The 2012 Story

does…”

Aveni: “They don’t, but then you start talking about the plane of the galaxy and the center of the Milky Way galaxy… Why do you speak about the center of the galaxy? Would they know that it was the center of the galaxy—it’s perceived as a blanket of stars and gas that goes across the sky.”

JMJ: “Well, there’s evidence that they thought about that part of the galaxy as a center because it’s where the Milky Way crosses over the ecliptic, and crosses symbolize the idea of cosmic center—on thrones and in Maya cosmology in general.”

Aveni: “I suppose, but I don’t see it as an emphatic point in the calendar; we can talk more about that outside.”

As for the ancient Maya conception of the nuclear bulge of the Galactic Center as being, in fact, a center, my “Open Letter to Mayanists and Astronomers” of 1999, which I had posted on the Aztlan discussion board, presented the evidence for this concisely:

Among the modern-day Quiche Maya, the dark-rift is called the xibalba be. This means “road to the underworld.” In the ancient Maya Creation text, the Popol Vuh, this same feature serves as a road to the underworld and is also called the Black Road. Associated iconography with the “underworld portal” concept includes caves, monster mouths, and birthing portals…. This demonstrates that the Maya understood the region of the Galactic Center as a source-point or birth place. The cross formed by the Milky Way with the ecliptic near Sagittarius has been identified at Palenque, among the Quiche and Chorti Maya, and elsewhere as the Mayan Sacred Tree. In the Popol Vuh, it is the Crossroads. The cross symbol, according to accepted epigraphic and iconographic interpretation (e.g., on thrones), denotes the concept of “center” and usually contextually implies a “cosmic” or “celestial” center. The concept of “cosmic center” and the principle of world-centering was important to Mesoamerican astronomers, city planners, and Maya kings—kings who symbolically occupied and ruled from the “cosmic center.” Thus, the Maya, via the Sacred Tree/Cosmic Cross symbology, understood the region of the Galactic Center to be a center. Center and birthplace—understandings that are true to the Galactic Center’s nature.⁶³

I had one more important point to make.

JMJ: “Okay, but one last thing—do you think that when the Long Count was first put in place, say 2,200 years ago, did those sky-watchers have the kind of astronomical sophistication to have a really good estimate for the tropical year, because they would have had to.”

Aveni: “I think that they did; they certainly could have. They were working toward an understanding of the haab (365-day year) and I think, and I’ve written about this in Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico (first edition), that they probably were aware of the slow drift or movement of the stars against the background at the horizon, although I think there’s no way you can assume awareness of a 26,000-year cycle.”

My own theory, in its basic form, doesn’t require that they were aware of the full 26,000-year cycle. However, both MacLeod’s work with the 3-11 Pik formula in the inscriptions and Michael Grofe’s work on the Serpent Series provide evidence for an accurate knowledge of long-range precessional intervals. But Aveni skimmed over brief mentions of their work. They are nothing more than “a coincidence with the numerology of 72 years.” He believes those intervals and dates were probably relevant as stations but “doesn’t get” MacLeod’s connection of those precessional stations to the base date. Okay, progress—he simply doesn’t understand what MacLeod has found.

My turn was up and he went on to other audience questions. It should be pretty clear that Aveni’s comments are well presented, but he didn’t really offer a serious consideration of the evidence that 2012 was meaningful to the ancient Maya, and that meaning revolves around the alignment of the solstice sun with the dark rift. That’s the bare-bones scenario. Perhaps a public talk is not the appropriate place for such information, although that’s what the Tulane 2012 conference organizers promised.

I followed up on his invitation to speak with him “outside” on Sunday, during the break in the panel discussion session. His gregarious nature made it difficult to have a calm conversation, and he began getting upset when I talked about the unique nature of the Izapan ballcourt’s alignment to the solstice horizon. He was, however, very generous in offering me the citation for the article he published on solstice alignments at Izapa and other pre- Classic sites, called “Water, Mountain, Sky.”

