WHAT IS THE SOLSTICE AND WHY DID THE ANCIENT MAYA REVERE IT?

 

June 21 is the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. From now until winter solstice in December, we will lose sunlight each day. Due to the Earth's orbit and daily rotational motion, such as the wobble in the Earth's axis, the time and date of the solstice varies from year to year. Both the solstice and the equinox were important to the ancient Maya, and one cannot be explained without understanding the other. Here's why.

The Maya punched numbers and astronomical calculations that could make our heads spin, but nothing was more meaningful to them than the movements of the sun.

Maya Scribe (Latin America Studies Organization)

The Dresden Codex, one of three paperbark books that survived the mass destruction of Maya documents by Spanish zealots in 1562, is filled with numbers—mostly calculations for lunation cycles and Venus tables. And one of the Maya's main calendars, the Haab, is tied to the earth's rotation. They calculated it at 360 days, with five "extra days" at the end that were considered unlucky time. The Maya were naked eye astronomers, and through sheer volume, they assimilated countless facts about the planets and the impact of the earth's rotation through centuries of observance.

Portion of Dresden Codex (Frederico Custodio)

It's known that the number four held great importance to them. Some archeologists suggest it could be very basic: the body has four limbs with the heart at its center; a house has four corner posts; a milpa cornfield has four entrances; and the sun has four paths it takes on its seasonal journey—two solstices and two equinoxes. Other scholars suggest that the number four symbolized wholeness and is associated with Ahau, the Sun God. In K'iche', the word for day is the same word as sun, and a day is one complete passage of the sun.

Made with 2 images from Project Gutenberg
and CIA's World Facebook via MS Paint

The Maya also observed four cosmic points, which may possibly relate to the four posts of the sun's daily journey: sunrise, noon, the sun on the horizon at dusk, and lastly the nadir, just before the sun moves into the underworld. Scholars call these the four points of the Maya cosmos, and emphasize these are nothing like our cardinal directions of north, south, east and west.

The most relevant positions of the sun are the solstices and the equinoxes, even to us today. For the Maya sky gazers, these were of supreme importance and they paid homage to these positions.

If you've gone to Chichen Itza on a spring or fall equinox to watch the performance of the sun's descent from the top of Temple Kukulkan to the bottom of the staircase ending at the serpent's mouth, you've no doubt been awed by the experience. 

Chichen Itza at Equinox with Serpent's Shadow

Onlookers believe they share a moment in time with the ancient Maya, for legend has it that the Maya also witnessed the same image a thousand years ago. Kukulkan, one of the most monumental of all their sacred works, was the Maya god of rejuvenation and his effigy symbolized the renewal of life.

Why did the Maya immortalize the equinox in this bi-annual spectacle of astronomical showmanship? Although no one knows for sure, scholars believe rites of agriculture may have been the basis for the concept and design of Kukulkan's slithering serpent. Since Kukulkan symbolized rejuvenation, the March date coincides with planting cycles and a September date coincides with annual harvest, which in itself is a renewal of life, for it allows food for the winter months.

Native Corn in Mexico 

The equinox is unique because on that day, in March and September, night and day are equal.

The solstices represent a similar idea, as they are twice a year occurrences and on these days the sun reaches its highest or lowest altitude in the sky above the horizon at solar noon. 

Winter solstice, which we've just observed, is the traditional beginning of the earth's yearly cycle. Though I never adhered to the end calendar belief of the 2012ologists who claimed 2012 would be the end of time, John Major Jenkins, author of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, had a point when he suggested the solstice was so important to the Maya that they placed  buildings in alignment with its zenith.

                                                   

Jenkins believes that a stela at Izapa (a site in southern Mexico that may or may not be Maya) leaves a code for us to decipher. In particular, Group F Ballcourt, which displays what Jenkins calls creation imagery, is aligned within one degree of December solstice sunset and the June solstice sunrise direction. He claims this could have been no coincidence.

Archeo-astronomer Anthony Aveni states there are at least 73 city alignments to the solstice throughout the Maya world. He thinks there is evidence for a solstice-based calendar. He leans towards June because it marks the time of the peak rainy season in the year.

El Caracol Observatory at Chichen Itza (Veteezy.com)

At Chichen Itza, the equinox is visible through a window in El Caracol Observatory's tower. And the great ballpark at Chichen Itza, the largest known ballcourt in the ancient Maya world, encodes many alignments involving the Milky Way and the solstices. The ballcourt was aligned with the Milky Way at midnight on June solstice 865 AD, and if one had stood in the center of the ballcourt on that night, the arc of the Milky Way could have been seen touching the opposed horizons to which the lengthwise axis of the ballcourt pointed. Overhead, one would have seen where the Milky Way and the ecliptic cross.

