Email exchange, John Major Jenkins
and
Adrian Gilbert in May-June 2007
(With added note on Andrew Collins)

 

Adrian Gilbert pickup up on a comment I made on the now defunct 2012News Yahoo Group, in which I thanked Geoff Stray for his critique of Gilbert’s new 2012 book. A little background: I reviewed Gilbert and Cotterell’s 1995 book The Mayan Prophecies and posted the review on my website in late 1995. At some point seven or so years ago I tried to contribute to Gilbert’s website forum but did not receive and engaging response to my words. I had interview Gilbert when he came to the States in 1995; the interview confirmed for me the spurious and under-informed nature of his knowledge of the Maya tradition. Gilbert’s post to the 2012 News Group in May 2007 came several months after I quit the group; Geoff Stray was kind enough to forward it to me. Gilbert’s email begins with a quote from my post to Geoff: 

 

From: notify@yahoogroups.com [mailto:notify@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Adrian Gilbert
Sent:
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 6:21 AM
To:
John Major Jenkins
Subject: Re: update on Gilbert's book

 

In 2012news@yahoogroups.com, “John Major Jenkins” wrote:

 

[John to]Geoff,

Thank you for your careful assessment of Adrian Gilbert’s recent book on 2012 [http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/new10.htm#gilbert]

 

It is very important that sketchy research be identified for what it is, so that readers will not be led astray. I've always thought that researchers should cross check their ideas, facts, and have an ongoing dialogue with each other. Authors like Gilbert and Cotterell don’t seem to have any interest in actually dialoguing on their ideas, probably because they know they are just making things up and yet wish to continue to capitalize on being plugged into the publishing machine.

 

Adrian proceeds:

Right, well here's your chance John. I don't spend a lot of time 'dialoguing' as you put it because I am very busy researching, writing and reading. I have read your 'Maya Cosmogenisis 2012' and I thought that on the whole it was very good. Do you need me to tell you that? I haven't discussed your ideas in my book, John, as I don't want to be accused of plagiarism.

 

[Adrian’s email was long; I replied with a long preamble and then replied sequentiually to various points throughout his email. Adrian’s words are in RED; mine are in BLUE.]

 

Hi Adrian,

 

Nice to hear from you. I don’t contribute to the 2012 yahoo group anymore – it was too time consuming and  repetitive. However, Geoff Stray forwarded your post to me so that I might comment. I'll reply to you directly and only cc Geoff since he was kind enough to facilitate this exchange. Feel free to post my response to the group, if you choose to share the exchange with the group. I hope this can be a fair and level-headed discussion without resorting to slinging darts and arrows.

 

First, the section of my post that you quoted at the beginning was a reminder that it is important for researchers to exchange ideas and dialogue. I realize this is perhaps an old school value, and doesn’t really have much of a place if everyone is just trying to write and sell their books. However, in a non-fiction research-oriented milieu, such as reconstructing ancient belief systems and cosmologies, I think you'd agree that "the work" itself can be a shared enterprise - the work of reconstructing ancient cosmologies accurately. This of course accentuates a non-ego-centered value that we are all in service to a shared goal rather than purveying our own opinions without conversing with each other. I suspect that shared value involves an assumption that there is something specific that we are trying to elucidate, and thus specific discoveries will emerge that should then be tested and weighed, to determine whether or not they have merit - in the sense of accurately reflecting the cosmology we seek to reconstruct. I always admired that the independent Egypt researchers were able to compare notes and talk to each other. I've tried to talk with others writing books about the Maya, with fairly disappointing results. As you might suspect, one reason is that I've attempted to correct mistaken notions - factual as well as conceptual. You may recall that I reviewed Mayan Prophecies, and despite a general sarcasm (resulting from the marketplace, and misled readers, showering praise and adulation over a book that was filled with problems) I was on target with the problems with that book. So, the only reward for being in service to clarity and truth is that clarity and truth may then have a chance amidst the noise of the marketplace. I don’t expect any nod of recognition of thanks from you, from the publishing industry, or even from truth seekers, since they are often miffed at being disabused of their illusions. That said, I welcome the chance to discuss with you the topic you brought up, which I briefly commented on in the post to the 2012 Yahoo group - that is, the astronomical identification of Seven Macaw. (What follows below was written a few days ago):

 

