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KUKULCAN’S DESCENT
 
Look at the Dutch page for illustrations

Introduction
Amidst a tour round Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico in the year 2001, I visited the ruins of Chichén Itzá, the famous Maya city in Yucatan. The ophiolatric (snake revering) nature of the Maya religion had already made a deep impression on me in other, similar cities. Nowhere but for Chichén Itzà has this aspect been so imposingly visualised. Sadly enough did this notion only gradually dawn on me after I had returned home. Especially so when I learned from the literature how special a place I had visited. I do regret that I did not take more as well as better pictures of the place, and that I did not absorb, did not assimilate its nature and its atmosphere more and to the full.


Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan
Within the region of the Maya culture it is impossible to overlook Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake-deity. One encounters his enormous and frightful head, sculpted or engraved in stone, on countless pyramids and other buildings. The Maya considered him to be the god and cultural hero who had fashioned the earth and had introduced agriculture. He became the symbol of fertility as a result (Eliot 1977, 262). He was astronomer and mathematician, the creator of their script as well as the inventor of medicine. He symbolised both death and resurrection, simultaneously. He was the god who, after he was cast out, sacrificed himself on the stake to subsequently reincarnate as the planet Venus. In another version of the tale he disappeared on a float of snakes after he had promised his people to return, although only on one occasion (Uber 2002, 109; Willis 1994, 241). In his person the opposite forces of heaven and earth are united (Cirlot 1962, 276).

In Yucatan Quetzalcoatl is called ‘Kukulcan’. In the Maya language can means ‘four’, or ‘heaven’, but also ‘snake’. Kuk may be translated as ‘wave’. Kukulcan means, hence, the ‘writhing snake’ (Uber 2002, 109). He manifests himself as such on a quite special place in Chichén Itzá where he reappears each year on two different occasions.


A special marriage
Amongst all the cleared ruins of this block of Maya-ruins, restored or not, it is the pyramid of Kukulcan – the Spaniards called it El Castillo – that bears witness to a mathematical, astronomical and architectural level which is truly amazing for its period (I recommend the fascinating study by Hancock 1998; also Jenkins 1998). El Castillo does also harbour an astonishing numerology. None other up to now uncovered site attains to this level of harmony between Maya religion and science. Their marriage produced in El Castillo a fascinating ophiolatric monument. Near March 20th and on September 22d or 23d one can see Kukulcan descend the monument in the shape of a snake. I have not been lucky enough to be able to be present on one of these dates. From the wealth of illustrated literature read since my visit I learned how much I had missed. Here I like to mention several of the circumstances that played a role within this alliance between Mayan science and religion.


Architecture and numerology
El Castillo has a square base with a two-fold-symmetrical floor plan. The square base refers to the cosmic concept of the Maya. In their view the cosmos consisted of a level square, carried by four giants. El Castillo counts nine terraces, corresponding to the nine layers the Maya imagined to exist in the underworld. Since each side of the pyramid is divided by a staircase running through its centre, the nine layers form eighteen parts, corresponding with the eighteen months of the Mayan year. The number ‘eighteen’ reappears, moreover, in the angle between base and tip of the pyramid: exactly eighteen degrees. A quite special property of each of the four axial staircases is that each one consists of 91 steps. This means that the sum of the four stairs (364) plus the top platform of the pyramid (1), which carries the temple, amounts to the number of days in the year: 365.

The temple has an opening above each staircase. The one situated above the north staircase is wide and is divided into three parts by the elevated bodies of two snakes. The snakes symbolise the Kuxan Sum, the living cord, which connects the rulers of the earth with their gods (www.isourcecom.com). The base of each of these unusual pillars is formed by the widely opened mouth of the rattlesnake. Their rattle-carrying tails support the joisting of the temple. A notable feature is given by the four rattle-segments on each tail. The number four has a special meaning in Mayan lore. It symbolises the four directions of the wind - with Quetzalcoatl as the god of the wind (Willis, 1994, 247) as well as the four corners of the heavens (Uber 2002, 109). Snake-shaped columns discovered in other buildings also display four rattle-segments. A beautiful picture of such a pillar is given by Stierlin (2001, 201).


Astronomy
The astronomical knowledge of the Maya was outstanding. In Chichén Itzá they professionally applied their knowledge of the solstices and the equinoxes. Let us consider the background of these two astronomical terms (cf. scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy). The counterclockwise movement of our earth around the sun takes about 365¼ days to complete. Since we use days to count the year with, each calendrical year is somewhat less than six hours too short and we hence need to intercalate one day, February 29, nearly every fourth year. Since the axis of our earth tilts with an angle of 23½o into the direction of the Polar Star, the changing solar influx during the year creates our seasons. During the spring or vernal equinox on March 20th or 21st (the differences are due to the yearly shift of about six hours) the position of the sun is perpendicular to the equator. The durations of the day and the night are then equal to each other and last exactly 12 hours. The summer solstice occurs on June 20th or 21st, when the sun stands at right angles to the tropic of Cancer, with the maximal day length in the Northern Hemisphere as a result. The autumnal or fall equinox occurs on September 22d or 23d, with the sun, again, at right angles to the equator. Winter solstice, finally, occurs on December 21st or 22d when the sun stands perpendicular to the tropic of Capricorn, with minimal day length within the Northern Hemisphere as a result.  

