Admittedly the Mayas' interest in astronomy is not sufficient motivation for our hypothesis of relations with intelligences on other planets. The abundance of hitherto unanswered questions is bewildering: how did the Mayas know about Uranus and Neptune? Why are the observation posts in the observatory at Chichen not directed at the brightest stars? What does the stone relief of the rocket-driving god at Palenque mean? What is the point of the Mayan calendar with its calculations for 400 million years! Where did they get the knowledge required to calculate the solar and Venusian years to four decimal places? Who transmitted their inconceivable astronomical knowledge? Is every fact a chance product of the Mayan intellect or does each fact, or rather do all the facts added together, conceal a revolutionary message for a very distant future, as seen from their point in time?
If we put all the facts in a sieve and roughly separate the wheat from the chaff, there are so many inconsistencies and absurdities left that research needs spurring on to make a large-scale new effort to solve at least some of the enormous number of problems. For in our age research should no longer remain satisfied when confronted with so-called 'impossibilities'.
I have one more, rather gruesome story to tell, the story of the Sacred Well of Chichen Itza. From the stinking mud of this well Edward Herbert Thompson excavated not only jewellery and objects of art, but also the skeletons of youths and maidens. Drawing on ancient accounts, Diego de Landa stated that in times of drought the priests used to make pilgrimages to the well to appease the wrath of the rain god by throwing boys and girls into it in the course of a solemn ceremony.
Thompson's finds proved de Landa's claim. A horrifying story, which also brings up more questions from the bottom of the well. How did this water-hole come into being? Why was it declared a sacred well? Why this well in particular, for there are several like it?
The exact counterpart of the sacred well of Chichen Itza exists, hidden in the jungle barely seventy-six yards from the Mayan observatory. Guarded by snakes, poisonous millipedes and troublesome insects, the hole has the same measurements as the 'real' well; its vertical walls are equally weathered, overgrown and swamped by the jungle. These two wells resemble each other most strikingly. The water is the same depth and the colour shimmers from green to brown and blood-red in both wells. Unquestionably the two wells are the same age and possibly they both owe their existence to the impact of meteorites. Meanwhile, contemporary scholars speak only of the sacred well of Chichen Itza; the second well, which is so similar, does not fit into their theories, although both wells are 984 yards away from the top of the biggest pyramid, the Castillo. This pyramid belongs to the god Kukulkan, the 'Feathered Serpent'.
The snake is a symbol of nearly all Mayan buildings. That is astonishing, for one would have expected a people surrounded by luxuriant rampant flora to leave flower motifs behind on their stone relief as well. Yet the loathsome snake confronts us everywhere. From time immemorial the snake has wound its way through the dust and dirt of the earth. Why should anyone conceive of endowing it with the ability to fly? Primaeval image of evil, the snake is condemned to crawl. How could anyone worship this repulsive creature as a god and why could it fly into the bargain? Among the Mayas it could. The god Kukulkan (= Kukumatz) presumably corresponds to the figure of the later god Quetzelcoatl. What does the Mayan legend tell us about this Quetzelcoatl?
He came from an unknown country of the rising sun in a white robe, and he wore a beard. He taught the people all the sciences, arts and customs and left very wise laws. It was said that under his direction corn-cobs grew as big as a man and that cotton grew already coloured. When Quetzlcoatl had fulfilled his mission, he returned to the sea, preaching his teaching en route, and boarded a ship there which took him to the morning star. It is almost embarrassing for me to mention in addition that the bearded Quetzelcoatl also promised to return.
Naturally there is no lack of explanations for the appearance of the wise old man. A kind of Messianic role is attributed to him, for a man with a beard is not an everyday occurrence in these latitudes. There is even a daring version which suggests that the old Quetzelcoatl was an earlier Jesus! That does not convince me. Anyone who arrived among the Mayas from the ancient world would have known about the wheel for transporting men and objects. Surely one of the first actions of a sage, a god like Quetzelcoatl, who appeared as missionary, law-giver, doctor and adviser on many practical aspects of life, would have been to instruct the poor Mayas in the use of the wheel and the cart. In fact the Mayas never used either.
Let us complete the intellectual confusion with a compendium of oddities from the dim past.
In 1900 Greek sponge divers found an old wreck loaded with marble and bronze statues off Antikythera. These art treasures were rescued and subsequent investigations showed that the ship must have foundered around the time of Christ. When all the plunder was sorted out, it included a shapeless lump that proved more important than all the statues put together. When it had been carefully treated, scholars discovered a sheet of bronze with circles, inscriptions and cog wheels and soon realised that the inscriptions must be connected with astronomy. When the many separate parts were cleaned, a strange construction came to light, a regular machine with movable pointers, complicated scales or dials and metal plates with writing on. The reconstructed machine had more than twenty little wheels, a kind of differential gear and a crown wheel. On one side there was a spindle that set all the dials in motion at varying speeds as soon as it was turned. The pointers were protected by bronze covers on which long inscriptions could be read. In the case of this 'machine from Antikythera', is there the slightest doubt that first-class precision mechanics were at work in antiquity? Moreover the machine is so complicated that it was probably not the first of its kind. The American Professor Solla Price interpreted the apparatus as a kind of calculating machine with the help of which the movements of the moon, the sun and probably other planets could be worked out.
The fact that the machine gives the year of its construction as 82 B.C. is not so important. It would be more interesting to find out who built the first model of this machine, this small-scale planetarium!
The Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II is supposed to have brought back a most unusual tent from the east when he returned from the Fifth Crusade in 1229. In the interior of the tent stood a clockwork motor and people watched the constellations in motion through the dome-shaped roof of the tent. Once again a planetarium in olden times. We accept its existence at that date because we know that the necessary mechanical skills existed then. The idea of the earlier planetarium irritates us because in Christ's day the concept of a heaven with fixed stars taking into account the rotation of the earth did not exist. Even the knowledgeable Chinese and Arabic astronomers of antiquity can give us no help regarding this inexplicable fact, and it is undeniable that Galileo Galilei was not born until 1,500 years later. Anyone who goes to Athens should not miss the 'machine from Antikythera'; it is on show in the National Archaeological Museum. We possess only written accounts of Frederick II's tent planetarium.
Here are some more strange things that antiquity has bequeathed to us:
Outline drawings of animals which simply did not exist in South America 10,000 years ago, namely camels and lions, were found on the rocks of the desert plateau of Marcahuasi 12,500 ft above sea-level.