Picture of Milky Way (Discovery)

This incredible symmetry was planned on a grand scale. The why's and wherefores we may never know, but what we do know for certain is this: the Maya were well aware of the solstice and equinox dates and they paid homage to them in the most obvious way. They were so important that they commemorated them by building ethereal stepped pyramids that lasted for centuries that would align with both solstice and equinox, and are still viewed with wonder to this day. Today we view the solstices as the shortest and longest days of the year, and know once December comes, the earth will soon be tilting towards the sun, reaching for more light. 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

Lead photo: Welcoming Winter Solstice, is from the Navajo-Hopi Observer.

WHY WAS FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT OBSESSED WITH THE MAYA?

 

The Ennis House, Los Angeles (photo TripSavvy).

Frank Lloyd Wright, considered by many to be the greatest architect of all time, never attended a formal architectural school. Wielding an avant-garde edge, he thought of interior and exterior places as one. This concept extended to his building forms and construction methods. Wright's signature on a certain type of architecture became not only an embellishment but a trademark. 

During a career that spanned 70 years, he designed over 1000 structures, created in harmony with humanity and the environment in a philosophy he dubbed organic architecture. His early beginnings were in the midwest where he was born and raised. That too is where he began his formal career as an architect in Chicago in 1893, after moving from rural Wisconsin.

THE PRAIRIE STYLE

From early on he experimented with different styles, incorporating one or more into his commissions, and by 1900, had developed a style that was to become his signature, the Prairie Style.  

Taliesen West (Architecturemagazine.com)

Coonley House/Prairie Style (Curbed Chicago)

1893 WORLD'S PRE-COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

Though it's believed that Wright never stepped foot on the Yucatán Peninsula, home to numerous Maya pyramids, when he arrived in Chicago, lore has it he was inspired by the display of Maya artifacts and replicas at the 1893 World's Pre-Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was there he glimpsed plaster castings from major Maya sites, Chichen Itza and Uxmal. A feature of the lesser known Labna site, in the Pu'uc Region in southern Yucatán, became important to his work due to his recurring use of its meaningful arch.

Nunnery Quadrange, Uxmal site (Archeology.eu)

Wright's interest in the Maya was piqued early on, from childhood. He was drawn to the Maya world when his mother showed him pictures in books about Central America and Mexico."Those images stayed in his mind most of his life," said Thomas Hines, UCLA architectural historian.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL BEST SELLER 

Las Monjas, Chichen Itzá (Frederick Catherwood)

In the 1840s, two books about Central America archeology became best sellers: Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, and Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, Part 2, by explorer John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood. The 1893 exposition's display of the ancient Americas lauded the indigenous people who first called this continent home. It was one of Stephens' books that drew Wright into the world of the Maya.

GOLDEN DOORWAY

Wright and his employer, Louis Sullivan, had contributed a monumental golden doorway for the Transportation Building at the fair and during his many visits to check on it, Wright would have seen Stephens' casts and photos of the Maya buildings. Both he and his employer were drawn to the style which would eventually be known as Mayan Revival; they both distained the European Neo-classical style that dominated other buildings at the expo.

Golden Doorway for Transportation Building

Eventually Wright broke from his employer and established his own firm in Oak Park, Illinois, where he designed numerous commissions, gaining ground and at times notoriety with many well-heeled clients. By this time he was married. With his wife, Catherine, and their six children, he settled into a white picket fence existence.

Edwin and Mamah Cheney house (compositiondelascasa.com)

THE CHENEY HOUSE

While designing a house for local residents Edwin and Mamah (Mamey) Cheney, Wright and Catherine began socializing with his clients at the precise moment that middle age, ennui regarding his Prairie style designs, and a craving for change and greener pastures collided. Mamah, a feminist and free thinker, could keep up with Wright intellectually. She intrigued him. Change won. She and her husband divorced almost immediately, allowing Mamah to escape the confines of her marriage. The couple soon left for Europe to avoid the brouhaha and the tabloids. They spent time in Germany and Italy, where he viewed various architectural styles. On their return to the US and despite his wife refusing to grant an immediate divorce, Wright was determined to build a house for Mamah in the rural fields of Wisconsin near his childhood home. It would be transformational and a beauty, and he would name it Taliesin.

