Chapter 20 Chapter 20 The Magician's Pyramid

●The ruins of Palenque (Chiapas Province), Mexico In the evening, I sat under the northeast corner of the Mayan "Temple of the Inscriptions" (Temple of the Inscriptions), facing north, looking out at the growing dusk of the jungle, all the way to the Usumacinta River (Usumacinta) beyond the jungle. alluvial plain. The temple stands at the top of a 100-foot-tall nine-level pyramid, with a total of three halls.The structure of the whole building is very simple and harmonious, giving people the feeling of softness rather than weakness.It is deeply rooted in the earth, weather-beaten, ancient and timeless - it is the product of pure geometry plus imagination.

I turned my gaze to the right and saw the majestic rectangular palace built on the foundation of the pyramid.A long and narrow four-story stone tower stands in the center of the palace; it is said that it was the place where the ancient Mayan priests observed the sky. Brightly feathered macaws flitted through the treetops around me.Among the leaves, I saw several majestic buildings crouching in the smoky vines, about to be swallowed up by the ever-expanding jungle.These buildings include the "Tem Ple of the F0liated Gross", the "Temnle of the Sun", the "Temple of the Count" and the "Temple of the Lion". )—all names given by archaeologists.The mind of the Mayans.Faith and ancient memories, a large part has been lost and can never be retrieved.Although we already know how to interpret the Mayan calendar, we have only now begun to study how to interpret their complex and exquisite pictographs.

I stood up and climbed the last few steps into the main hall of the Temple of the Inscription.The back wall is embedded with two large gray stone slabs, on which are engraved 620 Mayan hieroglyphs, arranged very neatly, like chess pieces on a chessboard.Some of these words look like human faces, some look like monster faces, and some seem to be some kind of mythical monsters that are about to move. What do these two inscriptions describe?No one has figured it out yet, because its text is composed of graphics and musical notes, and it has not been fully deciphered so far.One thing is certain, however: some of the inscriptions on the stele refer to ancient times, thousands of years ago, and to peoples and gods who participated in major prehistoric events.

Children of the First Humans at Pacal Mausoleum On the left side of the hieroglyphic inscription, on the floor of the temple paved with large stone slabs, there is a stairway, and a steep staircase is erected below it, leading directly to a room hidden deep in the pyramid.This is where the tomb of Lord Pacal is located.The ladder is made of smooth limestone, narrow and damp, and it is scary to walk on.I took the crab walk, turned on the flashlight, and walked carefully down the stairs next to the south wall, into the darkness. After the staircase was closed in AD 683, no one knew of its existence until June 1952, when Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz pried open the floor of the temple, and it was rediscovered. In 1994, archaeologists discovered another similar tomb in the ruins of Palenque. However, Luz was the first person to find such a building in the American pyramid after all, and it deserves special mention.The craftsmen who built the staircase purposely filled it with rubble after completion.It took archaeologists four years to remove all the rubble and open the ladder.

At the base of the pyramid, archaeologists found a narrow, pillared, vaulted hall with decayed bones strewn across the floor.According to research, these bones belonged to children.They were probably five or six young children buried with them.At the other end of the hall there is a huge triangular stone slab.Lutz pried it open and found a strange tomb hidden inside.According to his description, the mausoleum looks like "a large room carved out of ice blocks, or a cave with the top and walls planed smooth, and more like a deserted chapel, with a cupola under the dome. Stalactites hang one after another, and from the floor grow thick stalagmites, like wax dripping from a burning candle" ②.

The tomb is 30 feet long and 23 feet high, and the vaulted roof is also supported by stone pillars.The surrounding walls are adorned with stucco reliefs depicting the swaggering Nine Gods - the nine Mayan gods who rule the night.In the center of the tomb, overlooking the "Nine Gods", lies a huge sarcophagus. The lid is made of a 5-ton stone slab and is exquisitely carved.Inside the coffin lay a pair of tall skeletons covered with various precious jade articles.The face of the deceased wore a mask inlaid with 200 pieces of jade.It is said that this is the remains of Pacal, the ruler of Palenque City in the 7th century AD.According to the inscription, the king died at the age of 80. However, the jade-decorated skeleton discovered by archaeologists in the sarcophagus was only about 40 years old after identification.

Climbing down the stairs, I walked to the bottom of the stairs, walked through a hall, and saw several children buried with me lying on the floor, staring straight at Pacal's mausoleum.This underground hall is located in the depths of the pyramid, about 85 feet from the temple above the head, the air is particularly humid and cool, full of decaying musty smell.The sarcophagus is embedded in the floor of the tomb. It has a very strange shape, and the bottom stretches out, just like the mummy box of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh.However, the mummy box was made of wood with a very wide base so that the box stood upright on the ground; Pacal's coffin was carved from a single block of stone and lay flat on the ground.That being the case, why did the Mayan craftsmen go to such lengths to widen the base of the sarcophagus when they should have known that there was no practical use for doing so.Is it possible that they blindly copied the coffin pier model handed down from ancient times, even though the widened base has lost its original function④?Does the Pacal sarcophagus show that ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica did have some kind of cultural connection, or even shared a common cultural heritage, as the myth of reincarnation suggests?

