Was Chichen Itza built for 2012?
In the 7th century A.D., Toltecs from Central Mexico and Maya from Yucatán came together and developed a hybrid culture around the city of Chichén Itzá, building one of the most identifiable landmarks in Mexico. Each year on March 21, thousands visit the Pyramid of Kukulcan, also called Castillo, where the equinox sun casts the shadow of a snake descending the steps, its tail pointed to the zenith at the sky’s center. Professor Enrique Juan Palacios identified the entire temple as a representation of a coiled snake, its rattle raised at the center (Adrian Gilbert, 2012 Mayan Year of Destiny). The pyramid’s 364 steps are equally divided between its four sides, pointing in the four cardinal directions. The 365th step, the ‘New Year’s Day’ of the sun’s zenith passage, is the top platform, pointing to the fifth cardinal point, the zenith itself.
The Maya called the snake deity Kukulkan, the Toltecs, Quetzalcoatl. The skin-shedding snake was a powerful symbol of renewal and rebirth. The Yucatec Maya word for a snake’s rattle is tzab, and the same word is the name of the star cluster we call the Pleiades. In some stories, the Pleiades are the birthplace of the Maya, seeds that would become the corn plants used to form human flesh (Freidel, Schele and Parker, Maya Cosmos). The star cluster had been closely observed by the Toltecs, its passage through the zenith a sign that the universe would survive into new calendar cycles. Next to the Yucatec snake’s rattle is a small spot resembling the face of the sun lord ‘Ahau,’ and the upraised rattle in conjunction with the zenith sun is an important element in Mayan art, including the ‘serpent-footed scepters’ carried by rulers.
The undulating tail of the equinox snake shadow on the Pyramid of Kukulcan seems to direct our gaze upward, a reminder that the deity Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl, will return from the heavens. However, at the time the great pyramid was built, the conjunction of the Pleiades and the zenith sun at that latitude was still many hundred years away. That perfect conjunction will not occur until May 12, 2012, the year of the Great Cycle’s end. Indeed, the site of the temple may have been chosen for just this purpose.
‘The complete message appears to be that when the sun and the Pleiades join forces in the Heart of Heaven, Quetzalcoatl will return and a new era will dawn’ (John Major Jenkins, Maya Cosmogenesis 2012).