Taliesin (Wisconsin Visitor Bureau)

TALIESIN 

Love and happiness, however, were short lived. At a nearly completed Taliesin in 1914, his lover Mamah Bothwick Cheney was murdered by a household staff member along with her two children and five others. After the heinous massacre, Wright sought solace far from the midwest. Los Angeles, known as a place for reinvention and recuperation, beckoned. He headed west.

Mamah Borthwick Cheney (history.com)

After the murders, he was again exposed to Maya architecture and pyramids at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. As the displays at Chicago had stimulated Wright, mentioned by Thomas Hines, the Panama Pacific Exposition glimpse of Maya culture made a lasting impression.

Though the displays were based on a Maya fantasy world, they cemented the Maya link between architecture and death, "Which was not only the setting for a fantastic pyramid palace but also for human sacrifice; part of the complexes displayed where humans were buried."

WRIGHT IN LOS ANGELES

"A place where the living could communicate and remember the dead," said Hines. "And after the loss of his lover, Mamah Cheney, death was much on the architect's mind. The exceptional architectural style of the Maya sites must have greatly intrigued him, for it was an outsized influence on his Los Angeles architectural style," continued the UCLA historian.

A.D. German Warehouse (franklloydwright.org)

Prior to his exodus to LA, Wright tried out his Mayan Revival style on a Richland, Wisconsin commission in 1915, —the A.D. German Warehouse. On completion, the site hardly looked like something that would house the wares of a green grocer in a small Wisconsin town—it more resembled a temple pulled from a Catherwood drawing of the Maya Nunnery at Uxmal.

This commission helped test the Maya motif that would become the basis of his residential work in Los Angeles. On completing Wisconsin, he accepted an offer to design the Imperial Hotel in Japan.  

Hollyhock House (photo Curbed LA)

MAYAN REVIVAL STYLE

Today five iconic LA houses render his Maya look. While constructing the first, Hollyhock House, he worked simultaneously in Japan on the Imperial Hotel which helped shape his vision as an architect.

Though the houses Wright designed in Los Angeles pre-dated the Art Deco movement that began in the 1920s, they have the undeniable air of deco. We'll never know if Wright influenced the movement or vice versa. And though the Mayan Revival style itself had begun at the turn of the 20th century, its popularity accelerated once Wright got on board. This style is most notably seen in his Southern California open-concept layouts built from concrete stackable blocks molded with local materials and natural color schemes, and stamped with bold geometric motifs.

Hollyhock House, his first LA commission, was completed in 1921 for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall who had purchased 36 acres on the eastern edge of Hollywood. Wright's finished design was above all a Maya temple. Barnsdall had planned on a multi-arts center, and never intended it for residential use.

The hearth at Hollyhock House (photo Curbed LA)

HOLLYHOCK PLUS FOUR 

With its 17 rooms and seven baths, it's often noted as a bridge of Wright's two prominent styles: Mayan Revival, with textile blocks inspired by temples from Palenque, and Prairie Style, with its low-pitched roof line. 

In 1927 she gifted it to the city. But it was at Hollyhock House, named for the flower that Barnsdall most loved, where Wright began working with natural materials. 

A "cultural nationalist," according to leading Wright authority Kathryn Smith, Los Angeles, he strove to define an original American architecture and shied away from Victorian and Spanish colonial styles. Though of Welsh origin, he believed an indigenous architectural style would better suit the Americas rather than a European style architecture.

Kathryn Smith said he sought out traditional materials on the lands where he was building, making the concrete blocks from sand and granite, stamping them with motifs resembling Maya symbols. His open concept layout led to massive rooms and enormously high ceilings, in some cases creating the feeling of a mausoleum, as people who actually lived in his houses had been known to say.

Next came the Alice Millard commission on one acre in Pasadena, La Miniatura. This is where he truly refined the concrete molecular block system, with his stamped Maya patterns. Flat-roofed and mysterious, a wall of blocks stamped with equi-distant diametric crosses greets one at the property's edge. One historian said the cross is a reference to the MesoAmerican understanding of the cardinal directions, pointing to the cardinal elements that establish the shape of the universe. Some called the Millard House a small temple in a eucalyptus grove.

The Millard House

The placement of the house is in a ravine, with two towering eucalyptus trees standing nearby, and gives the feel of being at a jungle pyramid site, much like Palenque. 

