PYRAMIDS AS CLOCKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

PYRAMIDS AS CLOCKS

STRUCTURES IN MEXICO ANCIENT MAYA CITIES ARCHAEOLOGY DISCOVERY Members of the Mexican Government Department of Archaeology believe that they have obtained proof that the ancient Mexican Indian pyramids were time-pieces by.which the passing of the year could be accurately determined. The scientists investigated a score or more of ancient Indian cities on the central Moxican plateau, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatan, and found that the city planning followed the orientation of the principal pyramid or building in almost all cases. These central structures, which usually determined the axes or planes of entire cities, fell into two groups. In Chiapas, Guatemala, and Southern Yucatan, which is the region occupied by the " old " Maya Empire, and whose cities flourished in the early centuries of Christ, the principal buildings were turned to true astronomical east and west, so that they were exactly symmetrical with tho lines of tho setting sun on the days of the summer and winter solstices. But farther north, the central Mexican plateau, in Nothern Yucatan, and in parts of Oaxaca, the

central buildings of the city, and the general axis of the city itself, were not orientated accurately to the east and west, but turned slightly to the north. The angle by which they varied from true east and west differed with the latitude in which the cities were found. Groups of ancient cities as far apart as Tenayuca, Teotihuacan, Cholula, and Chicken Itza, had pyramids of practically the same angle, namely, 17 degrees, because they were in about the same latitude. The cities that were turned, in this fashion, off the true west, wore places where the ancient Toltec culture seemed to have reached in the past.

in order to learn why the inhabitants twisted their buildings away from the true astronomical east-west line, the investigators made measurements on the Aztec pyramid of Tenayuca, six miles north-west of Mexico City, which had been completely excavated by the Mexican Government. They determined the axis of the pyramid, which is 17 degrees north of astronomical east and west; the lines of the setting sun on the days of tho spring and full equinoxes; the summer and winter solstices; and of tho two daj-s in the tropic year when the ,«in crosses the zenith, or directly overhead.

It was then strikingly demonstrated that the pyramid was faced to look exactly into the setting sun on the days of the year that the sun passed directly overhead. These two moments in the year were so important to the ancient Indians that they built entire cities accordingly. The setting sun would shine into the temple door on those days and the midday sun illuminated tho pyramids equally on all sides. For the latitude of Tenayuca., the two days in the year when the sun was straight overhead were May 16 and July 26. Tho Mexican archaeologists proved by means of historical and other data that the second of those two dates —July 26 —was tho ancient Indian's New Year's Day. This is in its own field an important advance in archaeology which will aid in the correlation of Indian and Christian calendars.

Almost all Mexican pyramids show signs of having been rebuilt many times, and some of them are like nests of pyramid-shaped boxes, for each anterior structure had been covered with earth and newly faced with stone or other material.