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KEN MOSS ON MAYA COSMOS & SATURN CONFIGURATION
* Asterisks indicate possible clues about the history or nature of the polar configuration.
1. (5,000-3000 BC?) The DARK AGE
2. (3,000-2,500 BC?) The GOLDEN AGE
2.3. (2,500 BC?) PANGAEA BREAKUP EVENT
The following are highlights of his Aeon article.
Maya Cosmos: A Saturnian Interpretation (Part II)
_From: Aeon VI:3 (Nov 2002) Ken Moss
_This essay is a continuation of my earlier paper about Maya beliefs of former world ages (creations) and some very specific imagery concerning those times, such as their sun gods and World Trees.[1] Freidel, Schele, and Parker's Maya Cosmos forms the major source of this essay, as it brings together some of the latest findings of Mayanists combined with excellent illustrative material. From this, it has been possible to augment what has become known as the Saturnian, or Polar, Configuration model. ... Besides the three planetary deities there was, at times, a mysterious structure that seemed to link them and Earth together. This was the polar column, variously referred to in myths as the axis mundi, or World Tree.[5] Its exact scientific nature is unknown but current theorists claim it may have been a huge tornado-like structure, a Rankine vortex (especially between Mars and the Earth) or entwined electrical structures of sustained Birkeland currents (especially between Mars, Venus, and Saturn). A Rankine vortex, as elucidated by Frederic Jueneman,[6] may have stretched between Earth and a north polar-positioned Mars. Developed from the "synchronous rotation and mutual attraction of the pair," various forces would have combined to produce an enormous tornado-like vortex that eventually extended upward into space towards Mars. The vortex would have contained "atmospheric gases and debris" and exhibited many of the electrical and mechanical effects that are found encoded in myths of the column. Such aspects as "colossal lightning discharges," "precipitous cooling," "a pillar of fire," and a huge range of interesting "acoustic tumult" would have been possible. All of this, and more, would have taken place within the column which could have *contained a blue core of "exquisite brilliance ... encased in a pale green envelope." This, then, could explain the ancients' "choice of precious minerals" such as "turquoise, lapis-lazuli, and even jade."
_The Olmec.
_Although our main focus will be concerned with the mythology of the Maya, a short preface about the Olmec civilization is in order. After all, "[t]he Olmecs were the first people in Mesoamerica to create a codified religious universe that we can recognize today through the surviving art."[8] The Olmec, from roughly 1500 to 400 B.C., are regarded as the precursors to the Maya who obtained and carried forward a great number of their most distinctive beliefs, rituals, and even construction techniques, which most people tend to attribute to the Maya themselves. ... One final Olmec artefact is the life size figure (Figure 4) which was found on top of the largest volcano in the area, San Martín Pajapán. This volcano apparently stood in for the Olmec's mountain of creation and the figure is said to represent either a ruler or god wearing a headdress decorated with a cleft-headed god and a maize plant. According to the insights of Olmec specialist Kent Reilly: "... this god is grasping the trunk of the World Tree, ready to lift it into an upright position. Like the Maya First Father[Maize God/Saturn], the Creator of the Olmec cosmological imagery raised the sky away from the earth by setting the World Tree upright."[14] By observing the position of the hands, one can see that it will be the quadripartite end that will be on top once it is raised up. If one could obtain a view of the split end of the Tree, I would not be surprised that it would look like a quincunx, or similar four-petalled flower-symbol, that we have already identified as a sign for the Saturnian sun. In a perhaps not too fanciful mood, I see in this *Olmec "doughboy" a personification of the configuration at the time of its dissolution. The lower head is the planet Mars. It is so close to Earth at this time that its moons, Phobos and Deimos, have been portrayed as earrings. *Above Mars is a prominent, maned Venus (in its comet-like phase), fierce and threatening Earth with destruction. Lastly, on top is a very distant, quartered, and vegetal, Saturn, already leaving us far behind. (If Wallace Thornhill is correct, Saturn was "pulled" toward the sun once it came within its influence, and this led to Saturn "running away" from the other smaller, less massive planets, even though simultaneously creating their linear configuration.)[15] Perhaps this statue reflects not the placing up of the World Tree but, rather, the desperate hope that it would be re-established.
_The Big Picture.