After the Millard commission came the Storer House in 1923. Built on a steep hillside, the house is dominated by a large upstairs living room with a high ceiling. Maya inspired columns and tall narrow windows dominate. It's believed that this house was built on spec. It was owned by Joel Silver, Hollywood producer, from 1984 until 2002. He gave it a thoughtful renovation including a pool that had been in the original plans. Brendan Gill, one of Wright's most thoughtful biographers, said it was more like a home for a Mayan god.

 

The Storer House (Californiahomedesigns.com)

Probably the best known FLW house in Los Angeles is the Ennis House, built also in 1923, for Charles and Mabel Ennis. It very much appears to be another Maya grand palace, but the Ennis' insisted that Wright incorporate some of their desires into his design. Notably seen in a handful of movies—Blade Runner, Day of the Locust, The House on Haunted Hill—it overpowers the environment and looms over the neighborhood like an ancient ruin, visible for miles around.

The Ennis House (TripSavvy.com)

Ennis House stamped wall of concrete Maya blocks (photo Galerie)

And last of the FLW LA five is the house built in 1924 for dancer Harriet Freeman and her husband Samuel, the Freeman House. Donated to USC, the daughter and son-in-law of the Dean of Architecture lived in the house while attendeding university. "It felt like a ruin," she said in 2002. "It was crumbling down all around us."

The Freeman House

Of Wright's LA houses, the Freeman House had the happiest existence. It was home for 60 years to the Freemans, a Bohemian couple who befriended him and scraped together the money for Wright's commission. Notably it was the only Wright house in LA to hold long-term occupants. The Freemans lived there until 1986 when they donated it to USC. According to Harriet Freeman, the house was dense and introverted, but it well suited their purposes. Along with being their home, Harriet, a dancer, used it as a dance center and salon where she entertained and performed.

GRANDSON ERIC WRIGHT

Eric Wright, 91, the architects's grandson who lives at FLW's unfinished Malibu property high in the hills, was interviewed by Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the LA Times, for his documentary on Wright, That Far Corner. When Hawthorne asked what drew FLW to Los Angeles, he was candid. "He was very upset about the loss of Mamey and the adverse publicity because they weren't married," Wright said.

"What was his state of mind when he moved to Los Angeles?" Hawthorne asked. 

"Sorrow," Wright said. "He had a wonderful life until her death."

Eric Lloyd Wright in Malibu (Los Angeles Magazine)

Hawthorne asked Tim Samuelson, Chicago's cultural historian, what he made of Wright's LA Mayan Revival look. "They seem like, the houses, almost mausoleum-like. They are heavy. One critic described them as dark and macabre—like the drama of Sophocles. The LA homes were. . . brutal, romantic, fantastic, and—strange."

FUNEREAL ASPECTS

Filmmaker Hawthorne continues, "The LA houses have funereal aspects. They're sinister, lacking joy. But scholars are hesitant to embrace the crude character of pre-Columbian death cults. These ideas, however, shaped Wright's understanding of pre-Columbian design and their meaning."

"His architecture," historian Blair Kamin said, "and this mission helped him to recover from personal tragedy. His architecture saved him in the end."

"His LA houses," continued Hawthorne, "stand apart from his work overall and apart from the rest of LA architecture of the period. They are not just heavy, but heavy-hearted—their starkness, and in some cases, their state of ruin. I don't think it's because the houses look crypt-like and that is why they are empty. It's because they are crypt-like that none are used as full-time residences. They are off-putting. The houses are shadowed by violence and even death.

"At the time, building these houses was a means for Wright to put a troubled period behind him for good. It exemplified his own uncertain state of mind. I believe they were a catalyst for putting aside that very troubled period.

"Wright buried Mamey in the Unity Chapel Cemetery in Spring Green, Wisconsin—but she's also buried in Los Angeles."

                        

                                                                  

Unity Chapel, Spring Green, Wisconsin—FLW's first commission

Who knew that Wright's ongoing obsession with the Maya would rescue him as he worked his way out of grief by creating mausoleum-like, cathedral/pyramid tombs over and over and over again in reverence of the woman he loved and lost. As the historian said, his architecture saved him in the end.

Gravestone for Mamah Borthwick Cheney in Spring Green, Wisconsin

Resources for this post came from Curbed LA—Demystifying Frank Lloyd Wright's Most Eccentric Homes; Coming Around to Frank Lloyd Wright—Architecture Magazine; Getting it Wright: Today's Prairie Style; Trip Savvy's Frank Lloyd Wright LA Homes; Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation: Peek Inside 7 Iconic FLW Houses; ChicagoCurbed.com's Take a Walking Tour of FLW's Oak Park Homes; WendyCity'sChicago.com's World Fair Moments: Sullivan's Golden Door; Sunset Ranch in LA: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles; Los Angeles Magazine's Inhabiting a Legacy; Curbed LA—Frank Lloyd Wright's Forgotten Hollywood Sand Castle; Artsy.net's How Frank Lloyd Wright's Take on Mayan Temples Shaped Hollywood; Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan; and the documentary That Far Corner, by Christopher Hawthorne.

