Saturday October 13th, 2012 - our longest tour guided day in Mexico! 6am to 1am
We began our morning bright and early meeting our tour guide at 6am. Arni was our tour guide and was with us the remainder of tours. He is from Mexico City and served his mission in Arkansas. He has gotten a history major and is very passionate about the ruins in Mexico.
Our first stop of our long day was at Chichen Itza (one of the seven wonders of the world.)
Chichen = mouth of the well
Itza = sorcerer of water
The Maya had incredible mathematicians, astrologists, scientists and engineers. The temple had incredible symbolism and represents the Maya calendars in a most spectacular way.
Chichen Itza was known as the temple of Kukulcan.
Kukulcan was representative of the feathered serpent.
The serpent being the most feared animal on the earth and the closest to the earth.
The feathers representing the birds meaning the closest creature to the heavens.
Kukulcan was the God who created the heavens and the earth, Jesus Christ.
The temple has four stairways, each has 91 steps, equaling 365 days of the Solar calendar.
The main temple on top represents the last day (making it 265 days in a year)
There is a smaller 'mini' temple build inside of the larger one that is built to represent the Venus calendar, 65 steps = 260 days.
Their whole calendaring system was intense and very fascinating, we have a journal full of incredible facts and symbolism.
Every 52 years the Venus and Solar Calendars sync up. This is known as the Mayan Calendar Cycle. They had 4 different cycles; earth, water, wind, and fire. Each phase had different meaning. Many believe that December 21, 2012 will be 'the end of the world' but it is the date in which the two calendars sync up. We are currently in the 'wind' cycle and on December 21, 2012 will be the last day of that cycle and we will move into the 'fire' cycle. The fire cycle is related to human kind & empire changes. It was in this same cycle that we had the restoration of the gospel.
The Mayan prophesied that Christ will come in the next 52 years during this fire cycle.
They built this so precise that on the equinox (March 21) and solstice (Dec 21) of every year you can see the serpent descend from the temple.
On March 21 you see the whole serpent, from March 5 to April 6 (equaling 33 days) you can see parts of the serpent. This is symbolic of the age of Christ when he died. April 6th is also considered the day that Christ was born and the restoration of the Church.
Another thing is that on March 21 you see 7 triangles of the serpent but on April 6th you can see 8. This symbolizes Kukulcan (main God) coming down to earth.
April 6th is also a special day for me because it's the day that I first went through the temple....
In the picture seen above they have recently discovered foundations that date back to as early as 200 A.D. I found this absolutely fascinating to think that this was beginning to be built during 4th Nephi in the Book of Mormon.
The panoramic picture above it shows a temple on the left called The Temple of the Warriors. Interesting enough there were thousands of pillars to represent two thousand warriors. A few years later they added another 65 pillars. I seriously could not get enough of this stuff.
Above is where they would play their ball game. It was a solemn experience filled with ritual importance.
The picture on the bottom left is where religious leaders would sit to watch. The picture on the bottom right shows up closer in the structure where you can see a carving of the white bearded God that was facing west because they believed he came from the east. It's one of the only preserved blocks in there (i've drawn a square around it)
More of the vast green jungle, government security check points and other shops seen throughout our journey above.
Our next stop was Uxmal. We first ate a traditional Mayan dinner, I had the lime soup and it was delicious. Probably my favorite meal of the whole trip. Below you can see our guide Arni speaking to the restaurant manager (it was so nice to have someone take care of us the whole time.)
Uxmal, which means built three times, is the temple of the dwarf who out witted the king after he picked on him.
The acoustics here and at Chichen Itza were incredible. The steps were engineered in such a way that any noise would bounce back louder then they were made. Now I can understand how so many would have been able to hear King Benjamin on the top of his tower...
Example of sound bouncing back at us.
We were able to explore around this area and climb some of the structures.
Rachael carried an umbrella for temporary relief from the scorching heat.
