The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology

by James A. O'Kon

  THE LOST SECRETS OF

  MAYA TECHNOLOGY

  By James A. O’Kon, PE

  Copyright © 2012 by James A. O’Kon, PE

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions.

  This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

  THE LOST SECRETS OF MAYA TECHNOLOGY

  EDITED AND TYPESET BY DIANA GHAZZAWI

  Cover design by Noir33

  Printed in the U.S.A.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  O’Kon, James A.

  The lost secrets of Maya technology / James A. O’Kon.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-60163-207-4 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-610-2 (ebook) 1. Mayas--Science. 2. Maya astronomy. 3. Mayas--Mathematics. 4. Mayas--Civilization. 5. Technological innovations--History--To 1500. 6. Discoveries in science--History--To 1500. I. Title.

  F1435.3.S32O46 2012

  972’.6--dc23

  2011045928

  Acknowledgments

  When the laborious research for this book was finally completed and my thoughts collected, I prepared an outline for the book with a summary of each chapter. I sent the summary to an archaeologist who is a longtime friend and asked him for his opinions. “Congratulations on your book,” he responded. “Just realize that archeologists will roast, reject, or ignore any book that alters popular misconception.” When I had completed the manuscript and Career Press had contracted to publish the book, I contacted a number of distinguished archaeologists and requested that they consider reviewing my manuscript. I was expecting the worst after the early warning from my friend.

  However, I was pleasantly surprised and flattered by the gracious and positive responses I received from this venerable group. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for the fashion in which this book was received by some of the most highly acclaimed archaeologists in the world. I was honored to receive positive acceptance for review from George Stuart, Mark Van Stone, Ed Barnhart, and Tom Sever. I want to thank then all for making this into a much better book.

  I owe a special debt of gratitude to George Stuart, a true legend. He carefully read the manuscript, annotating the pages with insightful and helpful comments. His frequent e-mails with recommendations for historical accuracy and helpful comments were an education for me not only for sharing his personal knowledge and wisdom but his humanity and sensitivity.

  I also want to thank Ed Barnhart for his review of this book and his contributions relating to his work with the water resources at Palenque.

  Mark Van Stone is Mayanist and a noted epigrapher. I want to thank him for using his expertise in the improvement of Maya glyphs in the cover design and making contributions to dates in the history of European mathematics. I also want to thank him for inspiring me to write the Epilogue in this book.

  Tom Sever, working as an archaeologist for NASA, pioneered the application of remote sensing in archaeology. His work in detecting sacbeob and ruins that are hidden in the rainforest was truly an inspiration for this book, and I thank him for his insightful comments.

  I am not a trained archaeologist but a crossover engineer with a lifelong passion for the Maya civilization. My education in archaeology was on-the-job training. Nicholas Hellmuth was the first archaeologist that I ever met, in the 1980s, deep in the jungle of Guatemala. Nicholas guided me on expeditions deep into the rainforest and has traveled with me to sites verifying discoveries in Maya technology. He has a special knowledge of architecture and engineering technology learned at the knee of his father, George Hellmuth, the famous architect. These skills and his photographic artistry set him apart from others. I thank Nicholas for his belief in Maya technology, and his belief in me and my quest.

  There are many individuals that I want to thank for my education in technology, history, and archaeology. These include my muses, teachers, mentors, and the veteran archaeologist Claude Baudez, who told me that I was “the only man in the world who could have written this book.” This is the highest of praise for a crossover archaeo-engineer. Grady Randolph was a teacher dedicated to changing the lives of students from my blue-collar neighborhood. He counseled me throughout my life until his passing in 2005. He called me to his side and presented me with his complete set of the works of William H. Prescott. I treasure all 15 volumes. My thanks also go to writers, living and deceased, that enriched my knowledge of archaeology. These include John Lloyd Stephens, Alfred Maudslay, Sylvanus Morley, V. Gordon Child, Richardson Gill, Jared Diamond, and especially Michael Coe, who has guided me for a half century.

