4} (rule)
lower [1 2 4] -- 5's, {5 10 20}
  second row:
upper [1 2 4] -- 20's, {20 40 80} (rule)
lower [1 2 4] -- 100's, {100 200 400}

And adding the third set of counting squares: 

  third row:
upper [1 2 4] -- 400's, {400 800 1600} (rule)
lower [1 2 4] -- 2000's, {2000 4000 8000}

Am I on the right track? After developing this 3x3 addition method, I checked back with Nexus Tzacol's website, and ran into a quotation of Bishop Landa from Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan (AD 1590), which reads:

"Their counting is 5 by 5 until 20 and 20 by 20 until 100, and 100 by 100 until 400, and 400 by 400 until 8,000, and this count was used for the cocoa trading. ... They count on the ground."

Georges Ifrah, in The Universal History of Numbers (2000), develops a very similar process using the dot and line notation in a column, where place notation is determined by vertical position. This is identical to the notation used universally among the stelae of the Maya. He notes that the assignment of powers of 20 (the base-20 place notation) was interrupted at the third level, where only 360 units were counted (18 times 20), rather than 400 units (20 times 20), and questions why this was so. Ifrah here confuses counting with the enumeration of the Long Count calendar. Ifrah points out that the fourth place in the place notation would thus have had a value of 20 times 360, or 7200 units. But Landa pointed out that the Maya counted to a value of 8000.
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Note 9--

In a section of Book 10 which is clearly about Saturn, I identify the Bee Gods as the satellites of Saturn. It is little wonder that neither the authors of the Chilam Balam nor anyone else had managed to figure this out, for an enormous amount of time had passed, and the identity of the Bee Gods, who never did anything except buzz around the "hive," had been totally forgotten.

However, I do not think that the singular Bee God invoked here can be identified as a satellite of Saturn since only two Bee Gods are mentioned, one of which is in the north and may represent the terminal globe (Saturn) in the north. A bee in the east I simply cannot identify. It is possible that the south and west bees were simply forgotten in this enumeration, and that additional bees should have been part of the directional inventory which is being listed here.
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Note 10--

The translation by Roys is as follows:

. . . when our rulers increased in numbers, according to the words of their priest to them. Then they introduced the drought. That which came was a drought, according to their words, when the hoofs [of the animals] burned, when the seashore burned, a sea of misery.

So it was said on high, so it was said. Then the face of the sun was eaten; [4] then the face of the sun was darkened; then its face was extinguished.

They were terrified on high, when it burned at the word of their priest to them, when the word of our ruler was fulfilled at the word of their priest to them. Then began the idea of painting the exterior of the sun. [5] When they heard of that, they saw the moon.

Then came the rulers of the land. It was Ix-Tziu-nene [6] who introduced sin to us, the slaves of the land, [7] when he came. Then the law [8] of the Katun, the divination of the Katun shall be fulfilled. When he was brought, what was your command, you, the rulers of the land?

Then the law of another Katun was introduced, at the end of the Katun when Ix-Tziu-nene was brought. Whereupon a numerous army was seen, and they began to be killed. Then a thing of terror was constructed, a gallows for their death.

Now began the archery [9] of Ox-halal Chan. [10] Then the rulers of the land were called. Their blood flowed, and it was taken by the archers. [11] They were terrified . . . the time when the Katun ended for them . .

Roys's Footnotes:

Calculations are in Unix bc notation, where ^ denotes exponentiation; the functions a(rctangent), s(ine), and c(osine) use radians; angle conversions to radians or degrees by the divisors rad=.017+ and deg=57.2+; other functions are shown as f( ); tan( )=s( )/c( )
units: million == 1,000,000; billion == 1,000,000,000;
AU == 93,000,000 miles.

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