On the 2012 Yahoo group, Adrian Gilbert commented on something I wrote regarding his new book. Months ago I spent some time with it in the bookstore. I simply can’t afford to purchase everything that comes out on the Maya; however, in several hours at the store I was able to note several problems with his interpretations and conclusions. Later, I read Geoff Stray’s critique of the book. Geoff is a trustworthy critic and discerning commentator on books that have come out on the Maya and 2012. I respect his observations. On all matters I agree with his assessment. It’s great that Gilbert is now willing to dialogue with critical readers of his new book; this is something he was unwilling to do in regards to my lengthy critique of The Mayan Prophecies. He did, however, speak with me by phone while in the States promoting the book. I could not write the review in the generic back-patting style that was expected of me, so I went renegade and published my observations myself online. I find it irresponsible to ignore the observations of critics, especially when the observations are leveled at errors and internal inconsistencies in the text. It is a fairly thankless task to critique the work of others. In the past, I’ve observed that many of my corrections will be adopted, while I’m either ignored or excoriated. That’s a pretty interesting phenomenon. Since my primary interest is in clarity and truth, and that is the end result of my critiques in these cases, I largely let go of the double-standard that these irresponsible authors exhibit in this regard.   Other authors will simply refuse to accept the exposed problems, and indulge in strange logic to provide caveats or explanatory bandages – damage control from spin doctors.

 

Seven Macaw as the Big Dipper. Adrian, I’m almost positively convinced that none of the Socratic dialogue that may follow from our email exchange will make a lick of difference in your interpretations. Why? Because you’ve already published, and it would be silly for you to embrace well argued and documented conclusions that are counter to your own. But I do hope that, off the record, you will understand how it is overwhelmingly clear that Seven Macaw represents the Big Dipper – on the ancient monuments of Izapa, in the Creation Mythology recorded in the 16th century, and to the modern Maya. I’m pretty sure that if you availed yourself of the same evidence that I’ve studied, you would arrive at the same conclusion.

 

Let’s start with the bird deity at Izapa. As you may know, the carved monuments from Izapa date to 400 bc – 50 ad and comprise the earliest iconographic depictions of episodes from the Maya Creation mythology – the Popol Vuh Hero Twin myth – at least in the standard recorded in the 16th century and translated by Dennis Tedlock. Stela 25, for example, portrays a hero twin with his arm torn off, held by the bird deity in the tree, next to a huge caiman arching downward on the left side of the carving. It is well understood by scholars that this carving depicts both a well known episode from the Popol Vuh and the sky over Izapa. The caiman, for example, is the Milky Way. You claim that the bird at the top cannot be the Big Dipper. This position is flawed for the following reasons, which draw solely from the archaeo-astronomical context of the monuments at Izapa that depict this bird deity.

 

Based on the position of Stela 25 in Group A, as well as the bird deity on other monuments in Group A, and the orientation of Group A northward to Tacana volcano, we can conclude that the bird deities on these carvings represent the Big Dipper. Why? Because the Big Dipper rises over the eastern flank of Tacana volcano. Now, you might recall a book called The Orion Mystery, in which Bauval suggested the Egyptian pyramids reflect the belt stars of Orion. The Tacana-Big Dipper-Bird Deity association is the same kind of deduction, and is backed up by other considerations as well. In fact, scholar Clemency Coggins pointed this out long ago. So, without reference to any other sets of evidence from other periods in Maya history, we can see that the iconographic statements at Izapa lead to the conclusion that the bird deity on several stelae at Izapa – especially the ones on the Group A monuments – clearly represent the Big Dipper. This is archeoastronomy, iconography, and symbolism. Now, ideally, at this point you would go and reread the section on Izapa in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, and some of the academic articles that are cited in that section, most notably the Brigham Young University studies.

 

I’m asking you to simply sit with the above information and not reflexively try to deconstruct my argument using principles of relativism and finding some scholar somewhere who disagrees. Believe me, I’ve conversed with as many of them who deigned to speak with me, and without fail they reveal a dearth of knowledge of the disciplines involved in understanding Izapa. I apologize for having researched Izapa so deeply and thoroughly; I wish I was on the same plane of ignorance as everyone else, then we could all just agree. But my whole work is about putting Izapa on the map so that others can understand the importance of it, in regards to 2012 and Maya cosmology. This COULD be a revolution in Maya studies, and in the popular understanding of 2012. And I’m not making wan assertions based on superficial and incomplete study like other writers, but providing good old fashioned documentation and evidence based on studying a huge amount of data – just check out the bibliography to Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. That’s not window dressing. That’s the bibliography. So, would it be nice to hear some honest, discerning, and supportive feedback from others who are supposedly my colleagues? You bet.  Would it be disappointing to see my work appropriated without credit, or while simultaneously lambasting me? Would it be astonishing and frustrating to see other authors shooting wide of the mark and making a killing in the marketplace? Absolutely.