If you want to read more about the Maya, Mexico and the Yucatán, sign up at the top right for my bi-monthly blogs, or check my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, my memoir on life as an expat is available on Amazon. Also there check out my Mexico cartel thrillers, books one and two in my Wheels Up trilogy: Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. For a journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, check out Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy.

 

MEXICO'S MARVELS—CENOTES OF THE YUCATAN

 

Cenote in Yucatan 

Tangled green vines brush against my face as I trek behind our guide deeper into the low-lying Yucatan jungle. The narrow, gnarly path—recently cut by machete—oozes damp, musty smells.

It is July, rainy season in Mexico, and temperatures are in the nineties, a veritable heat wave. We’re in search of a cenote, a clear fresh water pool, also known as a sinkhole here in the Yucatan, a place the Maya named Sian Ka'an or Where the Sky is Born.

Although the Maya used these ancient wells as their water source in an arid land that offered few rivers, our search is for recreational purposes. We plan to cool off in the cenote’s crystal waters, to swim and maybe snorkel.

Traipsing through thick forest growth alongside a mangrove swamp, little did I realize this jungle spot forty miles south of Cancun and just seven miles north of Playa del Carmen (Tres Rios) would many years later become a major resort. With a wave of the hand, our guide motions us to follow.

Tres Rios cenote (haciendotresrios.com)

We ford the stream behind him and into a clearing. Now surrounded by brilliant green foliage, the scene becomes a primeval forest. The clarity of the cenote is beyond comparison. Gazing into it I see mangrove tree trunks reaching up from the pool’s bottom, breaking the waterline and stretching high into the tropical sky. 

Cenotes are plentiful in this part of Mexico and have become a favorite tourist attraction as vacationers discover they’re an ideal place to cool off in the sultry climate of the Riviera Maya. Nearly five hundred are known to exist in the Northeastern Yucatan where Maya civilization flourished for 3500 years from 2000 BC to 1521 AD. 

Cenote Bang by USGS.gov

To the Maya, a culture made great by ruling dynasties and strong religious beliefs, cenotes were more than just a water source. The Maya believed cenotes were the sacred entrance to the underworld of spirits where Chaac, the rain god, lived. On a parched peninsula, Chaac ruled in a long line of spiritual dieties. Water is life.

Of the Yucatan’s numerous cenotes, perhaps best known is the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, a ceremonial center known for towering pyramids and spring and fall equinox displays of shadow and light. The vertical wall cenote has a diameter of 160 feet and measures 60 feet from its lip to the water surface below. Made famous by archeological explorer Edward H. Thompson, this well brought forth its diabolic history when Thompson dredged it in 1904.

Thompson knew Maya life intertwined agriculture, religion and water. Due to agricultural needs to feed a burgeoning  population, the Maya calendar was developed to determine auspicious dates for planting and harvesting. Thompson also knew the calendar was interpreted by the priests, but as their promises failed to bring rain, he’d heard human sacrifices were thrown into the cenote to appease Chaac. He was also positive that along with the maidens, other offerings would also have been made.

The Boston explorer tested his theory by creating a diving aparatus and taking diving lessons, hiring a Greek diver to assist him, traveled to Boston to buy a derrick and thirty-foot boom, designed his own diving apparatus, and shipped it all to the Yucatan.

Edward H. Thompson (photo americanegypt.com)

On his return, he dove and dredged the Sacred Cenote daily. Finally, about six weeks in, he came up with gold and copper discs, figures of Maya gods and the clincher, human skeletons. His exploration of the cenote proved that human sacrifice was indeed a part of Maya life, with human sacrifice hopefully giving them access to the rain god and his whims.

Chicen Itza's cenote is but one of many in the Yucatan. Part 2 will explore how cenotes were formed and give details on some of the more popular ones on the Peninsula. Stay tuned.

For more information on the Maya, Mexico and the Yucatan, check out my website, www.jeaninekitchel.com. My travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon.com. Also on Amazon, are books one and two in my Mexico cartel thriller trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown. Subscribe to my blog above for my writings on Mexico and the Maya.

