34. The Pyramid of Kukulcan; a Precessional Alarm Clock.

When the Toltec people moved to Chichen Itza, they merged their own zenith cosmology with the Mayan system, and the result was the Pyramid of Kukulcan. This has been designed so that every year, on Spring Equinox, the afternoon sun causes a shadow play so that it appears that a huge serpent is descending from the sky, down the pyramid. However, John Major Jenkins shows that the pyramid is much more than an equinox indicator. It is a     

        ‘PRECESSIONAL CLOCK WITH ITS ALARM SET FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’.

              The Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza                                                The shadow-play can be seen here      

Jenkins says that Kukulcan, (or Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent), was the symbol of a sun-Pleiades-zenith conjunction. Exactly 60 days after the Spring Equinox, on May 20, the zenith passage of the sun takes place over Chichen Itza. The Crotalus rattlesnake, whose pattern is constantly used in Mesoamerican art, has a marking on it which is identical to the Solar ‘Ahau’ glyph of the Maya, and its rattle was called ‘tzab’, which is the same word used for the Pleiades star cluster (see Fig. below).

                                              From John Major Jenkins' essential book, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012

 The moving snake on the Pyramid is an annual reminder of a conjunction of the zenith sun with the Pleiades over Chichen Itza, but this is an event which will occur in a 360-year window of time that is just about to open. Right at the start of the window is 2012 and on May 20 2012, the zenith passage combines with a solar eclipse, on the Tzolkin day 10 Chichan, which means serpent. The winter solstice end-point will be 4 Ahau in the Tzolkin calendar, meaning Lord/Sun, and 3 Kankin in the Haab calendar, which means ‘snake-day’.

35. Birth and Death of Venus. In The Mayan Prophecies,  Adrian Gilbert said that he used astronomical software called SKYGLOBE to look at the sky as it was at dawn, on 12 August 3114 BC (where he dates the beginning of the Great Cycle). He found that as the Pleiades were on the meridian, the Sun was preceded by Venus as the morning star. This he took to be the mythical “Birth of Venus” associated with the start of the Great Cycle. Just as in ancient Egypt, the dawn rising of Sirius heralded the flooding of the Nile and the beginning of a new year, and the meridian transits of Orion correlated to the First Time and Last Time of Osiris; to the Maya, the meridian transit of the Pleiades announced the “Birth of Venus” as it rose over the horizon.  

Gilbert used SKYGLOBE to check the sky on 22 December 2012 (where he dates the end of the Great Cycle), and found that, just before sunset, as the Pleiades rise over the eastern horizon, Venus sinks below the western horizon. This, he thinks, is the symbolic “Death of Venus”, indicating the start of a new precessional age.   

                                                                  Gilbert's "Birth of Venus" sky chart for "12 August 3114 BC".            

Morton and Thomas have repeated this conclusion in Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, (see item 25) and have also supplied the Death of Venus sky chart, which Gilbert had not included in the Mayan Prophecies. They have also adjusted the start and end dates of the Great Cycle by one day to the " Thompson 2" dates that Jenkins has confirmed. 

             Morton & Thomas's sky chart for sunset on 21 December 2012, showing "the death of Venus & the birth  of the Pleiades"

However, Jenkins has checked the sky chart for 12 August 3114, on SKYGLOBE and 2 other sources, and found that Gilbert had omitted to double-check his findings, since Venus actually “made its last appearance as the morning star almost two weeks before the Long-Count zero-date”.  It is possible that Gilbert accidentally checked the sky chart for the alternative start-date of August 3113 BC, which is also quoted in The Mayan Prophecies as THE start of the Long Count, but presuming that the software programs are all adjusted for no “year zero” (see Addendum), then it still means that this interpretation of the Birth of Venus (and therefore the Death of Venus too), is in error.  Click her for Jenkins' full unabridged review of the Mayan Prophecies 

                                     Velikovsky                                                                        The elliptical orbit of Venus following "her birth"  