 

So, I’m sure you can now understand why the primary bird deity at Izapa refers to the Big Dipper. Now, hold on, I haven’t said that your Aquila observations are completely flawed, but you might consider the following information.  There is another bird deity on monuments in Group B at Izapa – the zenith group. This bird deity probably represents Xic, the Hawk constellation of Mayan star lore, which is identical to Aquila. In modern Mayan mythlore, Xic signals the rains when he passes through the zenith. A distinction between the two birds is also evident in the Popol Vuh Creation Myth. When you write that scholars don’t agree that the bird deity is the Big Dipper, you are confusing the two bird deities. That’s not helping the cause of clarity.  Simplistic conflation of things that should be kept distinct is somewhat upsetting to me, thus the vexed tone in some of my emails.

 

So, Seven Macaw. Aquila or Big Dipper? Aquila’s probably the hawk messenger in the Popol Vuh; the Big Dipper is definitely Seven Macaw. I think that’s about as far as I need to go at this point, and will not venture into the post-Classic and modern evidence as planned, which provides good evidence for Seven Macaw = Big Dipper. Again, the confusion of birds is, unfortunately, based on not making a distinction between Xic and Seven Macaw. I hope this has been informative.

 

Imagine if the same consensus of thinkers rallied around my insights as rallied around Bauval’s belt star observation. The reasons why this hasn’t happened are many, and revolve around my refusal to endorse the crappy research of other authors, and the publishing industry’s vested promotion of a well-optimized cabal of mutual ego strokers who peddle their own clever inventions at the expense of authentic Mayan tradition.  I am grateful that intelligent readers like Geoff Stray, Joscelyn Godwin, Robert Lawlor, Graham Hancock, John Anthony West, and others understand and appreciate the pioneering nature of my reconstruction. I respect Stray’s discerning mind – I’ve benefited from his critiques of my work; you might benefit from critiques too.  

 

So, to continue:

 

Your ideas need to be stated in a way that makes a distinction between Central Mexican and Mayan ideas, as well as different eras in which different concepts were adopted. That would be one way to avoid overarching and comprehensive dismissals that are simply not accurate. One way to understand the bird deity motif is to examine where and when it first came into being; consequently, its later transformations - if there were any - can be better understood. Following this approach, it is clear that Izapa holds a key to understanding the original astronomical reference of the main bird deity, and we don’t have to invoke later ethnographic or documentary evidence to understand this. We only need to look at the internally consistent motifs on the carved monuments from Izapa, understand their archaeo-astronomical orientations, and understand the iconographic program of the Izapan site as a whole. Unfortunately for truth and accuracy, no one except myself has looked at Izapa with this kind of discerning and comprehensive analysis, so people who don’t like the way I dress or some other superficial reason, will not be disposed to agree with me, despite the large amount of evidence, documentation, and interdisciplinary synthesis I've brought to bear on the question. It’s amazing to me that my unprecedented discoveries about the importance of Izapa have gone largely unheeded, while other authors are celebrated as pioneers when their “discoveries” were in fact noted by others much earlier – and said author even cited the original discoverers! Hilarious. Anyway, that reflex of the marketplace works out well for certain careers, not so well for others. I do appreciate those readers who have commented on my Izapa work and “get it” – and the numbers are growing.

 

(Note: I did not see your book or a review of it in Atlantis Rising.) 

 

Below, I include some specific responses (in blue) to your comments:

 

 

As for 'making things up': well yes there are new theories and ideas in my books. That's why I write them. You will find, though, that I am very careful to back these ideas with data and facts. These might conflict with the current orthodoxies at times but surely that's what authors like myself are for: we stand outside of the magic circle of academia and sometimes call out that 'the emperor has no clothes'.

 

I do accept that sometimes that puts me in the firing line: especially when people have made a large investment in the status quo. But please dont' make ad hominem attacks on me just because you disagree with some of my ideas.

 

I’ve harbored no pre-judgment of your work or person. My observations and critiques stem directly from a discerning assessment of what you’ve written.

 

So, here we are, 11 years after I offered a point by point critique of the factual errors in The Mayan Prophecies (http://alignment2012.com/mproph.htm ) and Gilbert publishes a new book that preserves intact many of the errors that should have never occurred 11 years ago. James Frey, move over.

 

Adrian Gilbert replies:

a) I don't know who James Frey is and

b) The Mayan Prophecies has been out of print for nearly ten years now and is not going to be reprinted: so why do you keep harping on about it?

c) In the new book (2012: Mayan year of Destiny/The End of Time) I have recinded quite a lot of what we wrote in The Mayan Prophecies. Commenting on the Lid of Palenque I even wrote in a note: 'After further study since the publication of our book, The Mayan

Prophecies, I now regret the inclusion of these theories, which I think seriously undermined the credibility of other, more important, ideas concerning sunspot cycles and the Mayan calendar'.

