Page 256 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

years to the mythical kings who ruled the land of Sumer before the flood?
And is it likewise a coincidence that this same Berossus ascribed
2,160,000 years to the period ‘between creation and universal
catastrophe’?
12
Do the myths of ancient Amerindian peoples like the Maya also contain
or enable us to compute numbers such as 72, 2160, 4320, etc. We shall
probably never know, thanks to the conquistadores and zealous friars
who destroyed the traditional heritage of Central America and left us so
little to work with. What we can say, however, is that the relevant
numbers do turn up, in relative profusion, in the Mayan Long Count
calendar. Details of that calendar were given in Chapter Twenty-one. The
numerals necessary for calculating precession are found there in these
formulae: 1 Katun = 7200 days; 1 Tun = 360 days; 2 Tuns = 720 days; 5
Baktuns = 720,000 days; 5 Katuns = 36,000 days; 6 Katuns = 43,200
days; 6 Tuns = 2160 days; 15 Katuns = 2,160,000 days.
13
Nor does it seem that Sellers’s ‘code’ is confined to mythology. In the
jungles of Kampuchea the temple complex of Angkor looks as though it
could have been purpose-built as a precessional metaphor. It has, for
example, five gates to each of which leads a road bridging the crocodile-
infested moat that surrounds the whole site. Each of these roads is
bordered by a row of gigantic stone figures, 108 per avenue, 54 on each
side (540 statues in all) and each row carries a huge Naga serpent.
Furthermore, as Santillana and von Dechend point out in Hamlet’s Mill,
the figures do not ‘carry’ the serpent but are shown to ‘pull’ it, which
indicates that these 540 statues are ‘churning the Milky Ocean’. The
whole of Angkor ‘thus turns out to be a colossal model set up with true
Hindu fantasy and incongruousness’ to express the idea of precession.
14

Ibid., p. 196.
12
13 Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico, p. 143.
14 Hamlet’s Mill, pp. 162-3; see also Atlas of Mysterious Places, pp. 168-70.

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