  Dr. Lev Zetlin, my engineering mentor, was a landmark engineering thinker and a larger-than-life figure in the revolution of new engineering technology. He became my friend in addition to my mentor in the leadership of state-of-the-art engineering. He responsible for my ascendency in the engineering sciences.

  I owe a huge debt to a lifelong friend, Cliff Graubart, my spirit guide to the world of publications. We met in New York during our salad days of the 1960s. He returned to Atlanta before me and became a successful rare-book dealer while nurturing some of America’s most popular writers, including some on the current New York Times Bestsellers list. He is truly the Gertrude Stein of our times.

  I fell in love with Yucatán and the Maya nearly a half century ago. Many of my expeditions were in the company of my lifelong friend, Vernon Harris. We vowed to travel to the Yucatán and find the answers to questions surrounding the Maya. It has become my task to complete the unveiling of the secrets of Maya technology.

  I must also thank my muse, Bill Nash. His encyclopedic knowledge of everything enabled us to discuss abstract concepts of archaeology, technology, and mathematics. My relationship with Bill is similar to Mark Twain’s with the great Rudyard Kipling. Twain said, “Between us we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.”

  Key elements of The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology would never have been uncovered without the talent and knowledge of Philippe Klinefelter. He is a kindred spirit that literally flew into my life while landing his aircraft on the airstrip at the ancient Maya city of Yaxchilan. I was stumbling in the dark relative to the secrets of the technology of Maya tools until I encountered Philippe. He is a fine arts sculptor of international note and the world’s foremost expert on Maya stone tools. Together Philippe and I have explored Maya jadeite mines and Classic Period jadeite workshops. His work is the foundation for the chapter on Maya tool technology. I thank Miguel Alvarez for the photographs of the Maya stone tools.

  The creation of illustrations for the book, especially the “how to” drawings of ancient technologies, required a special visionary artistic talent. I owe Alex Tuan Nguyen a great personal debt for transforming my complex, technical sketches into dynamic computer renderings that clearly translate my technical concepts.

  I am the illustrator of the drawings of Maya construction workers, which hark back to my college days as a cartoonist for the Georgia Tech humor magazine. My thanks go to Kira Francklin for quality and coord
ination reviews of the illustrations.

  The Internet introduced me to Dr. Horacio Ramirez de Alba, Dr. Ramiro Pérez Campos, and Dr. Heriberto Díaz Coutiño, all from the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. They authored an article in the Mexican scientific journal Ciencia Ergo Sum, which was intended to assess the infeasibility of the technology used in constructing the Maya bridge at Yaxchilan. At the conclusion of their studies they became believers in the Maya technology that I had postulated for the bridge. They carried out laboratory testing of ancient Maya cement that proved its reality and value to Maya engineering. I owe them profound thanks for their pioneering work and their support.

  Through the Internet I also met Douglas Peck, a noted historian, naval architect, and expert on ancient Maya marine technology and celestial navigation. He has contributed his many talents to this book and enabled my work on Maya marine technology to become a reality.

  My grateful thanks go to Ken Carper, expert in forensic architectural engineering and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, for reviewing and editing the manuscript. His comments were a great assistance to the overall quality of the work.

  My agent, Gary Height, came on board and guided me through steps for attaining a publisher, including the preparation of a proposal that answered all the questions about my book. I am especially grateful for his speed in working with Career Press to set this book up for success.

  Many thanks and intellectual compliments go to Diana Ghazzawi, my editor at Career Press. She constantly surprised me with insight into the cognitive mind of the Maya. Her interpretation of the Maya quadripartite cosmic philosophy as an analogy to the space-time continuum was truly an amazing bit of literary magic.

  I wish to thank the individuals who braved the heat and insects and who joined me on my adventures in discovery deep in the rainforest. These include Carl “Killer” Stimmel, Tammy Ridehour, Greta Pasche, Jim Dion, and Max Wilson.

  I would have been lost in this endeavor without the support of my wife, Carol. She has accompanied me on most of my expeditions into the jungle and has always managed to make rudimentary accommodations more livable. She was my assistant in measuring the dimensions of many of the Maya ruins and can manage both the dumb end and the smart end of the measuring tape. When it came to the actual writing of the book, she shepherded me through the dichotomy of pure science and archaeology, helping me keep one foot firmly planted in sound scientific precepts while the other foot was on the slippery slope of the mysteries and unknowns of Maya technology, until I finally became stabilized with both feet firmly planted on the truth.