 

What more do you want me to do? Do you want me to don sackcloth and ashes and to stand in the porch of the Cathedral of Mexico City?

 

No, I certainly wouldn’t wish this upon you – the ashes clog your pores and the sackclothes are lice ridden.

 

One point Geoff brought up was your rejection of Seven Macaw's association with the Big Dipper. You think the shooting of Seven Macaw represents "the zenith transit of the constellation of Sagitta and the wounded wing of Aquila, the eagle constellation, over Teotihuacan" around 3114 BC. This contradicts the ethnographic evidence

summarized by B. Tedlock (Time and the Highland Maya), Dennis Tedlock's Popol Vuh translation, and many other sources. The orientations of the bird deity monuments at Izapa especially confirm the relation between Seven Macaw and the Big Dipper. Your quote (above) reveals a typical confuting of different cultural groups and deities. Seven Macaw is Mayan; his Nahuatl counterpart is Tezcatlipoca (explicitly connected with the Big Dipper). The Aquila constellation is called the Xic hawk among the modern Maya, distinct from Seven Macaw. And the zenith passage of Aquila occurs frequently in all Ages, and I don't see how, in your quote, it is connected explicitly to 3114 BC. You have a way of making these vague statements, which are possibly technically true, but do not define any era-specific uniqueness.

 

Adrian Gilbert replies:

 

Right, well let's cut to the chase then. Tedlock bases his assessment that Seven Macaw represents the Big Dipper on one entry in a medical dictionary by Miguel Alcarado Lopez. Not everyone accepts this assessment (see Susan Milbrath's 'Star Gods and the Maya'), which has serious problems if you claim that the 'Tree' on which Seven Macaw

sat when shot is the Milky Way.

 

I am not disputing that the modern Maya may link the story of Seven Macaw with the Big Dipper but there is here a problem with feedback.

 

See the above evidence from Izapa – the PRE-CLASSIC origin of the mythic construct.

 

Much of what is now accepted in even the Maya lands comes from the work of modern ethnographers. There is no guarantee that what is today taught and believed about such associations was taken as so two thousand years ago. Adrian – this is where you need to understand Izapa as the source of the mythic construct, and there, as I sketched above, we can see that the Bird Deity on Stela 25 (and other monuments) is iconographically and orientationally identified with the Big Dipper. Izapa is where the revolution in our understanding will occur – Izapa is Stonehenge raised to the power of Newgrange, on steroids.

 

If you shift the 'tree' to mean the polar axis, then this does not help either. The Big Dipper does not, never has and never will straggle the north pole. You would be better off linking Seven Macaw with the Little Bear whose tail star is Polaris.

 

My evidence at Teotihuacan (which you summarily dismiss) is that during the 'Third Age', as given in the Vatico Latin Codex,  the constellation of Aquila gradually, because of the precession of the equinoxes, moved from a position when the 'head' transited the zenith (c.7395 BC) to the 'wing and arrow' (c.3114) BC. Since Aquila is on the Milky Way and next to Scutum the 'Shield' constellation. I found it rather interesting that Tedlock himself calls Seven Macaw's wife Chimalmat (Shield) although he says this is linked (again without much evidence) with the north stars.

 

I also find it more than a little interesting that if you, like Linda Schele, regard the pots showing the shooting of Seven Macaw by Hunahpu as being symbolic of astronomy, the Big Dipper is nowhere near. However, in that very part of the sky, exactly where you would expect to find Seven Macaw sitting on the Milky Way, you find Aquila!

 

Then again, think on this. Elsewhere in my book I talk about translatlantic contacts and (anathema) about the possibility of the Maya and Aztecs having a legacy of ideas from 'Atlantis'. Well it just so happens that in the Maya cosmology, Hunahpu is a twin-hero,

he shoots a bird (Seven macaw) and thereby starts a new age. On the other side of the Atlantic, the hero Hercules, also a twin, shoots the eagle Aquila and thereby sets free the titan Prometheus.

 

Am I so stupid to see a link between these stellar mythologies or is it you, John, who is clutching at straws to hang onto what I now regard as a discredited theory: that Seven Macaw is to be thought of as symbolising the Big Dipper?

 

Adrian, there may be a link between a bird and Aquila, but you are not differentiating the different eras, the different cultural loci of the mythic redactions, nor are you distinguishing the two bird deities. Sorry if this is more complicated than we might like it to be.

 

I know you don't like this but on this occassion I think you have been led up the garden path. The astronomy fits Aquila not Ursa Major and that, in the final analysis, is what matters.