MAYA 19th CENTURY SCHOLARS TRIED TO LINK BEGINNING OF CIVILIZATION TO YUCATÁN MAYA

 

A fabricated myth about a Maya princess named Queen Moo and her warrior king brother, Prince ChacMool, seduced two prominent Maya scholars, August LePlongeon and wife Alice Dixon, into promoting an unfounded theory that civilization began in the New World with the Maya.

LePlongeon and Dixon were viewed as the Maya world's 'new age' scholars because of this far-fetched belief, and the theory branded LePlongeon as an eccentric crackpot, earning him the disdain of those in his field.

A DREAM OF MAYA

The belief that the Maya held the key to civilization fueled their desire to explore the Yucatán's ancient pyramid sites in the late 1800s. Larry Desmond and Phyllis Messenger's book, A Dream of Maya, gives deep insight into LePlongeon and Dixon's lives, explaining their controversial views and documenting their hard-nosed earnestness and early pioneering excavations—from digging up ruins, to drawing architectural floor plans, to tracing murals, along with their detailed photographic records. They were also early-on students of a photographic technique that used glass and plate negatives.

As Desmond explains, if history had been kinder to the LePlongeons, it would have depicted an extraordinary couple whose lifelong work had not been fairly appraised. Their explorations occurred during a time of historic uprising, the Caste War of Yucatán. They were there at its height.

OFF TO PERU

LePlongeon, a Frenchman, left France after a distinguished university education to study earthquakes in Peru and to explore the country's archeological sites. This launched him into a lifelong study of scrutinizing ancient ruins and looking for clues about their builders. In Peru he began to form his ideas on the origin of the world's civilizations.

While there he heard about the California gold rush and jumped a ship to partake in that historic event, spending several years in gold rush country where he speculated on land and came away with thirty thousand in profits, enough to fund his South American travels.

During his stay in California he apprenticed under a physician for three years and received a certificate as a doctor's tutor. But before heading back to South America, he sailed to Europe where he stumbled onto a new photographic technique using paper instead of metal. He urged the inventor to teach him the process which would serve him well while uncovering Yucatecan ruins, enabling him to document his discoveries. His photos of sites Uxmal and Chichen Itza remain some of the best ever taken as they show the ruins as they stood for eons, long before archeologists re-discovered them. Sadly many of LePlongeon's negatives and photos have been lost. 

ENTER ALICE AND THE YUCATÁN

LePlongeon met Alice Dixon while in Europe. They were married and for their honeymoon, set sail for Cuba, then onto Progreso, Mexico. They landed in 1873.

A bout with yellow fever for Alice dampened their arrival but LePlongeon nursed her back to health. During her recuperation the two began to study Yucatecan Maya and became acquainted with local scholars. They believed communicating with the present day Maya was an important step to interpreting the past. Alice remained a champion of the Maya her entire life, and wrote about them long after she left the Yucatán.

Their first visit to see pyramids was at Uxmal, forty miles south of Merida. They were awed by the size of the site and camped in the Governor's Palace, sleeping on hammocks. They took photos, cleared the land to better see the site, and were determined to return again later.

CHICHEN ITZA AND CHACMOOL

The number one item on LePlongeon's bucket list was Chichen Itza. He'd heard from a local that a sacred book or codex (hieroglyphic text) was buried there, in a building with many chambers, called Akab Dziba. Destiny called and LePlongeon believed he could further his theory of Maya world supremacism if he could locate the text.

At the time, however, all areas surrounding Chichen Itza, including the nearby pueblo Piste, were overrun with invading Chan Santa Cruz Indians who were doing battle in the Caste War of Yucatán. War or no war, LePlongeon was determined to test his theory, asking local authorities to post soldiers around the site while they searched for the text.

On locating the Akab Dziba, LePlongeon noticed the presence of glyphs on a lintel which he believed would further his theory. He took 500 stereoscopic photos including close-ups which showed hieroglyphic details. In their early excavation of the site, he and Alice also traced a number of murals and made molds in bas relief.

QUEEN MOO AND PRINCE CHACMOOL

They fixated on the Upper Temple of the Jaguars, near the ball court. The year was 1875. The workers discovered a large slab with carved figures holding outstretched arms. LePlongeon called it Atlantis. Murals on walls in the Upper Temple depicted village life, war scenes, and rulers in court. The explorer concluded this was a generation of Maya rulers whose totem was an eagle or macaw. He declared it a symbol of a Maya princess who he christened Queen Moo (Maya for macaw). Her brother he named Prince ChacMool, powerful warrior, a reference to the jaguar in Mayan. This flimsy attempt at a scholarly decision became the basis for his Maya myth and led to much of the derision that plagued his career.