The rectangular lid of Pacal's sarcophagus, also hewn from stone, was 10 inches thick, 3 feet wide, and 12.5 feet long.Apparently, this coffin lid was also made according to an ancient model, just like the exquisitely carved and magnificent coffin lids used by the ancient Egyptians.In fact, if we transpose it to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, it would never look awkward or out of place.There does, however, be one major difference between the two.The images carved and painted on the sarcophagus cover do not look like Egyptian cultural products.I pointed the flashlight at the lid of the coffin and took a closer look. I saw a man with a shaved beard engraved on it, wearing a tight suit with sleeves and trousers turned back, and decorated very fancy.The man was half reclining, sitting in a camp chair, with his lower back and thighs pressed against the seat cushion, the back of his neck resting comfortably on the headrest at the end of the chair, and his eyes staring ahead.He held out his hands, as if operating a car's gear shifter or an airplane's controls; his shoesless feet were casually stacked in front of him.

Is this the Mayan king Pacal? If it was him, why does he seem to be operating some kind of machine on the sarcophagus statue?Most scholars believe that the Mayans did not have machines.It is said that they don't even know what a "wheel" is.However, the statue shows Pacal seated inside a mechanism filled with gauges, buttons, and plumbing.This thing looks like some kind of high-tech product, but ordinary scholars say that this image shows "the process of the soul entering the underworld"⑤ or "the scene where the king is swallowed alive by the skeleton monster"⑥.

I am reminded of the "man in the snake" presented in the Olmec relief (see Chapter 17 of this book).It also looks like some high-tech machinery that the artist has depicted in an almost childlike way. The "Man in the Snake" was unearthed in the ruins of Ravendar, and Lavendar was closely related to the mysterious man with a beard on his face-apparently Caucasian.Pacal’s tomb is not as old as the finds from Ravendar; the gap between the two dates is at least 1,000 years.However, archaeologists found a jade statuette in the sarcophagus, which is much older than other funerary objects, and it depicts a Caucasian old man in a robe and a goatee under his forehead.

