While the broad plazas of Teotihuacán in central Mexico are justifiably crowded with visitors, there you can only look up at the pyramids. Here in the remote Yucatán jungle where I saw more monkeys than tourists, climbing pyramids is delightful. The scale of the ancient Mayan city of Calakmul is difficult to comprehend, and only a small fraction of the ruins have been excavated. I thought the pyramid in the tall trees on the left was big, until I climbed this one, which has both the lower top in front and the higher one from where I took the photo. But the third was even higher with 360° views including tops of both other pyramids.
Above the trees you get commanding views of the jungle into neighboring Guatemala, where rival city Tikal also sits on the Mayan Meridian. Since many Mayan hieroglyphics have been translated at Calakmul, we learned about the changing alliances, wars and fortunes of these related jungle empires. Our knowledgeable guide explained the beautiful carvings near the base and answered many questions, although a knee injury kept him on the forest floor.
Up there we saw an Ornate Hawk-Eagle, which is a magnificent bird, the largest here, with a spiky blue crest, orangish plumage, black and white stripes and more stunning designs. Near the ruins we saw both howler and spider monkeys, including two juveniles play-fighting below. This is the jungle ruins of my dreams, with stunning steep-stepped temples rising out of a great forest with dense foliage and hidden jaguars. I recommend taking a guided tour for the long drive into the biosphere reserve and to interpret the stylized carvings around the temples.
In 1990 while studying rock art in the American southwest, James Jacobs noticed that Aztec Ruins and Chaco Culture were on the same meridian or north-south longitude line, and he raised the point with the archaeological community. Then in 1991, he expanded his view to include sites in Mexico, adding Paquimé to the ‘Chaco Meridian’, and he identified a ‘Mayan Meridian’ running through sites in the Yucatán to Tikal in Guatemala. Jacobs believes that this is evidence that ancient Americans practiced geodesy or took accurate measurements of Earth’s size, and he provides analysis of arc distance ratios to support his theory.
In 1999, Stephen Lekson wrote a book called The Chaco Meridian, bringing wider attention to Jacobs’ discovery. But Lekson argues that this is only evidence that the ancient people moved in straight lines north and south. He believes the Ancestral Puebloans used a series of north-south visual bearings to align the sites on the Chaco Meridian, and he points to the great north-south roads of Chaco.
Some critics dismiss both theories and argue that there are so many ancient sites scattered all over North America that any straight line will pass through 3 or more, so any meridian is merely coincidence. So, who’s right?
UNESCO recognizes 20 Pre-Columbian settlements as World Heritage Sites in North America, including 1 pre-Mayan, 8 Mayan, 3 Ancestral Puebloan, 5 other contemporaries of the Maya, and 3 post Mayan. All three of the UN-recognized Ancestral Puebloan sites are at 108º longitude: Chaco, Mesa Verde and Paquimé. 6 of the Mayan sites are at 89º longitude: Calakmul, Chichén Itzá, Copan, Quirigua, Tikal and Uxmal. The other 2 Mayan sites are Palenque at 92º and Tak’alik Ab’aj at 91.5º. But Palenque and Tikal are both at 17º latitude. So 100% of the UN-recognized Ancestral Puebloan and Mayan sites are on the same longitude or latitude lines. Statistically, the odds that all 11 independently selected sites share the same three longitudes by accident is 1 in a trillion. Unintentionally, UNESCO confirms both meridians.
The Difficulty of Calculating a Meridian
So, how did the ancient native people build cities on the same latitude and longitude lines before GPS and even before 250 BCE when the Greek Erosthenes first recorded the idea of plotting longitude and latitude on a grid?
Calculating latitude is easy in the northern hemisphere. Simply measure the angle between the North Star and the horizon. If it’s 90º then you are at the North Pole, and your latitude is 90º. If it’s 0º, then you’re at the equator, latitude 0º.
Calculating longitude accurately is much more difficult, since although the stars stay in place, we orbit the sun every year and rotate every 24 hours. Every 4 minutes, the Earth turns one degree of longitude. So to calculate your longitude, you need to measure a star’s angle on a specific date and time, which requires both a calendar and an accurate measurement of time. For example, we know that the sun is directly overhead at noon, and if we knew which star was directly overhead at midnight on a given date, then we would know our longitude.
