The city of Palenque, one of the centers of the Mayan civilization, was located at the foot of low hills covered with impassable jungle. Here in 1952 the American archaeologist Alberto Roos excavated the "Temple of the Inscriptions" and began to research it. Overcoming numerous obstacles, the archaeologist found a hidden entrance to a huge crypt, in which one of the Mayan rulers was buried
A. Rus himself later wrote about it this way: “Out of the thick darkness suddenly arose a fabulous picture of a fantastic, unearthly world. It seemed that it is a magical grotto, carved in ice. Its walls sparkled and shimmered like snow crystals in the rays of the sun. The graceful scallops of stalactites hung like a fringe of a huge curtain. And the stalagmites on the floor looked like water droplets on a giant flowing candle. The tomb resembled an abandoned temple. Sculptural figures of alabaster marched along its walls. Then my gaze fell to the floor.
It was almost completely covered by a huge, perfectly preserved stone slab with relief images. Looking at all this with awe and amazement, I tried to describe the beauty of the spectacle to my colleagues. And they did not believe until, having pushed me away, they saw this magnificent picture with their own eyes.
The crypt found by archaeologists was 9 meters long, 4 meters wide, and its high vaulted ceiling went up almost 7 meters. The architecture of this underground tomb was so perfect that it has survived almost perfectly to this day. The stones of the walls and vaults were hewn and fitted together with such skill that none of them fell from their place.
At first, the archaeologist could not even understand what he dug up: an underground temple or a unique tomb? Most of the room was occupied by a huge stone box, covered with a carved stone slab. Was it an altar or a sarcophagus lid? On the lateral faces of the plate, a strip of hieroglyphic signs was visible, among which scientists found several calendar dates dating back to the Mayan era to the 7th century.
On the flat surface of the slab, the scientist discovered a symbolic scene carved with an ancient master's chisel. At the bottom of this thread, you can see a terrible mask, reminiscent of destruction and death: deprived of tissue and muscles of the jaw and nose, large fangs, huge empty eye sockets. For most of the Indian peoples of pre-Columbian Mexico, this deity was a terrible monster, feeding on living beings. Since all living things, dying, return to the earth, the terrible mask was a stylized image of a deity. His head was crowned with four objects, two of which are symbols of death among the Mayans (a shell and a sign resembling%); the other two, on the contrary, are associated with birth and life (a corn of a maize and a flower, or a corncob).
On the monster's mask, leaning back slightly, sits a handsome young man in rich clothes and precious ornaments. His body is entwined with a fantastic plant that emerges from the mouth of the monster. The young man gazes up at the cruciform object, which in the ancient Maya personifies the "tree of life", or, more precisely, the "source of life" - a stylized sprout of maize.
On the crossbar of the "cross" the flexible body of a two-headed snake is wriggling fancifully, and from the mouths of these heads little funny men in masks of the rain god peep out. According to the beliefs of the Maya Indians, the snake has always been associated with the sky and heavenly rain: like snakes, clouds smoothly and silently slide across the sky, and lightning is nothing more than a “fiery snake”.
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At the very top of the "cross" sits the sacred bird quetzal, whose long emerald feathers served as an adornment of the ceremonial headdresses of the Mayan kings and high priests. Quetzal is also clothed in the mask of the rain god, and just below her are signs symbolizing water, and two small shields with the image of the sun god.
Such a complex rebus of carved paintings was captured on the lid of the sarcophagus. After a thorough study of all the sources at his disposal, A. Rus gave the following interpretation: “The young man sitting on the mask of the monster of the earth, probably, at the same time personifies the person who is destined to one day return to the bosom of the earth, and maize, grain which (in order to germinate) must first be buried in the ground.
The “cross”, at which a person is staring so intently, again symbolizes maize - a plant that appears on earth with the help of man and nature to serve then … food for people. With the idea of the annual resurrection of maize, the Maya had the idea of a person's own resurrection."
THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEAD IN PALENKA
Thanks to the deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphs, there is an unusually complete sequence of Palenque rulers. The royal dynasty dates back almost to the "mythical" period around 500 BC. e. It is believed that it was then that the Mayan chieftain named K'ish Chan founded the kingdom.
More specific information is available about a ruler named Balum K'uk, who lived around 400 AD. e. Six more rulers follow him. The male line is interrupted in 583 when power passes to the daughter of Chan Balum. After 20 years, she was replaced by her son Ak K'an, the great-uncle of the later outstanding ruler Pakal. Then, since Ak K'an, apparently, did not leave male descendants, his niece was declared ruler. Pacal is born from her marriage to a Mayan noble named Kan Balum Mo '. He ascends the throne at the age of 12 and reigns, as the inscriptions say, 67 years - until his death in 683.
At the direction of Pakal, a detailed written presentation of the myths about the creation of the Maya, the creation of the universe and religion in general is being created. Robert Scherer, like other researchers, believes that the claim to dominance was justified in this way, since the paternal line of origin was interrupted.