_To begin our journey, we zero in on a building in Chich'en Itza constructed in the twilight of Classic Maya kingdoms (Figure 5). It is the Upper Temple of the Jaguars and it is chock full of Saturnian imagery. *It shows the nested concentric circles - Saturn, Venus and Mars - of the early Saturnian age, along with feathered serpents looping over them (Venus in its later "cometary" phase). At the top there is the quartered Saturnian shield images of this same time. It depicts three entwined feathered serpent bands, relating to a later aspect of the configuration, encircling the building (forming linked "eyes"). ... Itzam Yeh (Seven Macaw, of the Popul Vuh), the bird avatar of Itzamna, the sun god (or the planet Saturn, according to this study), is at the top of the World Tree [polar column]. *The column of the configuration is like a tree trunk with a twisting vine wrapped around it, but with many other colourful objects swirling around. At the base of the column the celestial dragon (is it Venus or Mars?) reaches down to threaten Earth with finger-like roots. ... _The centre one of the three shown in the accompanying diagram includes a *Mesoamerican version of the Chinese yin-yang symbol within its disk, most likely a motif from the time when Venus and Mars "chased" each other around the column and in front of Saturn's face, as seen from Earth. ... One more general image of what the configuration may have looked like is that found on a special pot (see Figure 11) that Friedel, et al., call the "Pot of the Seven Gods." ... As Friedel, et al., state: "this remarkable vase begins with the Calendar Round date 4 Ahau 8 Kumk'u, assuring us that *we are, in fact, seeing the Creation."[18] The key phrases here are "to bring into existence," "to put into order," and "black (is) its center." "Remember that in these first moments of Creation the sky is still lying down on the face of the earth, so that there is no light. The black background of this vase is meant to express that darkness."[19]
_Mats.
_ *The mat was the undisputed symbol of authority and rulership in the Maya world. ... *It was, in my opinion, the entwined, woven nature of the configuration between the planetary gods that was preserved in the mat symbol. Through millennia, the mat retained its divine significance, and this power was taken over by, and used to legitimise, the earthly rulers' authority. As an aside, *the mat was important to another, even more ancient, culture - that of Egypt. As Marie Parsons relates: "From predynastic times as Petrie discovered, and probably earlier still, offerings were made to the gods and to deceased persons on small mats of woven reeds."[44] ... We know the Maya were aware of [Saturn] since *many of their monuments and ritual accession dates directly tie in with conjunctions of Saturn with other planets.[48] So ... if the Maya could see Saturn in the present sky, why would they not have seen it in the past when all the other planetary deities filled so prominent a place in their daily lives? The answer, of course, is simple. The planet Saturn, together with its gods and avatars, was the god of the Maya as it was with all early peoples but it was referred to as a sun. I would venture to say that most of the Mayan sun gods, creation gods, and gods of the Otherworld - virtually all the most important gods - actually reflect the planet Saturn at the time when it was Earth's polar sun. ... *A new identification, that Plumed Serpent/Quetzalcoatl was actually Saturn, was convincingly offered by Dwardu Cardona some years ago ....[49] And yet, to complicate the picture, ... near the end of the Popol Vuh [he] is presented as though he was a human ancestor of the Maya. Plumed Serpent's actions, however, clearly demarcate it as a planetary god. "... [On different occasions] Lord Plumed Serpent ... would climb up to the sky ... he would go down the road to ... (the Otherworld) ... he would [become] an actual serpent ... he would make himself aquiline, [or] feline; he would become like an actual eagle or a jaguar in his appearance [or he] would be a pool of blood.... The answer to Plumed Serpent's identity may [have] been applied to all three planets in the Saturnian configuration at different times, and might even have referred to the entire configuration at other times.
_Nets.