Home of the Gnome ●The Ruins of Uxmal, Yucatan Peninsula In the afternoon, when the rain was coming, I began to climb a pyramid located 700 kilometers north of the Palenque ruins.The tower is very steep, oval in shape, rather than square in general; the base is 240 feet long, 120 feet wide, and the tower is very high, reaching 120 feet, overlooking the surrounding plains. Since ancient times, this building, which resembles the wizard castle in western fairy tales, has been called the "Pyramid of the Magician" (Pyramid of the Magician), and sometimes people call it "House of the Dwarf" (House of the Dwarf). ).According to Mayan legend, a dwarf with great powers built this pyramid overnight, so people gave it these names. The more you climb up, the narrower the stairs become, as if deliberately tricking people.I should have leaned forward, clinging to the tower and slowly ascending the steps to ensure my safety, but somehow I turned my face up and looked only at the cloudy, thunderous sky overhead.Flocks of birds circled around, chattering constantly, as if escaping the approaching storm.The clouds that had covered the sun a few hours ago were now being blown all over the sky by the strong wind, like a pot of boiling water. It is not surprising that Mayan legends link the "Pyramid of the Sorcerer" with the magic powers of the gnomes, who were considered the foremost architects and masons in Mesoamerica.A typical Mayan legend pointed out unequivocally: "It is easy for them to build a house. Just blow a whistle, and the stone will move, and everyone will be in place"⑦. Readers must remember that a very similar South American myth mentions that when the mysterious ancient city of Tihuanaco in the Andes was built, a huge stone "flew across the sky under the sound of a horn"⑧. In Central America and in the remote Andes, people believed that some mysterious sound could make large stones float in the air, as if by magic. How should we treat this phenomenon?Perhaps purely by coincidence, these two geographically separated regions have each created such similar "ghost stories".However, such a coincidence is too coincidental to seem unlikely.We may wish to consider another possibility: this kind of story preserves the common memory of the people of the two places on a certain ancient construction technology, and this construction technology is so superb that it can easily lift huge stones from the ground, like a "miracle" .It is worth noting that ancient Egyptian legends also mention similar miracles.Is this also a mere coincidence?According to a typical Egyptian myth, a magician once performed magical powers and caused "a huge arched stone 200 feet long and 50 cubits wide" to float in the air. The staircase I'm climbing is lined with ornate patterns—what the nineteenth-century American explorer John Lloyd Stephens called a "carved mosaic."⑩.Strangely, although the "Magician's Pyramid" was built several centuries before the Spanish conquered Central America, the mosaic pattern here repeatedly appeared symbols similar to the Christian cross.In fact, there are two types of "Christian" crosses engraved on this pyramid: one is the broad-handed cross worshiped by the "Knights Templar" (Knights Templar) and other crusading organizations in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the other is the Holy Cross. Saint Andrew's X-shaped cross. I climbed the last few steps to the temple that stands at the top of the "Pyramid of the Sorcerers".It has only one temple with a vaulted roof supported by stone pillars.Flocks of bats hang from the ceiling.Like the birds and the dark clouds outside, they were both disturbed by the approaching storm and seemed very restless.A large swarm of bats hung upside down, huddled together in a fuzzy ball, flapping their tiny, sturdy wings. I sat down on the steps around the temple to rest for a while.Looking down from here, I see more crosses.It is no exaggeration to say that crosses are scattered throughout this ancient and bizarre Mayan building.I remembered that on the boulders around the "Puma Gate" in the ancient city of Tihuanaco in the Andes, I once saw some cross emblems, which were engraved by ancient craftsmen before the birth of Columbus⑾.The Olmec statue of "The Man in the Snake" unearthed from the ruins of La Venda is also engraved with two X-shaped crosses; according to experts' research, it was the work of Jesus Christ before his birth.Now, on the "Pyramid of the Magicians" in the Mayan ruins of Uxmal, I saw the symbol of the cross again. The mystery man with the beard on his face... A snake with feathers... The symbol of the cross... These strange symbols have repeatedly appeared in different historical eras and cultures that are very far apart.Is this really an accidental coincidence?Why are these symbols so frequently represented in artworks and engraved on buildings? prophecy science I've always suspected that what I was seeing might be symbols and icons left behind by some secret sect or group; they kept the torch of civilization that continued to burn in Mesoamerica (and beyond) during the long dark ages .I noticed that during this trip to the Americas, every time I went to a place where foreign advanced civilizations came into contact with native cultures, the symbols of the bearded mystery man, the feathered snake and the cross would suddenly appear.And I feel that this kind of cultural contact is very old—so old that people have forgotten it. I also thought that around 1500 BC, the Olmecs suddenly stepped out of prehistoric chaos and established a brilliant civilization.Archaeological evidence shows that, from the beginning, the Olmec worshiped the bearded mystery man on the stone statue and stele.I am more and more convinced of the possibility that some of those strange carvings are the legacy of some ancient civilization, which was handed down to the peoples of Mesoamerica many years before 1500 BC, and then handed over to a A secret cultural organization—perhaps the Quetzalcotel sect—kept and guarded it. Many of the remains of this ancient civilization have been lost to time.However, the peoples of Central America—especially the Mayans who built the ancient cities of Palenque and Uxmal—preserved not only those enigmatic stone statues, but even something more mysterious and wonderful, which made them even more curious. Qualifications claim to be the true heirs of an ancient, advanced civilization.In the next chapter, we will find that the most complete preservation of the Mayans is a mysterious science related to "time", "measurement" and "prediction" developed by ancient astronomers—it can even be called the science of prophecy.At the same time, they also inherited this ancient civilization's memory of a vast ancient flood that submerged the entire world, and a strange intellectual legacy.This level of knowledge is too high to have been developed by the Mayans, and we have only recently acquired it ourselves... Notes: ① Jennifer Westwood edited "Map of the Unknown", p. 70. Jennifer Westwood, ed, The Atlas of Mysterious Places, Guild Publishing, London, 1987, p.70. ②Quoted from "Map of the Secret Land", pp. 68-69. ③ Same as above, with Michael Coy's "The Mayans", pages 108-109. Michael D． Coe, The maya, Thames and Hudson, London 1991, pp. 108-9. ④ "White God and Stone Face", pp. 94-95. ⑤ "Map of the Secret Realm", p. 70. ⑥ "The Time Concept of the Maya", p. 298. ⑦ "Mythology of Mexico and Central America", 8 pages, and "History and Religion of the Mayans", 340 pages. ⑧See Chapter 10 of this book. ⑨Warrito Butch, "Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection Myth", Vol. 2, p. 180. E． A． Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, The Medlcl Society Ltd, 1911, volume II, p. 180． ⑩John Stephens "Central America, Chiapas Province of Mexico and Yucatan Peninsula Travel Notes", Vol. 2, p. 422. John L． Stephens, Incidents of Trauel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1841, Vol. II, p. 422． ⑾See Chapter 12 of this book.