Below is what is called the temple of the witch (the dwarfs mother). Aaron, Josh & Joseph climbed to the top while I stayed on lower ground with Rachael. I get a kick out of seeing the bottom right picture of Josh after climbing to the top. The dripping sweat says it all.
Another Yaxche tree and many many iguanas.
Incredible workmanship seen on all the buildings. Their buildings were may different colors using a variety of plants and bugs. The red hand print you can see below was done using mercury and it was their way of 'dedicating' the building once it was complete.
Here in Uxmal they worshiped Chaac, the Rain God, because they needed rain for their crops to grow. The profile seen in the top right picture below was their symbol for Chaac. The 'X' was used to create a snake like skin on the buildings representing the feathered serpent.
In another picture below you can still see some of the red and blue coloring on the stone.
In the 1840's John Lloyd Stephens (an American explorer from New York) and Frederick Catherwood (painter from England) were the first ones to discover Tulum after is was abandoned 300 years earlier. After that they went on to find Uxmal.
An interesting episode in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unfolded during a thirteen-month period between September 1841 and October 1842. The Prophet Joseph Smith was given a two-volume set of books written by John Lloyd Stephens that told about Stephens’s travels in Mesoamerica and the discovery of ancient ruins and vanished civilizations. These books were filled with pictures that were drawn by Frederick Catherwood, an artist who accompanied Stephens. The pictures revealed temples and cities that had been lost in the jungles of Mesoamerica for centuries.
Several lengthy extracts from Stephens’s volumes were published in the Times and Seasons between February and October 1842 while Joseph Smith was editor of the paper. These extracts and the accompanying editorial articles linked the discoveries of Stephens and Catherwood with the Book of Mormon, declaring their findings to be evidence of the validity of the Book of Mormon. Through the years since their publication, these editorials often have been cited by some researchers as evidence that Joseph Smith believed Mesoamerica was the geographical setting for the events in the Book of Mormon.
This is from the letter that Joseph Smith wrote to Dr. Bernhisel who sent the books to him from New York while he was in Navoo:
I received your kind present by the hand of Er Woodruff & feel myself under many obligations for this mark of your esteem & friendship which to me is the more interesting as it unfolds & developes many things that are of great importance to this generation & corresponds with & supports the testimony of the Book of Mormon; I have read the volumes with the greatest interest & pleasure & must say that of all histories that have been written pertaining to the antiquities of this country it is the most correct luminous & comprihensive.
-Dean C. Jessee, comp. and ed., Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 533.
There are some incredible accounts i've read from Wilford Woodruff's journal including this one while he was traveling with Zion's camp:
May 8, 1834: While on our travels we visited many of the mounds which were flung up by the ancient inhabitants of this continent probably by the Nephites & Lamanites. We visited one of those Mounds and several of the brethren dug into it and took from it the bones of a man. . . . Three persons dug into the mound & found a body. Elder Milton Holmes took the arrow out of the back bones that killed Zelph & brought it with some of the bones in to the camp. . . . Brother Joseph had a vision respecting the person. He said he was a white Lamanite. The curse was taken from him or at least in part. He was killed in battle with an arrow. . . . His name was Zelph. . . . Zelph was a large thick set man and a man of God. He was a warrior under the great prophet /Onandagus/ that was known from the hill Camorah /or east sea/ to the Rocky mountains. The above knowledge Joseph received in a vision.
-Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal,1:10.
Carrying on....
Our last stop was in Merida where we enjoyed seeing the temple. The temple president there is from Arizona and had only been there a few weeks. He poked his head out the doors calling us over because he was so excited to get to speak English again :)
It was literally a little piece of heaven there. In the bottom left corner of the pictures below you can see the street we were on when we came to the temple. You could not see the temple until we got to that point and then the entrance was on the right.
We walked around the central part of the city learning about it's history and seeing some magnificent cathedrals. There was a quinceanera celebration about to begin that we got to see and hear all about.
Before our 4 hour drive home we ate at a traditional Taco restaurant. We arrived back at our resort at 1am. After 10 hours in a car we were all ready for a relaxing Sunday.