_Figure 18 shows a pier (pillar) painting from House D at Palenque depicting king Pakal dancing with a woman. He holds an axe in one hand and a rearing snake in the other. "[T]he dancers wear the *net costumes of First Father and First Mother, the deities whose actions enabled the final Creation and the birth of all the gods."[37] ... In Part I, I outlined the Popol Vuh story concerning Seven Macaw, the Cosmic Bird, the avian avatar of Itzamna. As I indicated there, it is my belief that this god stood for Saturn since *Seven Macaw was specifically identified by the Maya as the "false sun" of the previous creation prior to the rising of the present Sun and moon. I return to him here because of his wife Chimalmat. Popol Vuh translator Dennis Tedlock states that Chimalmat's Nahua name means "shield net."[42] The planet of the Saturnian configuration that is depicted in world myths as having been female while associated with a shield is Venus.[43] Chimalmat fits this role precisely. As the planet that radiates a shield pattern across the face of Saturn, Venus was considered by many ancient peoples as the consort of the foremost deity, the "sun" god, Saturn. *Later in time, when the intertwined column made its appearance, and Venus took up a separate position between Saturn and Mars, "she" was mythologized in a positive sense as a weaver of nets or, negatively, as being caught in the "net" of the Martian warrior hero. ... While the two topics of mats and nets might not appear downright convincing, the following tidbit should strengthen the case. According to Miller and Taube, *the earliest so far discovered Mesoamerican archaeological remains showing "concrete evidence of complex religious activity" have been found in the Tehuacan Valley of Puebla in the arid highlands of southern Mexico. "Excavations ... have uncovered two groups of human burials dating to approximately the 6th millennium BC. Wrapped in blankets and nets, the bodies were also accompanied by baskets. Some of these individuals were burned and partly dismembered, perhaps as an early form of ceremonial cannibalism. Although the actual significance of this ritual mutilation remains to be established, these Tehuacan burials clearly demonstrate an early concern and belief in the afterlife."[44] To repeat, the earliest known burials from this region contain three man-made objects and they are all woven materials - blankets, nets and baskets. Why would such common utilitarian goods be thought important enough to leave as final gifts to the departed?
_Crosses And Mirrors.
_"The Maya cross symbolized the world tree, the axis mundi, and was personified (which surely indicated that it had an inner soul) and clothed (in jewels and mirrors), and had a spiritual relationship to supernatural ancestors... Crosses and trees played central roles in the Maya vision from the earliest material manifestation of their symbol system until today."[45] One should not be surprised with that since the Saturnian configuration provided many kinds of crosses. At the radiant Venus stage, a four-armed cross appeared on the disk of Saturn.[46] *Saturn, with its rings and crescent at the top of the polar column, could look like a T cross or ankh. Later still, when Venus and Mars descended towards Earth, with interplanetary material twisting about, a tree-like structure seems to have appeared. Today, in the Yucatan, crosses are usually painted green and called "Our Mother." In Chiapas they are blue or green, decorated with pine tree tops and called, "Our Father." We find here the Father/Mother dualism noted earlier. The Maya classify blue and green as the same colour and it is associated with the centre of the world. "We now know that *the first act of Creation was to center the world by placing the [three] stones of the cosmic hearth. *The second {act} was to raise the sky, establish the sides and the corners of the cosmic house that is the sky. ... In addition to a general tree shape, coloured blue or green, the physical appearance of the structure was often said to be mirror-like. These characteristics have been maintained throughout Mesoamerican history. Ancient Maya crosses, like the famous Palenque World Tree images housed in buildings the Spanish called Temple of the Cross and Temple of the Foliated Cross, were often "outlined with reflective mirrors, and they wear jade necklaces and loincloths as if they were living beings... Modern Christian-Maya crosses ... too are considered to be living beings." ... Note that the twisted nature of the polar column is recalled in the cross-hatched net design at the base of the cross. The ubiquitous quincunx figure, that goes all the way back to the Olmec, stood for the four cardinal directions and the centre, the navel of the universe. *But, over time, "the quincunx symbol was replaced by the cross all over Mesoamerica." ... Mirrors, often decorated with net patterns (at least at Teotihuacan), conveyed god-like power because *Saturn and the configuration, the polar column, had a mirror-like quality at one stage. I presume this reflective quality was due either to water or ice crystals in the atmosphere of proto-Saturn or another compound with similar properties. *The twisted column between the Earth and Mars almost certainly contained water that was drawn up from Earth's seas by the polar vortex atop the World Mountain.[50] The Popol Vuh actually contains a remembrance of this era and the place where the first tribal kings of the Maya gained their authority. ... It was done at the boundary of Mirror Side."[51] *The northern sky must have been a tremendous sight with its cosmic blue-green tree of brilliant shimmering light.
