The 2012 Story

in my book Galactic Alignment, and it was mentioned by Joseph Campbell in his 1963 book The Flight of the Wild Gander.)

^{What the galactic alignment is not: the sinusoidal orbit of our solar system above and below the galactic midplane over some 250 million years. Graphic courtesy of Jim Reed}

MEET WAXAKLAHUN UB’AH K’AWIL

In the summer of 2007, Jim Reed and I led our second tour to Maya sites. Our group consisted of twenty-two hardy souls of all ages, and our plan was ambitious. We convened in Guatemala City, visited museums, and then struck out for Honduras to visit the ancient site of Copan. It was a five-hour ride in our chartered bus, driven by a good-natured crew of three Guatemalan guys who constantly helped us load and unload our bags throughout our eight-day adventure. For me, the border we crossed near Chiquimula was layered over with many memories, as I’d passed through it several times since 1988, mostly as an unwashed backpack-toting gringo.

Our group was hosted by Flavia Cueva at her family’s historic San Lucas Hacienda. That evening, Jim and I gave presentations and many locals showed up. It was a beautiful evening, looking over the Copan River with the ruins just visible in the distance under the glittering stars. The next day we visited the site and observed the famous full-round carving of Copan’s eighth-century ruler 18 Rabbit, whose real name is Waxaklahun Ub’ah K’awil. I explained the symbolism on the east and west sides of the carving, one depicting the ruler facing west, over the huge Ak turtle altar. This side, I pointed out, faced the setting of the Ak turtle (located in Gemini) and the three hearthstones of Maya Creation Mythology, where the Milky Way crosses through the ecliptic in Gemini.

And on the other side, the ruler faces east and wears an ornate costume featuring an elaborate crocodile head draped down both sides of his body. It gave the appearance of the ruler standing within the jaws of the crocodile, a vertical pillar of authority growing out of the crocodile’s mouth. I pointed out the glyphs on the side of the carving, indicating the Long Count date of its dedication: 9.14.0.0.0 (December 3, 711 AD). I had noticed that on this date the sun was aligned with the dark rift in the Milky Way, the crocodile mouth rising over the eastern horizon. Clearly, the sky reflected the solar king’s stance within the cosmic maw of transformation and rebirth.⁴¹

People in our group roamed freely, as the Maya temples always draw people in different directions. Nearby, Copan archaeologist William Fash, who wrote Scribes, Warriors and Kings, was leading a tour. That evening we were hosted and surprised with a slide presentation by another Copan archaeologist, David Sedat. He lives in town with his wife and is known for discovering the tomb of the female ruler within the buried Rosalila pyramid. David and I had both appeared in the “Places of Mystery” program produced by the Discovery Channel, and it was a pleasure to have our entire group entertained and informed at his home. Some of us were able to experience a descent into the underworld, at night, with a ritual led by David in his Classic Maya-style pibna, or sweat bath.

^{The Great Plaza at Copan. Photo by the author, 1988}

The next day our group journeyed back to Antigua, where Jim and I gave another presentation at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin. We were hosted by Mary Lou and Jay Ridinger, an amazing couple who, in the 1970s, rediscovered the lost jade quarries of the ancient Maya. They now employ Maya artisans in the making of jade artifacts and jewelry. Mary Lou gave us an inspiring presentation on the Maya jade tradition and how Jades, S.A., revived the lost tradition. I see my friends Mary Lou and Jay as being engaged in an enterprise similar to mine—recovering and reviving a lost facet of the ancient Maya tradition. One encounters endless obstacles, but also breakthroughs. And one discovers, along the way, true friends and allies.