After studying the mural for weeks, he determined Queen Moo of Chichen Itza had been forced to flee to Egypt bringing with her all the philosophies of the Maya, thereby cementing his idea that Egyptian civilization was founded by Maya.

So much for far-out theories. But LePlongeon was soon to discover "through stones that spoke to him," a small mound, and under it, through what he determined was spiritual guidance, the famous statue ChacMool, five feet long weighing hundreds of pounds. A replica, on display at the Anthropology Museum of Merida, is virtually synonymous with Chichen Itza and the ancient Maya.

Originally spelled Chaacmool—Maya for powerful warrior—the word was misspelled as ChacMool  through a mistranslation by one of his missives to a benefactor. The LePlongeons' struggled to bring the statue to the States to display in Philadelphia at the America Centennial Exposition, but the Mexico president denied their request.

"SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES"

In the meantime, they sent other Maya artifacts to the US to display at centennial ceremonies, but the objects arrived too late. Also, photos that LePlongeon had labored over were stolen by another archeologist who claimed them for his own. Soon even their main benefactor would give up on their excursions. At times they found it difficult to find money to eat, so meager was their situation.

"Surrounded by enemies, Remington always at hand, death lurking in every direction," Alice wrote in a letter to a friend in 1877, describing their predicament. The Mexico government had refused to pay them for the extensive work they'd completed in not only finding the incredible artifact but in delivering it to the pueblo Piste; they picked up and went on to other ruins—Mayapan, and also to sites in Honduras.

Their travels would continue for nearly twenty more years, and they would write prolifically about the Maya, both fact and fiction. Alice became well known for a series of articles written for the New York Times and other publications that romanticized the Maya world. They both lectured non-stop in Europe and the US, promoting the Yucatán pyramids and the Maya.

Augustus LePlongeon died December 1908 in Brooklyn at 82. Alice died two years later in 1910 leaving the balance of their findings with a friend, Gladys Blackwell, who was instructed to distribute their materials to "someone who would listen."

When reviewing the troubles, excursions, and the rebuffs this couple experienced, all to try to illuminate information on an ancient civilization, it boggles the mind. They were robbed of their efforts and disparaged because Augustus LePlongeon's vision was to try and discover through linguistics, field study, and comparative religions, the Maya way. Surrounded by enemies indeed.

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

Vintage photographs come from Larry Desmond in A Dream of Maya.

THE MAYA EXPLORER WHO BOUGHT THE CHICHEN ITZA PYRAMIDS

 

Few explorers can live up to the image of Edward Herbert Thompson. Made notorious after dredging Chichen Itza's sacred cenote in 1904, Thompson's dashing and dramatic exploits lasted more than three decades.

Born in Massachusetts in 1856, he followed in the footsteps of the Yucatán's first known explorers, John Lloyd Stephens and artist Frederick Catherwood who co-authored Incidents of Travel in Yucatán. Shortly after publication of this instant 1843 bestseller, the Caste War of Yucatán broke out limiting access to the peninsula's finest pyramid sites, closing borders to all but indigenous Maya for 60 years.

Thompson, appointed archeological consul to the Yucatán in 1895, was one of the first explorers to tread the land after the war began. His work as an anthropologist began in 1879 when he published a highly unscientific article for Popular Mechanic, titled "Atlantis: Not a Myth," which attempted to link Socrates' lost continent with the rediscovered Maya. Though he later disclaimed his outlandish theory, the article gained him notoriety and attracted the attention of the American Antiquarian Society, whose vice-president lobbied the senate to appoint Thompson as American consul to Mexico.

YUCATÁN CONSUL

As the youngest consul ever, Thompson's post included the Mexican states of Yucatán and Campache which he used as jumping off spots for further pyramid exploration. With his wife Henrietta and their two-month old daughter, they headed south in 1895.

He passed several months in Merida where he began the process of befriending local Maya, so to better study their legends, psychology and language. He traveled widely in those early months, trekking to all known ancient cities—well over one hundred—to familiarize himself with the ruins and the lay of the land. He learned to travel light, unlike other explorers, and adapted his ways to the Maya way of life.

