Chichen Itza!

Now that we are past the temporary hysteria that had engulfed the nation and the world over the supposed Mayan prophecy that the planet might be getting ready to rid itself of its human population, it might be a good time to recount our experiences with the Mayan civilization from over two decades ago.

My new bride and I decided to take our honeymoon trip to Cancun, on the emerald east coast of Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula. Cancun was an old Mexican village that has been transformed over the years into a mecca for tourists from around the world. We first met Cubans from Cuba on that trip as they were there along with many others from most of the continents of the world. Cancun is a very cosmopolitan place!

In the middle of our sojourn, we found out that we could take a tour up to one of the ancient Mayan cities that had been hidden from world view for almost a thousand years--Chichen Itza! My wife decided that she would remain behind when she saw the primitive transportation that would carry those of us brave enough to go to our destination. It was a sort of old school bus with no air conditioning that was substituted for by an entire barrel full of cheep Mexican beer made available at a price for the sweaty who might succumb to its temporary pleasures. The tour guide would not let us drink it on the way up because he was afraid that some of us might get drunk and fall off of the giant pyramid that dominates the Chichen Itza landscape.

After a several hour drive that included passage through a notorious drug lord capital city of one of Mexico’s states, we arrived at our destination. One comes out of the jungle like area surrounding the city into an open area filled with great structures rising out of the mists of time. The great pyramid dominates the scene but there are other equally as interesting structures to be visited and admired. At one point in our life, we had read and heard about the great ball field that exists at Chichen Itza. We had read that great games of sport had been played there among the young who would be watched from the stone stands by thousands who would root on their favorite players. If one looks at some of the carvings at the great ball field, one sees where some of the apparent losers of these contests had their heads lopped off as a punishment for their inability to win. We are not there yet as a nation here in America but, from some of the comments that we hear after some football games, we may not be that far away from it. And, with all of the head injuries and apparent suicides by professional football players with attached notes willing their brains to science to try to figure out what was troubling them from the concussions that they have suffered through, we may, in fact, be already there.

In 1988, when we were at Chichen Itza, there had been much excavation already done but much still waited to appear in a major Mayan city that might have housed hundreds of thousands at it heights around one thousand AD. The Mayans had a very advanced civilization for their time. One of the most fascinating things that we saw was a well built and rather large observatory that was apparently devoted to the Mayan study of the stars and the universe. Although we are sure that this observatory probably did not include a telescope, it does resemble many American observatories, many of which are located in the far west. If anything alarmed us about the predictions associated with the Mayans, it was our remembrance of this observatory. It looked very advanced and one just never knows what the ancients might have known about things that whizzed by in their passing sky. They apparently devoted a great deal of their time to viewing the skies and their calendar construction was obviously developed from those views. One must remember that they did not have the benefit of the modern communication and information sharing that exists in our world today so what they came up with, they probably came up with on their own. It is also interesting to note that places like Stonehenge in England also had great dependence on the night sky for their development and construction, so the ancients were probably more advanced in these areas than we might think.

Another disturbing thing about Chichen Itza also bothered us when we heard about the Mayan prophecy. At the apparent height of its existence, the Mayans apparently decided to abandon the entire city and, over a forty to fifty year period of time, they buried the entire city and moved on to other places. Although there has been much addition archeological excavation done at the site and at other places around Mexico and across central America, the prevailing view of the city and its fate was what was told to us when we were there almost twenty five years ago.

It seems that so many ancient cities went into decline and were abandoned across the entire world and we are just now beginning to discover what might have happened to so many of them. We visited a place called the Cahokia Mounds up around St. Louis, Missouri, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi river earlier this year. It was a great site for commerce back in its day almost a thousand years ago, but, it too fell into decline and the only things remaining of it today are the enormous number of great earthen mounds that dotted the city that were built by the hands of man.

We wonder, with the instantaneous communication and information sharing that goes on these days what our future will look like a thousand years from now. Among the postulations that were made surrounding the recent Mayan end of civilization buzz were the thoughts that the great super volcano out around Yellowstone national park might blow and put an end to us all. That is an everyday possibility and we know that scientists and the government keep a constant watch on what goes on out there. Science and history tell us that we are overdue for an extinction event, especially involving super volcanoes as we live on the crust surrounding a very active and violent core that exists just miles below us. And, we have not taken advantage of the opportunities availed to us by the advances of science to get at least some of us off of this very uncertain planet and its volcanic whims. All we have right now are six people orbiting two hundred miles or so above us who might end up being the final witnesses to the end of this place some day. Since their station is not permanent in its orbit they would eventually either come down or starve to death before they could record anything permanent about our sudden end. So, that leaves us with very little to tell the universe about the seemingly great things that the human race has done. And, perhaps by universal standards, that might be appropriate just as well! We would not want the future to know just how drunk we got off of that cheep Mexican beer on the way home from Chichen Itza anyway! There is nothing like being on a creaky bus not feeling well with no place to pee!

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.