vondaniken

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Von Daniken's Maya Astronaut
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"Palenque is a place in Mexico, and there is a large stone in the temple and on the stone is a kind of being sitting like in a rocket." -- Erich Von Daniken

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Von Daniken's 1968 best seller, Chariots of the Gods, claimed that ancient civilizations from Mexico to China were visited by a space-faring race. His Maya astronaut was presented as a critical piece of evidence, the smoking gun that proved his theories: Here, he claimed, was a graphic image of an ancient astronaut, looking very like John Glenn lying in the Mercury capsule that took him into orbit in 1962.

Of course, on closer inspection, the resemblance isn't nearly as convincing as Von Daniken suggested. And we might have expected extraterrestrials who traveled light years to reach our planet to have space ships somewhat more advanced than 1960's earth technology.

"Well I certainly don't see any need to regard him as a space man. I don't see any oxygen tubes. I see a very characteristically drawn Maya face".

(Maya glyph expert Ian Graham)...

But the biggest problem with Von Daniken's fantasy (apart from the sheer implausibility of it all) is that his "astronaut" is one of the most-studied of Maya sculptures. It is no spaceman at all, but a Palenque ruler named Pakal.

Left: Sarcophagus lid, tomb of Pakal (Pyramid of the Inscriptions, Palenque). This image is of a reproduction, which can be purchased at Maya Art Stones

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Why bother with Von Daniken? The arguments and evidence in Chariots of the Gods have been refuted in detail many times since the book appeared in 1968. See for example Robert Sheaffer's on-line review Chariots of the Gods: Science or Charlatanism? A criminal conviction for business fraud did nothing to help Von Daniken's reputation. But he keeps recycling his ideas. The latest of his 26 books (published 2002) is titled The Gods were Astronauts. There seems to be new life in his discredited fantasies:

In the past few years, his ideas have again started to become popular in a culture fascinated by programmes such as The X Files. He is also working on a huge theme park in Switzerland, called the Mysteries of the World, and money is gushing into the project. (The Real Erich Von Daniken)

The theme park project is the centre piece of Von Daniken's "official" website.

Von Daniken's "large stone in the temple" is the lid of Pakal's sarcophagus. On it, Pakal is depicted on a cosmic journey, but he is not traveling in a space capsule. The inscriptions on the tomb tells us that Pakal has "entered the road": He has died and is falling along the axis of the World Tree into the Underworld. Glyphs about the sides of the tomb name his ancestors, other rulers of Palenque, who he is going to join.

The World Tree is the most common Mesoamerican symbol of the creation and ordering of the "Earth-sky". At its foot (which Von Daniken took to be the rockets) is the face of the Maya water monster, a symbol of the entrance to the Underworld. Atop the World Tree is a celestial bird, representing the northern pole of the heavens.

John Glenn in his Mercury Capsule (1962)
(NASA photo)

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Other images of the Maya World tree

Left: Palenque, Temple of the Foliated Cross
Centre: Izapa Stela 25
Right: Madrid Codex

Cosmic symbols? Yes.
Space ships? Certainly not.

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The basic fallacy of Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods is failure to give credit to the abilities of non-western, pre-industrial peoples. His argument runs something like this: "Look at the Egyptian pyramids, the astronomy of the Maya. How could these primitive people have done these things without modern science and technology? They must have had help from a more advanced civilization!" But it's not really necessary to invoke ET.

Maya astronomy was remarkable, but its achievements came from careful naked eye observation, not ET. We aren't sure exactly how pyramids were built -- but construction required nothing more than practical mastery of ropes, pulleys, and ramps. In fact, pyramids were among the earliest stone buildings constructed in many parts of the world because they are the easiest to build: A broad mound of stone and rubble tapering upward is a natural choice for early experiments in architecture. The Maya were accomplished builders, but their stone-age technology was simple. They never discovered how to construct a true arch. You'd have thought ET would have shown them how!

Left: Priest in Mexican temple studies the sky with a cross-staff , a simple naked-eye observing aide used by many ancient peoples (from the Selden Codex)

Links

Palenque
Large-scale images of Pakal's Sarcophagus (Mesoweb)
Photos of Pakal's Tomb (at Mexico Digital Travel)
Discovery of Pakal's tomb
The Mesoweb Palenque Project

Maya Astronomy at this web site
Maya Skywatchers (How the Maya made their astronomical discoveries)
Raising the Sky: The Maya Creation Myth and the Milky Way (Maya cosmic symbolism)

Ancient Architecture
Maya Architecture --- At Mundo Maya. Maya construction methods and the evolution of Maya architecture over time
How the Egyptian Pyramids were built --- at civilization.ca

Von Daniken
Mary Ruth Keller,"Xibalba" (Fox Mulder visits Palenque in this debunking of Von Daniken told as an X-files episode)
Robert Sheaffer, Chariots of the Gods: Science or Charlatanism? (at The UFO Skeptic's page)
The Real Erich Von Daniken (a short critical biography)
Ancient astronauts and Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods? (from the Skeptic's Dictionary)
Von Daniken's home page

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