 

Adrian, my position allows for a possible inclusion of your theory, provided several clarifying caveats and distinctions are made. Your position has made a definitive denunciation of my position as if the wide spectrum of beliefs found throughout Mesoamerican civilization could even be reduced to one solution. My approach is to begin where the bird deity first manifests in Maya Creation Myth scenarios – the carved monuments of Izapa. Ca. 400 bc to 50 ad. My deductions proceed from there. You look for patterns in the sky without reference to larger context, and this leads to mistakes much like the 3114 bc Venus rising error in Mayan Prophecies, in which Venus was indeed west of the sun but was in fact moving toward superior conjunction, not beginning its morning star phase. Also, I think you tend to try to map the sky directly onto the carvings and depictions as if they were trying to replicate a precise sky map. That’s an assumption that I don’t believe to be correct. Clearly, the depictions are not an attempt at scientific map-making precision; they are symbolic constructs that reference sky relationships and also narrate a mythic story and teaching. The evidence for what is being depicted comes not from precise spatial distances in the carvings (although these are present and can be generally helpful), but on the larger context in which the carving is found. For example, the horizon toward which the carving faces, or to which a priest faces who stands in front of the carving. Or the demonstrable celestial references of the monument group that the carving is found in. These are principles of archaeo-astronomy and iconographic interpretation that can be used to decipher the astronomical references of the carved monuments of Izapa, as previously explained. Your argument that the Big Dipper is not inclusive of the pole star is not a good argument for disassociating the Big Dipper from the Pole Star and polar association. As the most prominent northern constellation that visually circles the north celestial pole, many star-gazing cultures consider the Big Dipper to be a “polar” deity. Again, you are requiring a specificity that is not a definitive deal breaker, since known cultures such as those in Siberia and Finland DO make the association. Aquila, on the other hand, already has a place in the Maya Creation Myth, as I previously pointed out. But it’s not the same as Seven Macaw’s role. It’s also further from the pole star. If you recall, there is an entire chapter in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 on Aquila, the myth of Xic, the Hawk, the Milky Way and the dark rift, drawing from ethnographic evidence from Remington, Tedlock, and others. Did you assess that information? The data in the chapter should be helpful for clarifying these issues.  

 

You see, Izapa provides the original context for understanding the genesis of these mythic constructs. And there, the Seven Macaw bird deity is the Big Dipper. Later redactions may have occurred, although a great continuity with the original identification is demonstrated in the Classic Period ceramic that is a later version of Izapa Stela 25, and in the Post Classic historical document and the modern ethnographic record. The scholars who disagree with Tedlock (that is, with the historical document Tedlock cites) are, unfortunately, confusing the bird deities. Plus, Milbrath and others don’t give a hoot (ha! – bird, hoot; get it?) about Izapa as defining the original framework. They offer no reason for this neglect; they are simply unaware of the factual alignments and iconographic content of the Izapan corpus. By the way, have you seen my new field research on Izapa at my website:

 

http://www.alignment2012.com/ballcourt-schematic-and-description.html

http://www.alignment2012.com/izapa-solstice-2006.html

 

Any comments? Note: NOBODY ELSE has done or is doing research like this at Izapa.    

 

Teotihuacan was built by the "people of the Pleiades" who aligned the temple site to Pleiades set positions in relation to solar zenith passage dates at that latitude (see Aveni sources in http://alignment2012.com/bibbb.htm ). The New Fire ceremony was also pioneered at Teotihuacan, which involved the Pleiades passing through the zenith at midnight. Quetzalcoatl --- a bird-serpent deity --- had an early mythological association with the solarized Pleiades --- well before association with Venus. And so on. It seems Gilbert has confuted many of these known identifications into the distorted paraphrase given above. 

 

John Major Jenkins

 

 

Adrian Gilbert answers:

 

I don't dispute this Pleiades connection (although why did you put "people of the Pleiades" in quotes: is there an inscription to this effect?). As a matter of fact, if you had actually read my book and not just your acolytes biased review, you would know that I wrote about this. I pointed out how between AD 725 and 850 the Pleiades used to transit exactly over the zenith point at Teotihuacan. I suggested that maybe it was when it stopped doing this (or maybe because of it) that the Teotihuacanos decided to abandon their city.