Our group continued into the highlands, visiting the Quiche Maya site of Iximche, market day in Chichicastenango, beautiful Lake Atitlan, and the Maya cult deity Maximon. It was fortunate that, when we explored Izapa’s sister city, Tak’alik Ab’aj, Maya priest Rigoberto Itzep Chanchabac was burning incense and doing ritual in front of Stela 5. The ceremonial feeling of reverence and prayer, making offerings to the sky-earth and the ancestors, was moving. Our own culture rarely provides opportunities to feel deep reverence for life. We were given a brief tour by the site’s archaeologist, Christa Schieber de Lavarreda. She described for us the line of stones they had found that pointed to the center point of the bowl of the Big Dipper in the northern skies. The archaeologists, upon digging deeper, discovered another row of stones, from an earlier era, pointing to a different star in the constellation of Draco. They concluded that the people of Tak’alik Ab’aj were tracking precession and had shifted their cosmology as the skies shifted. This was clear evidence that precession was being noticed and tracked, in an area with close ties in the pre-Classic period to Izapa.

After the tour was over and everyone said their good-byes, I stayed in Antigua because Mary Lou and I planned to strike out for Izapa to meet with local officials and give another presentation. With our friend Baldomero driving, we crossed the border into Mexico in under five hours. Little did I know, but a celebration was planned in the town of Tuxtla Chico, near the archaeological site of Izapa. We first met with Rodolfo Juan, our host, in Tapachula. Time was short, so we immediately went to Izapa, where I gave an impromptu talk at the ballcourt. This was “ground zero of the 2012 prophecy,” I said, “where the future alignment of the solstice sun and the dark rift was encoded into the mythic narrative carved into the monuments.” The next two days were a whirlwind. I was presented with the keys to the city in a formal ceremony in Tuxtla Chico and was made an honorary ambassador of Izapa to the outside world. A press conference happened that evening, and the next day we were front-page news in the Mexican national newspaper. My presentation at the Universidad Valle del Grijalva in Tapachula was well attended, and I was impressed with the students and adults who came out to learn about the astronomical knowledge of the ancient Izapans.

Mary Lou and I were interviewed on a radio program, and I learned of Mam Indians living in the high mountains on the slopes of Tacana volcano, near the border with Guatemala. We had wondered whether any traditional Maya day-keepers lived on the Mexican side. The answer was “a few.” A more precise answer was that a traditional Maya calendar priest wanted to visit Izapa and do ritual, but he didn’t know how to go about acquiring official permission. In Guatemala, the Maya Indians have recently been allowed into the archaeological sites, and altars have even been constructed in front of stelae at Tikal, Tak’alik Ab’aj, Iximche, and elsewhere. In Mexico, however, the old rules still apply—no Indian rituals allowed inside the national parks and archaeological sites. I wondered if Izapa could perhaps squeeze through somehow, as it exists in a marginal zone where local powers might trump federal laws. It was an intriguing possibility but would require some patience and behind-the-scenes string pulling.

The day after my presentation at the university, we needed to return to Antigua. But we visited the site one last time and lingered while locals approached, telling us of carved stones they were finding in the fields. We went to the nearby home of a woman who had an Izapa-style potbellied boy, carved of stone with a shallow bowl in the top. I imagined this to be a stargazing device, similar to the vast rectangular pools in the architecture of Palenque, which scholars realized were filled with placid water so the Palenque stargazers could gaze downward into the underworld of the night sky. Another woman told us of some carved boulders on the slopes of Tacana volcano north of Izapa.

In June of 2009 I was able to visit one of these carved boulders, and I determined that it contained scenes of sacrifice and birth, which very nicely complemented the primary theme found in the Izapan ballcourt. The caiman depicted on this “birth-sacrifice” boulder was carved in the style of Izapa’s Stela 25, which is located in the museum in Tapachula. The caiman is cut in half, sacrificed, with three jagged cuts through its body. Stela 25 depicts Seven Macaw holding Hunahpu’s severed arm. Hunahpu, below Seven Macaw, is missing an arm and three cuts drip blood. The previously undocumented carved boulder in the mountains above Izapa possibly depicts a version of a Creation Text recorded at Palenque, in which a “Starry Deer Crocodile” (the Milky Way) was sacrificed and cut into three parts that became the three levels of the cosmos: underworld, earth, and sky.⁴² The Izapa bioregion itself is divided into three domains: ocean to the south, the narrow plateau on which Izapa sits, and high volcanoes looming in the sky to the north. This tripartite structure is also echoed in the three main monument groups at Izapa. There was clearly more to be discovered in the region of Izapa.