Lekson’s theory of north-south visual bearings might possibly explain the now desert Chaco Meridian sites, but I’ve driven the route which includes some rough elevation changes that would have made it extremely difficult to take accurate bearings over hundreds of miles, even with signal fires. And Lekson’s theory fails completely on the Mayan Meridian, due to the jungle. The hilly Yucatán terrain is covered by fast growing tall trees in a thick jungle that’s difficult to pass. While they built temples that reached above the treetops, that doesn’t explain how they chose the sites in the jungle before building the tall temples. There’s certainly no view of the horizon from the middle of the jungle, even if you clear all the trees for a few miles. So any line of sight explanation is wrong.
Alien Technology or Magic?!?
But the experts say that neither the Ancestral Puebloans nor the Mayans kept time accurately. So, the lack of a satisfactory explanation for how ancient people could apparently calculate longitude has caused a few people to imagine that either aliens gave technology to the Mayans or that some other magic knowledge of invisible Earth energy—ley lines—is the explanation. No.
Cultural Clues to Calculations
While his original book was criticized for a few errors, Lekson is correct that there is a cultural connection between the ancient sites that made the meridians important to the people who built temples there. The sites share some historic overlapping, they were on established trade routes, and there are some basic architectural similarities, such as buildings oriented north-south. Agricultural societies are acutely aware of seasons, and each season has a different view of the stars at night as the earth orbits the sun. There are observatories at many sites, including at Chichén Itzá below, at Palenque and Xochicalo—with view holes in the observatory roof similar to a planetarium—, so there’s lots of evidence that accurate angles could be calculated on specific days and even at specific times of night. So Lekson’s basic theory, that there was an educated priestly elite with detailed knowledge of astronomy that likely traveled between sites, fits the known facts well.
Importantly, the three main sites on the Chaco Meridian all have advanced irrigation systems. The Greeks used water flowing through fixed diameter holes to measure time, like an hourglass measures time with the flow of sand. Surely, some Ancestral Puebloans tried to measure accurately how long their water supply would last. Yet for some reason, the idea that the ancient North American natives could calculate time is dismissed.
The Mayans were obsessed with the passage of time. The Mayan calendar has 365 days, uses a base 20 number system, and describes cycles of both 52 years and 5,125 years. You may have heard that the Mayans predicted the end of the world on December 21st, 2012. What they actually said was that their long count would reset on that day to begin a new five millennia era. Counting the days and monitoring the sun were central to their daily lives. The pyramid at Chichén Itzá has 365 steps, and the shadow of a serpent appears to climb them on the solstices. They believed the Sun God brought order to the day and transformed into a jaguar to pass through the perilous night.
And similar beliefs were common across pre-Columbian civilizations. From the Caves of Mitla & Yagul to El Tajin’s 365 daily shadowed alcoves, the ancients contemplated the underworld and the sun’s ordered journey across the sky. The tallest temple in Mexico is the Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacán, where a ‘town crier’ would beat his drum to signify important events. And yet some experts today would stand at the feet of the pyramids, perfectly aligned with the sun at noon, while shadows cast points across the plazas and claim that not one of the ancient people knew the time of day.
I do not understand how anyone can argue that the Mayans recorded their dynasties for centuries without having any interest or ideas on how one might calculate shorter time periods. These ancient agricultural societies had tens of thousands laboring in the fields, military groups coordinating jungle raids, traders delivering on precise daily schedules over hundreds of miles—in Tenochtitlan Montezuma ate fresh fish carried by relay runners from the Pacific—, and had thousands of laborers building precise pyramids, and yet some otherwise smart folks maintain the absurd position that none of the natives had any idea how long a day was nor could anyone organize anything that today requires a clock.
The simplest and only remaining logical explanation of the meridians is that some elite of both the Ancestral Puebloans and Mayans had a rudimentary way to calculate time accurately, most likely some type of shadow tracking and water flow systems, as they used both. They may have guarded that secret and kept it from the masses, but someone must have figured out how to tell time or there would be no meridian mysteries. Once we recognize that ancient American astronomers had the ability to measure time accurately, then we know that they could measure the angle of the a star on a particular day and time and calculate their relative longitude at different places. The time would only need to be accurate to within a few minutes at each location in order to mark a new temple within a degree of any known meridian, even in the jungle without a view of the horizon.
But Why Did They Build on Meridians?
But why bother? This is another problem with Lekson’s theory. Even if you accept that ancient people were very attuned to direction and solstices, such annual calendaring doesn’t require longitude at all, while latitude is only incidentally useful. So what’s the practical benefit of building two buildings on the same meridian? For that matter, why bother calculating the size of the earth, if Jacobs is correct about ancient American geodesy? Who cares that the arc distance between two distant buildings is 1% of the circumference of the globe, especially if your number system isn’t even based on 10 or 100?