 

So please, John, if you are going to slag off my work, at least read the book and get your facts straight. After all you are going to meet me this November at the IIth Hour Convention in Mexico. You'll find I'm actually quite a nice guy and not the devil of your imagination. So let's keep it friendly shall we. :-)

 

Adrian, I’m all for a good debate about respective ideas and conclusions. I don’t mind your biting sarcasms either. How polite and diplomatic would you like me to be when I critique your work? Or can there be no critique no matter what? I’ve responded to hundreds of pages of critiques and comments on my work, despite the fact that I too am doing a bit of ongoing research and have had to work multiple low paying jobs through the years to keep the bills paid. And I’m sure I’d find you to be a nice person with whom I share many interests. I just wish that, given the amount of in-depth research and cogent argument I’ve brought to bear on these questions of Mayan cosmology, that I’d have few more allies. If Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 has as many, or more, revolutionary breakthroughs in it as, say, The Orion Mystery has, then why is it neglected, maligned, or misunderstood by potential colleagues who I felt would be the best ones to appreciate it? Is the world of independent researchers that clique-ish? It’s pretty baffling. I enjoyed The Orion Mystery, and there was one compelling idea – and that’s a good thing. Now look at my thesis about the Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, involving the precessional alignment of the sun and the Pleiades in the zenith. Viewed objectively, I’d have to say that I bring in a great deal more direct evidence for that amazing thesis than Bauval presented for his theory. I’m not saying Bauval’s work is wrong or off target, just that I did the breakthrough work, like Bauval, I struggled over many years to get it out there, like Bauval, got it published in an international trade publishing house, like Bauval, and . . . nothing. I mean, very few people have commented on that incredible discovery. (Geoff Stray, who has a critical eye for b.s. and factual errors, has carefully assessed and endorsed my work.) The Pyramid of Kukulcan is a precessional star clock in stone! And a precessional alignment unlike anything else ever identified in any other tradition is the key. Now, I’ve seen this idea crop up in various places a few times since I published it, with no reference to my work. Now, THAT’s plagiarism.

 

You said you didn’t mention my work because you thought you’d be accused of plagiarism? That seems rather silly, or are you just being facetious? As you know, accurate paraphrasing and proper credit given to the original author does not a plagiarist make.

 

Well, I think I can now demote you to a mid-management archon of my imagination. Hope you’ve gotten a few chuckles out of this – it’s all dust in the wind anyway. The publishers will screw us all over anyway. We should think about forming our own publishing collective.

 

Note to viewers on the 2012 Yahoo group: You might want to search back through the archives for various exchanges I contributed to. There’s probably the equivalent of 300 pages of well written explanations on the critiques that came up. Anyway, let’s all keep doing what we do. Maybe I’ll see you in Mexico. Best wishes,

 

John Major Jenkins

BTW, I’m glad you’ve discussed the celestial gateways (the two crosses of the Milky Way and the ecliptic as defined by Macrobius). Have you seen my book Galactic Alignment (2002)?

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Adrian Gilbert [mailto:gilbertadrian@hotmail.com]
Sent:
Sunday, June 03, 2007 3:30 AM
To: 'John Major Jenkins'
Cc: 'GEOFF STRAY'
Subject: RE: update on Gilbert's book - Jenkins' response

 

Hello John,

                Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. I fully understand your reasons for leaving the 2012 group: it seems, like most groups, to be dominated by a handful of big-mouths with nothing much of worth to say while all the rest of the members sit on their hands in anonymous silence, waiting to pick up any morsels of valuable information that you might let slip. In short, it is a microcosm of the internet itself: full of promise but mostly a distraction.

 

Now as regards your book  Maya Cosmogenisis 2012, let me first say that I enjoyed it very much. It is some years since I have read it right through but I remember thinking it was first class for its type. That sales have not lived up to your expectations is not really surprising. As a book it requires a great deal of concentration to read and absorb, which is something few modern readers are either willing or able to give. I would speculate that unless a reader is already into the Maya in a big way, then it is probably not going to have immediate appeal. That is not your fault: you had a thesis to present and you couldn’t skimp on your arguments but then it is not the customer’s fault either. You need, I think, to bring out a much simpler version: one with short sentences, colour pictures and a punchier cover if you are going to reach a mass-market.

 

You will also need to swallow your scruples about being ‘sensationalistic’ and go for it where 2012 is concerned. Stop caring about what the academics might think; they aren’t going to buy your books anyway and if they read them in the library, they will give you little credit. After all, most of them were very sniffy about Linda Schele and her friends when they first started decoding the Maya script and they were much better placed than you or I to get a listening

 

So my first advice would be that you don’t take it to heart that your words of wisdom have mostly fallen on stony ground. That happens to all of us. As I look back on things, I see that the success of ‘The Orion Mystery’ and ‘Mayan Prophecies’ was really an anomaly and not the norm. None of my later books has done anything like as well and with the advent of the internet, domination of the market by ‘celebrity’ titles, increasing illiteracy etcetera etcetera, it is unlikely that this sort of success will be easily repeated: not by myself, not by Bauval and not even by Hancock (who is my bête noir).  