GODS
And the Swiss E. Daniken, who is convinced of the communication of earthlings with aliens, stated his point of view: “The relief found in Palenque most likely depicts the god Kukumatz …
We see a man sitting, leaning forward, in the position of a jockey or a racer, and in his carriage any child today recognizes a rocket. It is pointed at the front, has strangely curved projections, similar to suction nozzles, and then expands and ends with tongues of flame.
A person leaning forward is wielding a lot of incomprehensible control devices with both hands, and presses a pedal with his left heel. He is dressed appropriately: in short pants with a wide belt, in a jacket with the now fashionable Chion collar and tight-fitting cuffs. It is not only the posture of such a clearly depicted cosmonaut that is active: there is some kind of device hanging in front of his face, and he watches it closely and attentively."
The massive stone "legs" of the sarcophagus, in turn, were also decorated with relief images. Mythical characters in rich clothes seemed to "grow" out of the earth, depicted purely symbolically - a strip and a special hieroglyphic such. And next to them are the shoots of already real plants, hung with the fruits of cocoa, pumpkin and guava.
A long stone pipe, made in the form of a snake body, and ending in the central room of the temple, rose up from the sarcophagus. A. Rus called this trumpet "a channel for the soul" intended for spiritual communication between priests and living members of the reigning family with their departed ancestors. After the funeral rite, the staircase was covered with fragments of stones, and between the tomb and the temple above there was only a magical connection through this "channel".
The dimensions of the stone sarcophagus and its enormous weight (20 tons) excluded its delivery down - along a narrow internal staircase - after the construction of the pyramid. The pyramid and temple were most likely built over the finished tomb to protect it from destruction and hide it from uninvited eyes. But the tomb of the ruler, buried with countless treasures, was undoubtedly a lot of tempting prey for robbers, which is why it was so carefully hidden in the depths of the pyramid, and the passage to it was densely packed with earth, rubble and boulders.
Two of the most prominent experts in ancient America, Linda Schele and David Fraidel, in 1990 were of the opinion that the craftsmen who made the lid wanted to show the ruler at the trunk of a "tree of worlds descending into the mouth of the underworld." At the same time, the motive of rebirth was also introduced: “The falling Pakal is accompanied schematically / by the marked head of a monster carrying a sacrificial bowl with the glyph of the Sun. This special glyph, depicting the Sun on the border with the underworld, at the transition from life to death, is a sign of extreme symbolic power. Both the Sun and the king will pass through Xibalba [the underworld. - Note. author], in order to reappear on the eastern horizon at the end of his journey.
Jeremy Sabloff in 1989 makes the following conclusions: “Erich von Daniken suggested that on the lid of the sarcophagus of Lord Pakal… an astronaut of ancient times is depicted at the control devices of a spacecraft. His idea is based on the apparent similarity with the position of a modern astronaut in a spaceship capsule … So, the civilization of Mexico was influenced by beings from other planets? Von Daniken was not lucky, as iconography shows that Pacal does not overcome the force of gravity - he does not take off, but descends into the underworld."
In contrast to this, Rousse Luillier, the person who discovered the camera, states: “On the stone in question, we see a person surrounded by astronomical symbols meaning the sky, the spatial limitation of earthly limits and the homeland of the gods, on which the unchanging path of the stars marks the inexorable rhythm of time.
On the slab of the sarcophagus and on the edge of the lid are two of the four lists of the kings of Palenque, which indicate the dates of their birth, death and accession to the throne. Pacal's mother supposedly merges here with the foremother of the gods and kings, the parent of all three central deities of the Mayan religion. At the same time, the divine nature of Pakal is explained.
Schele and Fraidel write about this: "As a logical conclusion, it follows that Pacal belonged to the descendants of the first goddess and to the same genus as those higher beings who … constituted the divine triad of Palenque."
Then, on the lid of the sarcophagus carved with a chisel, a drawing appeared, depicting Pakal with a smoking ax in his forehead. From the point of view of Maya studies, this showed that he is the embodiment of the second child of the foremother, the god GII. Since we are talking here about interpretation, a more cautious wording should be given, for example: thus, perhaps, his very close connection with the god GII is indicated. According to the hypothesis of searching for traces of extraterrestrial intelligence in ancient times, in the case of many creatures called "gods" we are talking about extraterrestrial intelligent beings, which, therefore, explained Pakal's connection with an unusual event concerning such creatures.
SYMBOLOGY OF SARCOPHAGUS LID
The question arises: what is the meaning of the symbolism on the cover? Pacal is believed to be buried in the cruciform tree of the worlds. What is this "tree" that was considered even a "spaceship"? His name glyph sounds like Bakah Chan, "six heavens" or "raised sky". In Mayan mythology, it serves as the central axis of the cosmos. L. Schele and M. Miller in 1986 and L. Schele and D. Fraidel in 1990 wrote: “Along this axis, the souls of the dead and the gods rise from the other world when they are invoked by the visualization ritual, and return back in the same way. ".