To understand why, consider your last visit to a planetarium show. They likely showed which constellations appeared in the skies on that date and showed how the stars moved over time. If an ancient priest knew in advance which stars would rise into the sky at what time, then they could plan to tell a story about the stars that fit each day of the year. We know from many sites that the ancient Americans had a deep belief system involving day and night, believing that the labor of those on earth and the struggles of those in the underworld were connected to the rise of the sun each day. The stories of the stars may have revolved around heroes or rulers who had passed on to the afterlife, like the Greek myths that appear in the constellations.
If you had two temples on the same meridian, you could tell the exact same story on the same day beginning at the same time, and the sky would follow your words precisely. Even in daylight, using the same measuring sticks, the shadows would appear exactly at the moment you predict. This, perhaps, was the purpose of building your most important temples on the same meridian: to demonstrate the power of math and knowledge before the ignorant masses.
Although much of the history, language and culture of the ancient Americans was lost, the Yucatán pyramids and great kivas of the southwest have survived, demonstrating that there were at least a few ancient people who maintained the same astrological, calendaric, cartographic, chronologic, geometric, mathematical and navigational knowledge across generations and across cultural boundaries. They intentionally convinced others to build multiple cities on the same meridians to keep their predictions and myth-making consistent for at least a thousand years. The alignment of North American Native American World Heritage Sites proves this indisputably, without a plausible, logical alternative explanation. And if we refuse to recognize their accomplishments that still stand today, then we are the ignorant and irrational ones.
Palenque is both photogenic and filled with important hieroglyphics, describing the rulers who lived and were buried here, especially Pakal the Great, who ruled the city for most of the 600s. Even arriving at 8 am, the popular archaeological site already had a few bus loads of tourists, especially Europeans who are currently avoiding Mexico’s northern neighbor. Part of the jungle loop trail was blocked, so I didn’t see any monkeys or toucans, but I did see an agouti, which is a fairly big, long-legged rodent that’s critically endangered. I spent most of my time appreciating the various carved stone monuments on top of the palace above. The tower is an observatory, and beside it there’s a sunken courtyard memorializing defeated rivals.
It’s wonderful to see many important artifacts still on site, although many of the finest are in museums now. The ancient Mayan builders were skilled at vaulted ceilings, and I admired the stonework in the tomb of the Red Queen, whose sarcophagus is indeed colored red inside. Being able to step inside the pyramid at all is a rare treat, and, although Pakal’s tomb is closed, there’s a large replica at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. Many of the inscriptions—which reveal the royal history—are partially covered or off limits to preserve them, and considering the age and jungle atmosphere, the ones I saw were in remarkably good condition due to higher quality stone and innovative carving techniques. Most of the site is still covered by jungle, where new discoveries await.
Overall, Palenque is an excellent site, a mix of well-tended atmospheric grounds, grand architecture, historical importance, intricately detailed art, jungle ruins and active digs.
As they have for over one thousand years, vendors sell art, crafts, fabrics, jewelry, and more near the grand pyramid at Chichén Itzá. As usual, the experts downplay the role of merchants here, but since merchants are included in a number of the elaborate carvings here, they cannot be forgotten. One area is designated as a market, and it is likely that more of the buildings were also used for commerce. It must be remembered that the Mayans did not use the wheel much, so it wasn’t practical to move goods any more than necessary. Nobody wants to carry around large amounts of copper, jade and obsidian on their back. Except maybe thieves. One of the plaques mentioned that the roads may have included checkpoints, which again makes sense if you’re trying to protect your treasure from raiders.
The guides explain in great detail about the ball courts—including the largest in the Americas—, calendars, gods and temples, which is all interesting, but I wonder why they used to sacrifice humans by throwing them into their own drinking water supply. Even though the water is replenished by an underground river system, that wouldn’t be tasty or wise, even if you’re pre germ theory. Perhaps the most sacred cenotes were more ceremonial and were not always used for drinking water as some guides claim. It’s difficult to imagine a highly organized society thrived for centuries without strict rules.
Anyway, this is a magnificent UNESCO world heritage site with both many intricate details and grand structures, once protected from colonial excavation by a few centuries of jungle overgrowth. The Mayans used exceptionally durable stone and mortar here, conveying their sophisticated culture to us in sharp relief. Consider El Castillo—Kukulkán, the feathered serpent—below, with 91 steps per side, which chirp like a Quetzal in echo response, perfectly and artistically aligned with the solstices casting serpentine shadows, plus one step on top, making 365 steps to mark the year. For 2,000 years Native American people have marked the days with similar calendar accuracy, displaying their advanced mathematical literacy at the core of their accomplished civilization.