 

Returning to your book and the matter of Izapa: I don’t think it would serve much purpose if I spend too much time listing criticisms of your theory. What you have presented is a cogent thesis for believing that Izapa is the place where it all happened for the invention of the Maya Long Count and genesis of the hero-twin saga. However, you can’t prove this beyond doubt---and there will always be doubts.

 

Your case would be strengthened immeasurably if archaeologists could find even one Long Count date at Izapa. Without this evidence, it is impossible to prove that this is where it was invented. We are into faith rather than proof.

 

Then again with the business of the Big Dipper rising over the crack in the mountain. You have a fundamental problem here in relating this event to the  shooting of Seven macaw incident. Had the crack been on the other side of the mountain, the position where the Big Dipper sets, you would be better placed for this argument. With the Dipper rising rather than setting, we seem to be talking about rebirth rather than death.

 

Yes I know you equate the sky with the underworld and can therefore argue that a rising Dipper is really a dying one, but this is semantics and not realistic. I don’t believe this and I don’t think other people (the ones who matter: the ones who are going to buy your book) will either.

 

I have the same skepticism when you write that for the Maya north equals ‘up’ and south equals ‘down’. My reading of Maya material indicates that this is not the case. They were very much into a quadripartite universe with directions set out like a square on the ground and with a quincunx position at the centre. Often they would raise a tree or pillar both as a shadow marker and as a symbol of the world tree. This, as far as I can tell, was pretty much universal throughout Central America and very much linked to zenith transits of the sun. So I for one simply don’t believe the north=up, south=down proposition.

 

Also there is a further problem with the mountain. We can see that Teotihuacan and maybe La Venta were sighted I such a way that, like Izapa, they aligned with volcanoes. This seems to be a significant feature and, as you rightly point out, some of their pyramids seem to mirror the volcanoes in question. However, the alignment at Teo does not indicate any interest in the rising of the Big Dipper. Far from it: as you pointed out, it is connected with the Pleiades.

 

This makes me wonder. What if the Volcano at Izapa were not 21º north of the alignment but only 15º? Would they have abandoned the site as unsuitable because the Big Dipper would not then be rising in the cleft? Or would they have been quite satisfied as long as they had a volcano in their sights?

 

In all this we are dealing with motive as opposed to mechanics. I personally don’t believe (I use the word advisedly) in the connection between the Big Dipper and Seven Macaw.  I see nothing bird-like about the Dipper, no connection with a bird being shot from the top of a tree (either Milky Way, Zenith-marker or even polar axis) and no reason to believe the ancient Maya were as obsessed with this constellation as is indicated by Tedlock.  

 

I just wonder whether the story of Seven macaw and of the Xip Hawk are really one and the same and simply different versions of the same, basic story. This would be like the two creation of Adam myths in the Bible. Both stories are regarded as important so both are included. Without doubt (in my mind anyway) Aquila fits the bill far better than Ursa Major as the bird who is shot out of the tree at the end of the last age. It fits the astronomy over Teotihuacan, the dates in the Vatico-latin Codex, the iconography on ceramics and even presents a parallel with the old word myth of the shooting of Aquila by Hercules. For all these reasons I am an ‘Aquila man’ and a skeptic where the Big Dipper/Seven macaw correlation is concerned.

 

Now of course I can’t prove this anymore than you can prove the Big Dipper was a significant factor in the lay-out of Izapa and the Seven Macaw legend. That is the frustrating thing about this kind of work. Bauval and I could never prove beyond all doubt that the Pyramids of Giza were laid out to represent Orion’s Belt. To me it seems very obvious and the theory fits well with the orientation of shafts and with what we know about Orion in the pyramid tests. But proof? Short of finding the original plans for the buildings, we cannot claim this.

 

Which is why the field is open for other people to present other theories for the pyramids. Mostly these concern construction plans based on geometrical relationships but I notice that Andrew Collins has recently written a book claiming that the Giza pyramids were intended to represent stars in Cygnus the swan. I haven’t read his book but as an ‘Orion Man’ I find this extremely unlikely. However, he is entitled to his opinions and to write about them if he so wishes.   

 

I’m sure that all of what I have written above you have heard a million times before, so I won’t bore you by going on. However, what I will say is that you should not discount the entertainment value of my books. When I write it is not intended to be dry as dust archaeology, history or anthropology. I am not qualified in any of those areas and I don’t make any claims. What I do do is try to entertain my readers and give them fresh hope that there is something bigger ‘out there’. Each book is, if you like, a sort of symbolic painting: at least that is the way they are designed. Yes they inform and they can be the basis for the discussion of important theories but they also have to entertain in the way that a good painting does when you view it in a gallery.