_Cosmic monster.
_There is nothing substantive about the Milky Way, or the continuous routine motion of planets, that even hints at *themes of monsters and blood sacrifice {which mainstream mythologists assume is what the myths represented}. Instead, this figure probably represents the time near the end of the configuration when Venus was in its cometary, dragon-like phase and its tail of debris appeared to link it with Saturn, the old sun. Support for this view comes from the comet-like design of the three Cauac signs on the creature's body and the fact that they signify both day and sacred stones. They are commonly found on the body of the Witz Monster which is "the symbol of the living mountain," understood here as the World Mountain. Additionally, in Maya iconography, "the World Tree often emerges from behind the rear head[Saturn] of the Cosmic Monster. The front head [Venus] of the same creature can be depicted as its roots."[58] ... Figure 27. Netted Jaguar. In the words of Miller and Taube, "this poorly understood entity is a jaguar covered with interlaced cords, resembling a net." In addition to the entwined cords, this unusual jaguar (again, an animal often associated with sun gods) also has feathers at the back of its head and along the back, legs, and tail. The dripping object below the lolling tongue is a human heart, "suggesting a sacrificial role." So here, in this single highly unrealistic image, are details that relate to both the planets Saturn (sun jaguar) and Venus (feathered mane) {and the human heart as Mars?} as well as the corded configuration. *It even links to the post-configuration period when ritual human sacrifice was used to placate the gods
_The Sky Umbilicus.
_Once again, *the black background {of a Mayan object} depicts the time of creation, "the lightless time before First Father raised the sky," before the appearance of the present Sun. ... in the Paris Codex in the pages preceding the zodiac ... It shows the same black background where floating beings are linked by entwined cords. *Other pages have a red background, like page 21 as shown in Fig. 30. The colour red is also appropriate for depicting the very earliest times man remembers as that was probably the colour of the sky due to Saturn's red glow.[62] ... Figure 32. Venus Glyph. In the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology there is a carved stone from Izapa, Chiapas. In the lower right-hand section it shows a skeletal figure sitting on a platform. A thick line is shown coming out from below the ribcage. In the upper left there is a being in the sky that is holding onto this linear appendage. The Museum's caption to this stone, as related in the official exhibit book, reads: "Relief showing *celestial deity holding the umbilical cord of a skeletal individual, possibly the god of death."[69] When would a skeleton ever have an umbilical cord? Only Mayan myths of Venus fit this strange scenario. Part I of this article contained a picture of a statue of Hun-Nal-Ye, the "Raised-up Sky Lord" of Creation, whom I identified as Saturn. He is there shown wearing a necklace that Mayanists claim portrays a skeletal Venus. In Copan, the city dedicated to Venus worship, *the god of Venus as Evening Star was portrayed as the jawless skeletal head seen in Fig. 32. Not surprisingly, skeletal figures in the Maya world are identified by scholars as a personification of death. However, it is Venus as Morning Star that was the most feared and the most deadly to the Maya. Why this difference is a bit of a mystery. The Popol Vuh claims that *Venus was the "sun carrier" as it appeared before the real Sun dawned for the very first time - that is, following the demise of the configuration. This, however, was a benign sign, so the dichotomy is still not presently explainable.
_Sky Ropes - The Cords Of Heaven. As noted earlier, Part I of this essay ended with a simple and most profound memory portrayed by the Maya - three vertical circles that signified god. In my estimation, these stood for Saturn, Venus, and Mars at the time they formed the polar alignment. ... Figure 34, from the Madrid Codex, appears to be equally significant to the Saturnian configuration theory. The labelling is that of Friedel, et al.. ... These scholars say it is only a record of a solar eclipse, but they ignore the fact that there are two "suns" portrayed, and two cords attach these "suns" to [the three vertical circles]. ... the cords ... appear to be made up of a central core that is hom*ogenous in nature, surrounded by separate particles. Could these particles represent solids or liquids? ... If the column ... was a Rankine vortex as suggested by Frederic Jueneman, wouldn't the larger boulders it would have dislodged be flung to the outside of the column just as this drawing shows? Or was the column a Birkeland current acting within a plasma? If so, would the larger boulders or meteorites tend to be repelled by, or absorbed within, the electrically active water-filled core? Perhaps the dots were only knots of denser plasma. ... But what of the "sun" in this same image? I say "sun" because Friedel, et al., regard it as one despite the fact that there are two of them. ... In my opinion, they represent Saturn when it was the one and only "sun" in the ancient Maya sky. Thus this "sun" (or "suns") is depicted with the central circle that is a well established symbol of Saturn, displaying the four-rayed pattern ...