Now there is a debate about how and with the help of what the gods were invoked in the visualization ritual. It is also unclear how the gods were supposed to come along the central axis of space from the other world. It seems to us the most natural assumption (and this should be said here) that the "gods" came from space, descended to Earth, and then returned to space.
In the middle of the Vakah Chan are the glyphs "tree" (te), "sacred / cult", "light" (for example, "mirror"), the symbol of a bowl for blood and "a serpent studded with precious stones." Thus, the image can, as usual, be correlated with the sacred “tree of worlds”. The explanation resulting from a technical interpretation of the general configuration could be manifested in the following: a tree-like (tall, elongated, directed into the sky) object is depicted, which shines like a precious stone and is revered as sacred. The snake symbol is used by the Maya, in the Olmec culture, as well as all over the world in a similar (“spaceship-related”, divine) context (perhaps as an association with danger, hiss, speed, etc.).
Further, the Maya pronunciation of the words "serpent", "sky" and "four" is almost identical. This applies to both the Yucatec dialect, where the word "sap" is used, and the Cholan dialect, where it is pronounced "chan". Schele and Fraidel state that, naturally, it was quite logical to depict a serpent as a metaphor for the firmament: “Even in names and titles, Maya artists used the glyphs of the sky and the serpent as synonyms. Since both glyphs are transmitted identically when reading and speaking, it did not matter which of the two glyphs to use when writing."
The two “heads” located diagonally in front of and below the character depicted in the center symbolize two gods: the god GII and the god-jester. The latter is one of the earliest Mayan symbols denoting domination, power, energy, and GII is the last born in the triad of the Palenque gods, who was in close connection with the ruler Pakal.
The so-called celestial monster is depicted at the top of the tree of worlds. This sign usually symbolizes the movement of Venus and the Sun, and in a broad sense - the movement of other planets through the constellations at night and across the sky during the day. Schele and Fraidel write about this: "By its existence at the outer reaches of the Universe, the Cosmic Monster personifies the connecting path between the natural and supernatural worlds."
If this Cosmic Monster exists at the extreme limits of the Universe, then along with the assumption that a connecting path to the supernatural world is outlined here, it is possible with the same or even more reason to admit the thesis that the path to space in general is symbolically designated - by
Sun and planets. Even after the discovery of the burial, R. Louillier wrote: "On the surface of a large stone there is a symbolic scene surrounded by astronomical signs."
At the top of the image, interpreted in particular as a "tree of worlds", it is not difficult to see a bird-like creature. This is "the highest deity in the form of a bird" or "heavenly bird", "a symbol of flight." If in the case of the "tree of worlds" we are really talking about a postulated stylized spaceship, then the image of a bird as a symbol of flight into the sky would only emphasize this content.
CONCLUSIONS
Finally, the central issue is the content of the image on the lid of the Palenque sarcophagus. Does it show the priest-ruler Pakal on the way to Xibalba (the underworld), or is it still a spaceship reflected in Mayan symbolism and a man sitting in it?
Back in 1990-1991. Schele and Fraidel argued that it appears to be the Mayan king's journey to Xibalba, a "place of fear." However, in 1992, together with the ethnologist Parker, they came to the conclusion that Xibalba was not always identified with the underworld: “Even today, the path to Xibalba among various Maya peoples is identified with the Milky Way - this is a view that originates from the classical period … For the Maya, the sky it has long been a living space, within which the deeds of divine beings manifested themselves. " As Dennis Tedlock writes, the mythical twin gods “have entered the black path … In the celestial sphere, this means that they were last seen in the black fissure of the Milky Way, before they disappeared beyond the eastern horizon. That is why this crack is called the path to Xibalba to this day."
The same can be said for the strip of hieroglyphs that frames the entire image. It is divided into sections of various lengths. “In each area there is the name of the Sun, Moon, any planet or other celestial bodies expressed in glyphs,” write Schele and Fraidel. Thus, the so-called "celestial ribbon" is depicted.
So, the interpretation of the image on the lid of the Palenque sarcophagus admits the following consistent statements:
• contrary to the opinion of some Mayaists (for example, Jeremy Sabloff), the symbolism of the lid of the sarcophagus contains the theme of an extremely strong connection with the cosmos;
• Pacal is depicted on the way to Xibalba;
• the path to the Universe, to the Milky Way can be connected with Xibalba;
• in the understanding of the Maya, gods lived in space;
• this is confirmed by the symbolism of the supreme deity in the guise of a bird and a Cosmic Monster;
• from this it follows that the iconography of the burial does not reveal any contradictions with the fact that, possibly, a spaceship is depicted on the lid.
Ironically, Palenque has never had an extensive archaeological prospecting program that could possibly provide answers to further questions. This is what seems to us the next important step in the study of Palenque heritage.