It is during the second part of the afternoon of the day of the equinox that the setting sun projects its rays on the side of the north-western staircase, at the base of which rest the two larger than life-size snake-heads each with a widely opened mouth (photo 3). The projection occurs in such a way that the shadow of its terraces creates a fascinating play of light and shadow.


Kukulcan’s descent
During the second part of the afternoon on the day of the equinox Kukulcan descends the pyramid in all his majesty. De western part of the pyramid shadows itself upon the northwestern staircase. As a result seven large triangular spots of light combine with six darker shadows and with the snakehead at the bottom of the staircase into one undulating figure. The snake formed by this pattern of light and shadow moves down slowly. The pattern shortens and disappears finally within the vicinity of the head of the snake, creating a perfect illusion of a giant snake slowly crawling down along the pyramid.  

The open mouth of the snake at the base of the northern staircase is meaningful, since the god has to be able to step out of it onto the earth. Examples of snakeheads with a human face visible within the opened mouths abound within the Mayan territory. One’s first impression is of a man swallowed by a snake. The symbolism indicates, however, that man is regurgitated by the snake, even born out of it. This idea has been quite impressively sculpted into stone onto a building in Uxmal, another Mayan ruin-city, about twohundred kilometres distant from Chichén Itzà. A giant pit viper with a wide open mouth within which a human face is visible crawls on and over the façade of the ‘nunnery”, as the Spaniards used to call this building. A similar ‘birth’, although one with its own symbolic meaning, occurs out of the two-headed snake, which combines in herself both life and death. She, hence, acts as the ‘serving-hatch’, shuttling out of the one dimension into the other one.

The Kukulcan play of light and shadows is perfect on the equinoxes. Comparable projections by the sun are, of course, visible on the other days too, although not as complete as on the equinoxes. The Mayan presumably interpreted the different patterns of light-spots and shadows as indications for important initiatives such as sowing, harvesting, marriage and burial.

Still more can be said, by the way, about Kukulcan’s descent. When one studies the map of the Chichén Itzà complex (in Stierlin 1994, 187, for example) it follows that Kukulcan ultimately descends into the direction of the cenote sagrado, the sacred spring. Since such springs were possibly connected to subterranean watercourses, they were considered by the Mayan to be entrances to the underworld. After his landing on the earth Kukulcan could crawl straight on into the underworld as a result! An altar stands south of the sacred cenote. In this spring not only objects made of copper, of gold and of jade have been found but also human bones. It goes without saying what has been sacrificed on this altar.  
Similar cenotes were of course also important for a quite practical reason since they were major reservoirs of water. Their presence in places with a low amount of precipitation was required for the foundation of any town (Grube 2001, 429). At the site of mysteriousplaces.com one may visit a fascinating cenote-underworld. 

Before he arrived at the entrance to the underworld Kukulcan had to traverse the plateau dedicated to Venus. To the Maya people Venus was not only the morning or evening star but a quite threatening and warmongering planet (Jenkins 1998, 12). On this plateau special rituals in Venus honour took place on certain dates. This plateau is, of course, decorated with two snakeheads.
 
Crotalus durissus durissus
Rattlesnakes. The many pictures of snakes on the ruins of the former pre-Columbian cultures are those of rattlesnakes. One can hardly escape the conclusion that the twice-yearly earth visiting Kukulcan-snake must be a rattler. The reader is, therefore, invited to read the fascinating article by Kathleen Rogers in this issue, in which she explains why Kukulcan has to be a manifestation of Crotalus durissus durissus!


Acknowledgement
I want to thank Marc Mense who provided me with some nice pictures.

Literatuur
Cirlot, J., A dictionary of symbols. London, 1962. 
Eliot, A., Mythen van de mensheid. Amsterdam, 1977.
Grube, N. (red.), Maya. De goddelijke koningen van het regenwoud. Keulen, 2001. 
Hancock, G., Het ontstaan en het einde van alles – Fingerprints of the Gods. Baarn, 1998.
Jenkins, J.M., Maya cosmogenesis 2012. Rochester, 1998. 
Stierlin, H., Maya’s. Paleizen en piramiden in het oerwoud. Hedel, 2001.
Uber, H. en Pramod Mondbe, P., Weltschlangen Schlangenwelten. Auf den Spuren eines Reptils durch Mythos und Magie. München, 2002.
Willis, R. (red.), Mythen van de mensheid. Baarn, 1994.

URL’S
www.isourcecom.com/maya/cities/chichenitza
www.geoclopedie.nl
www.mysteriousplaces.com/mayan/Cenote.html

Translated from the Dutch by Bert Verveen.