*why two "suns" when there was only one Saturn? ... as Cardona and Talbott related, Saturn grew dim in the daytime, and brighter and, in my opinion, visually larger during the night.[Thus this] depiction of two Saturns, one larger than the other, is a good method for relaying this {cycle} in a single small image.
_Itz, Sustenance, and Sacrifice.
_The substance itz, which was personified in the sun god Itzamna and the Cosmic Bird Itzam-Yeh, was said to be many things: the cosmic sap or incense resin, bodily fluids like tears and sem*n, and edible substances like maize, dew, flower nectar, and honeycombs. It is also interesting to note that the most obvious substance that one would think of being represented by these dots {dripping from the K'an cross}, ordinary water and rain, is not alluded to. ... The concept of "food from the gods" is found in every corner of the world. Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision surprised many when he claimed that ambrosia or "manna from heaven" may have actually fallen to Earth. In his opinion, this manna was some kind of edible carbohydrate. His quotations from many sources described this manna as having an "oily taste," a "honey taste," as being the "corn of heaven," and "bread of the mighty." It also "had a fragrant odour, and served...as an ointment."[77] ... From the highlands of Guatemala, the Atiteko Maya still believe that: "... before there was a world ... a solitary deified tree was at the center of all there was. As the world's creation approached, this deity became pregnant with potential life; its branches grew one of all things in the form of fruit. Not only were there gross physical objects like rocks, maize, and deer ... hanging from the branches, there were also such elements as types of lightning, and even individual segments of time. Eventually this abundance became too much for the tree to support, and the fruit fell ... scattered their seeds ... The great tree provided shelter for the young plants, nurturing them, until finally it was crowded out by the new. Since then, this tree has existed as a stump at the center of the world. This stump is what remains of the original Father/Mother, the source and endpoint of life."[79] The idea that the gods nurture Earth and its inhabitants is, of course, commonplace, but the Maya have the complimentary and rather unique belief that the people can somehow provide sustenance to the gods in return.... Among most modern Maya, the usual method of feeding the gods is by ritual in the form of dancing, praying, or burning copal incense. (Bloodletting and human sacrifice, although still reported, is no longer common). ... One of the images of Maya art ... is the famous one, portrayed on walls and carved in stone, of the woman pulling a cord studded with thorns through a hole in her tongue. With all that we have considered above, it finally makes perfect sense. The gods gave the ancestors of the Maya their "blood" from the prickly "cords of heaven." So in return must man use the exact same technique to give blood back to the gods. ... The blood drips onto bark paper in a bowl placed beneath her. When later set alight, the smoke from the burning blood-soaked paper rises up to the gods.
_The Flood.
_Figure 40. Flood that destroyed the Last Creation. ... As noted previously, the recurrent theme of sky ropes filled with blood, equated with umbilical cords, and so providing sustenance, is found throughout Mesoamerica. But equally prevalent is the notion of ropes and cords in the sky filled with water. ... The k'an cross, mentioned earlier as a likely symbol for Saturn, has also been identified as representing both the colour turquoise (blue and green are Saturn's old colours) and, most significantly here, water.[85] ... As Cardona related in a recent AEON article, many ancient peoples tell of the time when *the cutting of Saturn's polar sky tree led directly to a catastrophic flood of water.[87] ... In 1907, Alfred Tozzer reported the following Creation myth that spoke of both blood and water: "... there was a road suspended in the sky, stretching from Tuloom and Coba to Chich'en Itza and Uxmal. This pathway was called the kuxan sum or sakbe. It was in the nature of a large rope [sum] supposed to be living [kuxan] and in the middle flowed blood. It was by this rope that the food was sent to the ancient rulers who lived in the structures now in ruins. For some reason *this rope vanished forever. This first epoch was separated from the second by a flood called Halyokokab."[88] To this very day, the Maya associate New Year ceremonies with a destructive flood. ... Fortuitously, one of the only four surviving Maya codices, the Dresden Codex, pictures the age-ending flood just prior to its New Year's pages. ... Attached to the skyband and bending down from the Venus sign is a celestial dragon belching down a huge volume of water. Just below the skyband are winged Saturnian sun and Moon signs that are also spewing out water. ... God L, a powerful god who destroyed the previous Creation by flood, sat on the first throne to be set up in the present Creation, and operated as a god of warriors and merchants."[89] {I'm guessing God L was Jupiter or Mars.} ... God L may in fact just be a version of Itzamna because, like him, God L is often portrayed as a frail wrinkled fellow with a large nose and toothless mouth. He is also one of the black jaguar gods who are associated with night and the Otherworld as well as the "sun." Although these features can be seen as contradictory in today's world, they perfectly fit into the age of Saturn, the *fanged "sun of night," and supreme god of the heavenly Otherworld.