Although his adventures would leave a physical mark on the man—an encounter with a poison trap in the jungle left him lame in one leg—his archeological fame soared. He was known for two coups: his first, the purchase of 100 square miles of Chichen Itza which included the ruins and a Spanish plantation house, through the auspices of Chicago meat packing magnate, Allison Armour. When the Mexican government finally caught wind of the sale, they negated the transaction, but allowed him to camp out on the premises. During his excavations, he used Chichen Itza's famous "Nunnery" as bedroom and office.

SACRED CENOTE AT CHICHEN ITZA

But the height of his fame came from his second coup: dredging the cenote at Chichen Itza. From his earliest excursion to the site, he admitted he had an uncanny draw to the sacred cenote and his initial interest was further spurred on as he read texts and documents about it. As all but three Maya codices or paperback books had been destroyed by fire by a Spanish bishop, Diego de Landa, in the early 1500s, little information on the early Maya existed.

After his destruction of the written Mayan language, along with countless statues and religious artifacts, the king of Spain ordered de Landa to write a history of the Maya and their culture. Thompson read de Landa's account of the Chichen Itza cenote which explained that during times of drought or strife, priests and commoners made pilgrimages to the cenote to appease the gods they believed lived in the water's depths. De Landa's account stated maidens and captive warriors were thrown into the well as sacrifices. He also added it was customary for ornaments, household items, and gold to also be thrown in to appease the gods by commoners and hierarchy alike.

Thompson took the priest's account as fact and implemented a plan to dive the cenote. For this he needed to invent a diving apparatus. He headed back to the US to solicit funds, then traveled to Boston where he took deep sea diving lessons for two months. While in Boston he developed a dredging bucket with steel cables, a derrick and a 30-foot swinging boom for the project. He had it crated up and shipped it all south.

Within weeks he was training local Maya to assist him in what everyone considered to be a maniac's misadventure. After setting up his materials, he dredged through thick silt for a month, coming up empty. At last he pulled an unrecognizable mucky substance to the surface. He dried it and attempted to burn it, discovering it was Maya incense, or copal, used in religious ceremonies. With this discovery, he knew he was on the brink of a major finding.

TREASURE HUNT

Two days later his efforts were rewarded. Piece after piece of long-awaited treasure was dredged up. Thompson succeeded in bringing forth vases, ornaments, and obsidian knives. But the large bucket on his equipment kept dropping items, and he knew to better search the cenote he'd have to dive it himself. In the States he'd been introduced to a Greek diver. He enlisted the man's talents and two weeks later they had rigged up waterproof canvas outfits with 30-pound copper helmets and plate glass goggles and air valves. The two dove into the cenote and pulled up amazing treasures—figures representing Maya gods, gold discs, jade, and the clincher—human skeletons.

Thompson's discovery put the Maya back on the world explorers' map. He had proof that humans had been sacrificed at Chichen Itza. Young women had been hurled by priests into a dismal pool as offerings to their gods, and now the explorer had the skeletal remains to prove it.

Ironically, Thompson's score threatened to jeopardize his standing in the archeological community as it was later discovered he had sent many of the dredged artifacts secretly in diplomatic pouches to the Peabody in Boston where most remain to this day, far from the Yucatán. But such was Thompson's stature that even this revelation did not diminish his professional standing, when all was said and done.

HOW THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT

Thompson also discovered how the Maya built the pyramids. Near Chichen Itza he found shallow quarries with worked veins of sascab, the lime gravel mixture the Maya used as mortar. Scattered around the area he found hammer stones of calcite, pecking stones of flint, and smoothing stones that were most likely used to produce flat surfaces on walls. Even though ancient Maya craftsmen had no metal tools, his discovery of the quarry and tool remnants assisted scientists in determining how the Maya created the pyramids without the use of metal. Thompson also found chisels of nephrite, a less valuable source of jade, and as a test, he used one to carve his own name onto an ancient stone to prove it could be done.

Thompson went on to discover an ancient Maya 'date' stone, later named the Tablet of the Initial Series, which served in deciphering dates of Chichen Itza's classic period for cryptographers. His exploits were those of an intrepid explorer. His continued determination throughout his near 40-year tenure in the Yucatán helped unravel the secrets of a great civilization.

After his explorations were wrapped up, Thompson wrote People of the Serpent in 1932 detailing his time exploring in the Yucatán.  He died in 1935 in New Jersey. 

After writing this article I was approached by great grandchildren of Edward Herbert Thompson and communicated with them about their great grandfather. It was thrilling, to know that his relatives still live in Piste, the small community adjacent to Chichen Itza. 

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.