After the conference I went to Tulane’s library and found it in an obscure volume, and xeroxed it. Sure enough, he had been to Izapa in 1990 and measured the horizon orientation. He had the hard data on Izapa and other sites, and concluded that a solstice-oriented calendrical cosmology was prevalent during the pre-Classic in southern Mesoamerica. And, it should be added, these solstice-oriented sites belonged to the Isthmian cultural sphere that gave rise to the earliest Long Count dates. He stated specifically that the ballcourt was aligned to the solstice.⁶⁴ His data corresponded well with my own data and measurements.⁶⁵ It is important to now have the published measurement data to refer to, but his observation that Izapa was oriented to the solstice is, after all, implied in the maps from the Brigham Young University studies.⁶⁶ His data nevertheless lend support to my work, especially in consideration of the unique arrangement of monuments in the Izapan ballcourt.

I have said for years that scholars mistrusted my own measurements and observations at the site, and that no one seemed to have previously noted it. Aveni apparently did in 1990, but his paper wasn’t published until 2000, two years after my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 was published. He began his essay with a statement I really liked, which implies a sensitivity to taking into account the entire environment, including astronomy, when interpreting the conceptual factors that the ancient Maya embraced when designing their towns: “Much of Mesoamerican ceremonial architecture is interpretable as an ideological ‘text’ that makes manifest in the work of humankind the observed principles of cosmic order that the people acted out in their religious temples.”⁶⁷ If this attitude was carefully applied to Izapa’s monuments, and how they are oriented to solstices, volcanoes, and celestial features (which are indeed part of the “environment”), Aveni would see that my work is based in the same interpretive strategy that he subscribes to.

My overall experience of the conference was very positive. I can’t recount all the personal discussions with the Tedlocks, Harvey Bricker, Matthew Looper, David Stuart, and other speakers; it was abuzz with intriguing and exciting ideas. Dennis Tedlock answered my correlation question in no uncertain terms with full-throttle support for the December 21 correlation, saying, “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if Lounsbury hadn’t made that mistake.”⁶⁸

I met in person many students and scholars I’d not met before, including Carl Calloway, Matthew Looper, Mark Van Stone, Lloyd Anderson, John Justeson, Marguerite Paquin, Marc Zender, Allan Christiansen, and David Stuart. I was heartened by the efforts they had made to understand Maya civilization, and I realized that a great deal of progress and new discoveries have happened in the last ten years. I’d been a bit out of the loop with the new information, and realized I needed to renew my studies, and what I would find would likely lend new support for my end-date alignment theory.

This new support would come sooner than I thought. Probably the most important meeting I had at the conference was with Michael Grofe. I’ve mentioned that Barbara MacLeod, Michael, and I had been in e-mail and phone communication for almost a year, working out the details on a documentary concept. It now seemed clear that I had allies that were willing to entertain the possibility that the solstice 2012 placement, as well as the end- date alignment, was not a coincidence. I was impressed with Michael’s PhD dissertation, in which he had courageously mentioned my work. To do this in a dissertation was probably not advisable, as my work is generally cast aside by scholars. However, he treated my ideas fairly and accurately, and offered an entire reconstruction of the Serpent Series numbers, showing precessional calculations of great accuracy. This was really good breakthrough scholarship. Other essays he sent me were equally compelling, rigorous, and insightful. Barb and Michael’s open-minded attitudes have rekindled my confidence after many years of misunderstandings, plagiarism, and time-wasting debates.

Something happened after my meeting with Michael Grofe at the Tulane conference, and I began to suspect there might be another way of deciphering references to 2012. I scanned my astronomy software, looked at other dates recorded at Tortuguero, and exchanged e-mails with Michael. Together we started finding patterns, and within a few weeks a truly unsuspected vindication of my work unfolded. Beyond any sense of personal satisfaction,