Page 152 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

earliest-known writing in Mexico’. It was also clear that the people who
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had lived here had been accomplished builders and more than usually
preoccupied with astronomy. An observatory, consisting of a strange
arrowhead-shaped structure, lay at an angle of 45° to the main axis
(which was deliberately tilted several degrees from north-south).
37
Crawling into this observatory, I found it to be a warren of tiny, narrow
tunnels and steep internal stairways, giving sightlines to different regions
of the sky.
38
The people of Monte Alban, like the people of Tres Zapotes, left definite
evidence of their knowledge of mathematics, in the form of bar-and-dot
computations. They had also used the remarkable calendar, introduced
39
40
by the Olmecs and much associated with the later Maya, which predicted
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the end of the world on 23 December AD 2012.
If the calendar, and the preoccupation with time, had been part of the
legacy of an ancient and forgotten civilization, the Maya must be ranked
as the most faithful and inspired inheritors of that legacy. ‘Time’ as the
archaeologist Eric Thompson put it in 1950, ‘was the supreme mystery of
Maya religion, a subject which pervaded Maya thought to an extent
without parallel in the history of mankind.’
42
As I continued my journey through Central America I felt myself drawn
ever more deeply into the labyrinths of that strange and awesome riddle.

36 The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico, pp. 54.
Mexico, pp. 669-71.
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38 For further details, see The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, p. 17:
‘These buildings probably confirm knowledge of a large body of star lore.’
39 The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico, p. 53.
Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, p. 350.
40
41 The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico, pp. 44-5.
42 J. Eric Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC,
1950, p. 155.

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