Mysteries Of The Universe
—Where did the Mayas go?
By Mark S. McGrew
mcgrewmx@aol.com
We have been taught that when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the Yucatan, already the Maya civilization had “disappeared” 500 years or so earlier. How do we know that is true? Because the Spaniards said so? Because archaeologists tell us so?
It is recorded that the Spaniard burned tons of Maya books. Supposedly, only three books are left. We are also taught that the Mayas had no concept of the wheel. But the famous Maya calendar forecasting the end of the world in 2012 is round, just like a wheel.
Is it possible that the Maya civilization was thriving in full effect in the year 1519, when Hernan Cortez arrived? If so, where did it go? Why did tons of books survive in the jungles, 500 years after the disappearance of the Maya civilization, but not the people or the culture of the Mayas?
I do a lot of reading, as most of us do, and I can not footnote every thing I have ever read, unless of course I delve again into further research, so please excuse my lack of concrete documentation as to what I am about to propose.
I have made several trips to Chitzen Itza near Valladolid in the State of Yucatan and I have gotten a bit off the beaten path. Wandering in the jungles, a person can come across old statues, stone structures and small temple like structures that are not covered by dirt. Even small pieces of Maya pottery can be found lying on the ground.
I grew up in a rain forest area of the United States and did a bit of wandering in the forests in many parts of the upper East Coast. Rock fences, rock homes and other rock structures are easily seen in deep forest and not covered by dirt, even though these things were abandoned several hundred years ago. In the Western states we find similar ruins here and there.
I can understand huge structures being covered with sand after centuries of neglect in a desert area such as Egypt or our American Southwest. But I do not understand large structures being covered by dirt in an area where there is very little exposed dirt due to the vegetation ground cover.
In one book I read, I came across a letter written around 1700, by a Spanish Priest, sent to Spain to a colleague of his. In this letter he says, “If the World knew what we were doing here, they would destroy us.” This letter was written in a time period of Mexican history when the Spanish had their Mexican Empire, closed, for 200 years. Very few people were allowed in or out. Information was hard to come by as to what was taking place in this part of the New World.
Is it possible, that the Spaniards spent 200 years forcing the people of this new world to use pick and shovel to bury the structures of the civilization that the Spanish were plundering, looting and murdering?
It is not unheard of for a conquering tribe to obliterate all traces of the conquered. It is not unheard of for a conquering nation to rewrite the history of the nation they conquered. Winston Churchill said shortly after World War II, “History will remember us fondly, as we will write that history.”
Using basic math, we can determine roughly how many people lived in Mexico at the time of the arrival of Cortez. With that figure to start with we can estimate, with basic math, as any General Contractor can estimate, how many people, how many shovels, how many carts etc., it would take to bury a pyramid such as the one in Chitzen Itza.
Using this estimate, yes, it is possible that a massive labor force could physically bury, with dirt, the majority of the Maya and other structures in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.
Just consider how long it has taken Archaeologists to “unbury” these massive structures. And keep in mind that they did so at a snails pace to keep from losing value data. And they did it not with hundreds of thousands of slave laborers, but with small groups of low paid workers and dedicated volunteers.
I would be curious to hear if anyone has any similar thoughts or evidence to support my theory.
One small clue may be what an English Lord said some years ago: “The purpose of Archaeology, since the year 1852, is to hide the truth from the public.”
Would they actually do that to us? Since most expeditions are funded by Universities and Museums with government grants and from direct government grants, and overseen by government agencies, would they actually lie to us?
Most people, as they get older, realize that what they know most is that they don’t know much.
Do we really know that the Mayas vanished with no explanation, 500 years before Cortez arrived?