Immanuel Velikovsky  has said in his book Worlds in Collision, that the Birth of Venus occurred when Venus was “born” from Jupiter. A cosmic collision caused a part of Jupiter to burst out, becoming a comet, and leaving the famous red spot where it burst out.  This is clearly illustrated in the Greek myth of Athene who sprang from the head of Zeus, making Mount Olympus tremble and stirring the sea, (Athene, reasons Velikovsky, is the planet Venus, and Zeus is the planet Jupiter). Velikovsky dated this event as contemporary with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, explaining the plagues and parting of the Red Sea. Several Mayan and Aztec myths were also cited as evidence, including the fact that Quetzalcoatl, which means feathered serpent, is the well-known name for the planet Venus. It was also called “the star that smoked”. Velikovsky quotes from Brasseur de Bourbourg’s Histoire Des Nations Civilisees du Mexique:

This would explain the Mayan obsession with Venus, and we can now see why the Birth of Venus has been associated with the start of the Great Cycle. However, Velikovsky dated the event around 1500 BC with the Exodus. Graham Phillips has also convincingly explained the events of the Exodus as side-effects of the eruption of the volcano Thera (in his book Act of God), but Nigel Appleby has unified the theories with that of Nibiru, the tenth planet (see item 27).

The existence of Nibiru was postulated by Zecharia Sitchin in his book The Twelfth Planet-(12 counting the Sun and Moon). Ancient Sumerian mythology implies that there is a large planet –Nibiru- on an elliptical orbit, which enters the solar system every 3,600 years. Velikovsky and Sitchin actually used the same Sumerian myth as part of the evidence for their respective theories (the Marduk and Tiamat myth). According to Sitchin’s chronology, the next return is due in 3400-3600 AD. 

  Appleby suggests that it was Nibiru that caused the disasters of the Exodus as it “shunted both Earth and Mars close to each other’s orbit…” and that it was this which triggered the eruption of Thera. However, Velikovsky didn’t say Mars was involved in the original Birth of Venus incident, but two later ones around 700 BC. Anyway, it IS an interesting idea, since it provides a large passing body to interfere with Jupiter and cause the ejection of Venus. What is more, it would mean that Nibiru is due to return soon (1500 BC to 2000 AD =3500 years), as Appleby suggested: 2012 - 2036 (see item 27).

  If we prefer  to correlate the Birth of Venus incident to 3114 BC, then the implication is that the Great Cycle is measuring the period of return of some OTHER huge planetoid (see items 8 & 10), due in 2012, on Snake Day.

 (Frank Zappa connection?) (and while we're on the subject...Jimi Hendrix asteroid prophecy)

38. The Dendera Zodiac. Astrologer John Lash gave a lecture at the Alternative Egypt Questing Conference in October 99, in which he claimed that there were originally 13 signs in the zodiac, the 13^th being "The Snake Handler". Instead of splitting the ecliptic into 12 equally sized sections, there were 13 sections of different sizes, depending on the sizes of the constellations. Once this is taken into account, we see that the Sun's vernal equinox will not transit from Pisces to Aquarius, for another 700 to 800 years.

.......................................................................................................................................................................John Anthony West

 The circular zodiac on the ceiling of the Temple at Denderah, in Egypt shows the 12 signs, the Snake Handler without the snake, several other constellations, the five visible planets, and the 36 decans.  The Egyptologist R.A. Schwaller De Lubicz (in Sacred Science), has shown that the Denderah Zodiac demonstrates that the Egyptians knew about the precession of the equinoxes. The axes marked on the zodiac show the movement of solstices and equinoxes through the constellations between the foundation of Egypt and the time of the building of the Denderah Temple. Sirius appears twice - once on the true North-South axis, above the horns of the "cow of Isis", and also on the axis of the temple, as Horus on a papyrus stem. The light of the star would illumine the inner temple on New Year's Day, at the heliacal rising, when the temple was built. At that era, this would have coincided with the summer solstice in Cancer, which is why Sirius also appears aligned to Cancer on the North-South axis.

John Lash points out another axis on the Dendera Zodiac, which goes from the four rams' heads, through Pisces, across the pole to the star Spica, being held by Virgo. This, he says, is pointing out the position of the vernal equinox today. The line goes through the Square of Pegasus, which has writing on it - "the Programmes of Destiny" (I had previously associated this square with the "Wormhole of Daath").  At exactly 90 degrees to this axis, another line can be drawn through the tip of the arrow of Sagittarius, which points to Galactic Centre, where the solstice alignment will occur in 2012. John Lash's Dendera theory is summed up in his own words in Colin Wilson's book, Atlantis Blueprint.