There’s nothing like a Mayan city surrounded by jungle, and Uxmal (oosh-mal) is a grand one. I drove up through the Yucatán hill country and visited Labná first, which is a smaller part of this UNESCO world heritage site, then I stayed nearby so I could explore Uxmal in the morning before the crowds arrived. I even spotted a large coati while walking behind the vantage point above. The tall building on the right is called the magician’s house, and if you clap in front of the steps, the echo makes a musical sound like a chirp.
I have decided that some archaeologists are not very good at their jobs. I’ve seen a decent number of ancient Native American cities now, and they typically describe the various building purposes as bureaucratic, religious, royal residences, and sometimes military uses. For example, the wide building in the center above is called the nun’s house, as it reminded the Spanish of a convent’s courtyard, I suppose. But rarely do any of the site maps indicate any commercial buildings, according to the experts. Maybe some archaeologists lack real world work experience, if they go straight from grad school to dig sites?
The Mayans had a thriving economy, receiving tribute, growing crops, gathering medical plants, mining minerals, weaving textiles, and producing various goods, tools and art. They traded turquoise with Arizona, obsidian with Tinochtitlan, cinnabar and alabaster with Teotihuacán, salt with Oaxaca, copper and gold, cotton, jade, feathers, fish and much more, and all of these goods—the wealth of the empire—required storage. Food had to be distributed widely and quickly to support large concentrations of people. And trading requires markets where goods can be examined and merchants can show the quality of work. But somehow archaeologists forget about all that when they try to figure out what all the empty buildings and rooms were for.
Why are there rows of rectangular windowless rooms with wide doors facing a courtyard? Why are there long colonnades? Well, in Europe and in most other countries the same structures would immediately be recognized as market stalls, as in the forum of Rome. Does anyone really believe that valuable salt was stored outside in the rain? The Catholic Spanish assumed most ancient buildings in New Spain must have been about religion, and many Americans—perhaps biased by years of war history—often assume that every wall had a military purpose. Some folks just assumed that Native American civilization was only savage sacrifice and war.
And I know it’s easy to get distracted by the art, ball games, calendars, math, and elaborate funereal figurines, but a little common sense would help us understand that many of these buildings must have been involved in commerce, which must have been part of the daily routine for most Mayans. In any case, it is a privilege to visit these ancient sites and get a new perspective.
The Pyramid of the Niches still has almost all of its original 365 small alcoves used to mark the rebirth of each day of the year, and to store various meaningful reminders like a giant advent calendar. The passage of time was participatory in native civilizations, as the people toiled on the ground to keep the heavens turning and the sun rising to overcome the darkness. Calendaring was useful for organizing labor, managing produce and tracking seasonal trade goods.
El Tajin was a city of commerce in the highland jungle of the Veracruz river valley where large scale agriculture developed thousands of years ago. Some guides wrongly imagine that the central structures were home to bureaucrats toiling away in offices—as in modern governments. But, like the Forum of Rome, the first-built main square was a marketplace built to organize and accommodate large scale trade. The multicultural community grew in wealth and importance especially from around the 7th century, trading vanilla and cacao with cities like Teotihuacán. Great structures were built around the 8th and 9th centuries, and even as other cities succumbed to fire, El Tajin thrived through the 12th century. Then it too collapsed and was reclaimed by the jungle until rediscovered in 1785.
The surrounding ball courts must have attracted visitors and entertained crowds, but the games were brutal and sometimes involved human sacrifice, similar to the Colosseum of Rome, where the gladiators entered the ring saying, “we who are about to die, salute you”. While you can’t climb on any of the thousand year old buildings, the grassy grounds are uncrowded and very pleasant to explore.
The fliers from the neighboring city of Papantla frequently perform outside the ticket booth for a small donation, acknowledging the four directions, and attracting rain with music and rainbow hats. One on top also drums and stamps his feet, recalling ‘the thunder’, the meaning of El Tajin.
Both El Tajin and the Papantla Flyers are recognized by UNESCO as part of our world heritage.