_The Old Moon Goddess.
_Ix-Chel, Ixchel, or Chak-Chel ... is also known, in translation, as Lady, or Great Rainbow, as well as "She of the Rainbows." If that isn't enough, Ix-Chel is identified with spiders, while a possible avatar of hers is Ix Kanleom, or "lady spider web." The old moon goddess was the consort of Itzamna, the "sun" god, and "the patroness of weaving, childbirth, sorcery, and medicine." William Gates calls Ix Chel "the Isis of the Maya pantheon," while referring to Itzamna as "the Great Initiator, in a way corresponding to Osiris."[95] ... In Classic times, Ix Chel was portrayed as an old woman with toothless mouth, holding a serpent, or with snakes in her hair, wearing a skull-and-bone ornamented skirt. She was the "grandmother of the [Popol Vuh] Hero Twins and midwife of Creation." In other words, this old moon goddess was an important participant at the beginning of time. ... Like the Greek temple to Apollo at Delphi, *there was a famous Oracle of Ix Chel on the island of Cozumel off the coast of Yucatan.
_The Young Moon Goddess. ... There is a second prominent "moon" goddess in Maya myth ... depicted as a young woman and her real name is still unknown. ... This young moon goddess was an avatar of Xmukane (a name still untranslatable), First Mother, wife of the Maize God and, notably, often appears wearing a net skirt. Note that even the crescent glyph has a cross-hatched net pattern on it. In summary, these moon goddesses go back much farther in time than the present Moon as their attributes seem to have originally belonged to a different celestial body, most probably Venus. The association with the attributes of deities, such as weaving, skeletons, and Medusa-like snakes in the hair, is cogent and may be used to identify the planet behind the character. In support of this contention lies the fact that, in her role as midwife, her helper is none other than the Pauahtun, God N. These two deities, perhaps the male/female dualities of one and the same being (or, perhaps, Venus & Mars), assist in the destruction of the world by flood, following which they help initiate the *Fourth Creation which, it is said, we are presently enjoying. It can thus be seen that all of the symbols and figures depicted in association with the Flood in the Dresden Codex illustration are related. Additionally, they all seem to have complimentary roles that fit the Saturnian mythology. *The evidence of Venus' involvement in this world-ending flood is overwhelming and is contained in the picture (see Figure 40) in both an explicit and implicit manner. ... At the time *when the configuration was in the form of the World Tree, Venus was first in the middle of the Tree, hanging within the cords of the column. Later she was seen revolving off-centre from the column but still attached to it by a stream of material. Venus was acknowledged world-wide as the female god of this era. Later, *when the configuration broke apart, Venus terrorized the peoples of the Earth with her close encounters as a huge maned cometary-like warrior. In fact, a little of Venus' Saturnian era attributes are retained in this Codex image in her flowing tresses and her net skirt.[104] This image does not portray the Moon.
2. (3,000-2,500 BC?) The GOLDEN AGE
2.2. (2,700 BC?) Venus & Mars wandered from the Saturn Configuration, then returned
2.3. (2,500 BC?) PANGAEA BREAKUP EVENT
2.3.7. Noah's Flood was caused by Continents sliding under and raising Ocean Waters & Tsunamis
2.3.12a. Saturn left the Saturn-Jupiter System at the Asteroid Belt
2.3.12b. Jupiter filled the vacancy on the Polar Column