 

If that makes me a heretic, then so be it. I really don’t care what academics think of my work any more than Vincent van Gogh was worried about how his contemporaries viewed his sun-flowers. I engage with my subject matter and try to always be true to that. In that way I think my books are of value and will be for many years to come.

 

With best wishes,

 

Adrian.  

 

6-5-2007

Adrian,

 

Thanks for your thoughts. In reading your comments / objections to the Big Dipper = Seven Macaw identification at Izapa, I can only encourage you to read the voluminous source material which I cite in my various published discussions. It’s not at all the spurious identification that you make it out to be. For example, when you say “I for one simply don’t believe the north=up, south=down proposition” I don’t know how to respond. It’s not a matter of you believing it, it’s a matter of you reading and accepting the evidence, the ethnographic data gathered from among the Maya themselves, and which is cited in my book. Such a statement is sort of a red flag that we aren’t going to be able to have a productive exchange. It invites an examination of your assumptions that may be preventing you from “believing” in the evidence cited. There’s a bias among astronomers to neglect the unique characteristics of astronomy within the tropics; it is among the skywatchers of the tropics where up-down and north-south are conceptually identified.

 

Long Count dates at Izapa — The Pre-Classic situation in the Pacific coast of Guatemala and Chiapas is complex, but more context and data is now coming to light. The co-role of Takalik Abaj in the formulation of the Long Count calendar is becoming more apparent.  Several Guatemalan archaeologists are open to my thesis. It’s possible that the future convergence of father sun (December solstice sun) and mother galaxy (the dark rift at the Milky Way-ecliptic cross in Sagittarius) was generally anticipated some time before the calculation to it was made. Izapa may have been the place that institutionalized the conceptual relationships between the future galactic alignment, the ballgame, and the Creation Myth, and that galactic astro-theology could very well have been worked out before the Long Count / end date equation was fixed. Takalik Abaj may have been the sister city to Izapa that achieved this, and thus we find early Long Count monuments there.

 

For some time now, I’ve had a more straightforward book-length version of the discoveries set forth in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. However, I cannot secure a suitable publishing deal for it. In fact, I’m fed up with dealing with publishers. 

 

As long as you’re subscribed to the 2012 Yahoo group, you might want to search back through the archives for various exchanges I contributed to. There’s probably the equivalent of 300 pages of well written explanations on the critiques that came up. Anyway, let’s all keep doing what we do. Maybe I’ll see you in Mexico. Best wishes,

 

John

 

 

After note: When I spoke at the A.R.E. conference in early October, I had a chance to briefly speak with Andrew Collins. He had, the previous night and in his book, asserted that the Big Dipper could not be the Seven Macaw deity. He preferred to focus on Cygnus – the other end of the dark rift. His concept disregarded the fact that the southern end of the dark rift touches the ecliptic and therefore affords contact with the sun and planets. That end of the dark rift (the birth canal) is also in the nuclear bulge of the Galactic Center, making sense of the Galactic Center = womb idea. Although Collins cited my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, he didn’t seem to take to heart my work at Izapa that shows the archaeo-astronomical alignment between the Seven Macaw carvings and the Big Dipper’s rise and fall over Tacana volcano to the north. In a letter to Geoff Stray I wrote:

 

I met Andrew Collins at the Edgar Cayce event a few weeks ago. He was perpetuating a stubborn dismissal of Seven Macaw = Big Dipper, and even had a slide to that effect. The section in his book that deals with the topic neglects the fact that there are two axes, the polar and the Milky Way. I briefly spoke with him and pointed out the fallacy that the northern end of the dark rift, where Cygnus is located, does not provide access to the path of the sun, whereas the southern terminus does. There is “cosmic center” symbolism in the north, which he identifies, and also at the Galactic Center, and they work equally well for the Maya culture as well as for the northern cultures that he primarily examines. But he seems to be trying to make the Mayan focus on Galactic Center apply to the polar center. That’s a problem. (It’s almost like there is a northern, polar bias which resists embracing the equatorial / galactic perspective.) My thesis of multiple cosmic centers should be taken seriously in this regard, otherwise we end up with absurd constructions, such as his idea that even the Inka were observing Cygnus. As with Gilbert, a little research into Mayan ethnography and star lore, not to mention the specific archaeoastronomy at Izapa, should have been done.  Our discussion was cut short, and although he praised my book he got the title wrong and neglected to include it in the bibliography to his book. Also, certain ideas in my book Galactic Alignment might have been helpful to him. [10-27-2007]