This UN recognized biosphere in the northeast Yucatán is also a tentative world heritage site, and in the winter it has thousands of flamingos! A short drive from Mérida, I bought my ticket at the Parador Turístico and waited 5 minutes for four more tourists to join my boat, and we zoomed off to see the beautiful birds. After watching flocks of flamingos flying and feeding in the shallow estuary—ría—, we went off to see more birds. In the mangrove tunnel, I spotted the bare throated tiger heron below with his neck stretched up to look like a stick, but when we got close he realized his cover was blown.
We also walked a boardwalk to a freshwater spring-fed lagoon and saw a baby crocodile, lots of pelicans, great & snowy egrets, wood storks, and a roseate spoonbill. But for me, the surprise was seeing flamingos in flight. I’ve seen a few flamingos in zoos, but I’ve never seen so many gathered together honking, chattering, flapping, bowing and preening. Instead of looking silly or awkward, here their displays look natural and beautiful, especially flying in formation. One of my favorite stops in Mexico.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere on the southeast coast of the Yucatán has exceptional species diversity in jungles, mangroves, shallow bays, reefs, islands and open water. On my day tour we saw many great birds including tiger heron, roseate spoonbill, osprey and frigate birds, crocodiles and green turtles, and dolphin and many tropical fish, of course. While I don’t believe I saw any first time species for me, I definitely saw a greater variety than I can remember seeing in one place before.
The reserve is huge, with a long low peninsula, a fishing village at the end of an extremely bumpy road, a surprisingly healthy looking ocean reef, and a huge salt lagoon with mangrove islands, shallow flats, and some freshwater springs bubbling up into the lagoon for manatees to enjoy. Even if you think you can get here, it’s worth it to join a tour with an expert guide, a van driver, and a flat boat captain. I particularly enjoyed chatting with my new friends from all over the world while standing waist deep in turquoise water and drinking a well-deserved Mexican cerveza.
Both the historic center of Oaxaca with its magnificent Spanish cathedral and the ancient mountain top temple complex of Monte Albán are recognized in this UNESCO world heritage site. I enjoyed a delicious meal—including the tres insectos tostada below—in the city center shortly after arriving, walked the cobblestone streets and gawked at the gold covered interior of the church. This is a beautiful and culturally rich city to explore. After charging overnight at my hotel, the next day I drove up the mountain and explored the grand temple complex, climbing up the steep stairs at each end to get 360° views of the city and valley.
The Zapotecs built Monte Albán around 500 BC, carving out the grand plaza above off the lone mountain on the valley floor. Before moving up here from the gulf coast, they invented an early form of glyphic script or writing. Around that time, their society transformed from egalitarian to hierarchical. Given that the top of their society were priests with special powers to interpret the cosmos and calendars, I imagine that some men controlled the power of literacy, using it to rule. When the Zapotec came here they called themselves the cloud people and conquered the neighboring villages. Their elaborate decorative carvings tell the stories of those conquests. This was the center of their empire for well over 1000 years, and the planned city was used for burials and ceremonies for centuries afterwards.
Perhaps because literacy may have a guarded secret of the elite, Zapotec script has not been deciphered. But the meaningful figures carved into the pyramids here belie the label ‘pre-historic’ often used against Native Americans. From 200 to 500 CE, the Zapotecs were trading mica for obsidian with Teotihuacan and maintained quarters there. They also traded with the Mayans, and their skills and script were used and adapted by the Aztecs. So these ancient cultures practiced diplomacy as well as war and carried on extensive trade relations for centuries. Simply because colonizers erased much of their culture does not mean that the natives in the Americas were all illiterate or uncivilized; the scale and sophistication of this complex stands in testimony of their centuries of accomplishments.
[Bonus Wednesday post as I try to catch up to my current travels!]
This high mountain area north of Oaxaca Mexico is the most biodiverse arid region in North America. I drove up the steep hairpin turns through thick fog, seeing how the mountains block rainfall up here. Mexico’s first biologist, Helia Bravo Hollis explored the area for years, documenting many new species, especially cacti. Thanks to her efforts, the rare biodiversity was recognized and protected, with a park in her name now the best place to tour the cactus landscape.
The diverse density of plants is far greater than Saguaro, Organ Pipe or Pinacate. There are also ancient marine fossils, rare snakes, insects and bats. We saw signs of a fox, and there are other mammals that live in the dry isolated valley. Many medicinal plants have been studied here too.
But the UNESCO site is also important for the Pre-Colombian archaeological sites. The oldest irrigation systems in North America have been found here. And besides growing crops like maize, drying pools were built to gather salt for trading. Salt was a high value trading good for centuries, connecting this harsh region with distant population centers.