  Contents

  Preface

  1

  The Maya

  2

  The Mystery of the Codices

  3

  Creating a Scientific Civilization in Tropical Isolation

  4

  What Are Stone Age People Doing With the Number Zero?

  5

  Building a Civilization

  6

  Maya Cement: Holding the Civilization Together

  7

  Towers in the Forest

  8

  Survival in the Seasonal Desert

  9

  The Maya Interstate Highway System

  10

  Bridging the Gaps in the Forest

  11

  Maya on the Move

  12

  The Collapse of Maya Civilization

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  Index

  About the Author

  Preface

  It has long been an enigma how the Maya achieved elevated scientific and technological levels in the relative isolation of a tropical rainforest. The ancient Maya were avid sky-watchers, and after millennia of observations of the heavens, they gained an uncanny knowledge of the harmonious composition of the cosmos. Their study of the vast expanse of the universe and the mysterious movements of the astral bodies evolved into their quadripartite philosophy of the cosmos. This philosophy, combined with their fascination of the interlocking movements and cycles of the sun, moon, planets, and astral bodies, inspired them to develop scientific disciplines that enabled them to track heavenly bodies, predict astronomical events, and record them in accurate written records.

  The mystery of the Maya and the origins of their advanced science and technology have always intrigued me and initiated my quest for answers to their riddles. My interest in archaeology began while playing in the Civil War battlefields covering the hills near my boyhood home in Atlanta. They were still littered with rusted military armament and wasted shot, fueling a young boy’s imagination. My early reading included classic books dealing with the Spanish conquest and rediscovery of the lost Maya civilization. My interest in lost civilizations was accelerated by my brilliant high school history teacher, Mr. Grady Randolph, who did not teach typical history courses, but delighted his students with accounts of ancient civilizations, extinct languages, and occult religions. These history courses stimulated my interest in archaeology, and my reading evolved toward history and archaeology.

  My student days at Georgia Tech were filled with the study of civil engineering and extracurricular activities that enhanced the capabilities of a future explorer. I was on the football team, and my ability to illustrate enabled me to become art editor on the school’s newspaper and the humor magazine. The years at Georgia Tech made me a problem-solving engineer with writing and illustration skills, and the athletic training gave me the strength and stamina to endure future arduous jungle expeditions.

  After several years of professional experience as a structural engineer, the siren song of the ancient Maya called out to me, and I decided to take a lengthy sabbatical to explore the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico. My family and I headed south of the boarder in our new Volkswagen camper, driving down through Mexico and into British Honduras. I was excited by this opportunity to live among ancient Maya cities, to see them up close and study their engineering technology. For a person who grew up in the only American city completely destroyed by war, just the sight of a building constructed before 1865 was really a thrill; one that was more than 1,000 years old was awesome. It was on this adventure that I first felt a real affinity for the Maya engineers who had constructed these wondrous structures. I had many questions about Maya technology and construction practices that could not be answered by archaeologists. They could not answer these inquires because they did not possess the knowledge behind Maya technology that lay hidden in plain sight. This quest for the truth led me on the path of investigations and revelations of the brilliant Maya technology that is the basis for this book.

  In New York City, I worked on designing landmark structures, like the Roosevelt Island Tramway, aviation projects, and aerospace structures. Returning to Atlanta to manage a branch office of the New York City engineering firm, I expanded the practice to include architecture in addition to engineering. I subsequently bought the firm and led it to a national reputation for designing award-winning projects and forensic engineering in the investigation of high-profile building failures. A civil engineering education at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an advanced degree from New York University provided me with an excellent background for my professional career, which has been devoted to bringing science to engineering, developing new computer techniques for engineering design, and advancing new methodologies for investigating distressed structures. This experience gave me the ability to “reverse engineer” complex, distressed buildings and identify the cause of the distress or failure. This experience as a forensic engineer also gave me unique insights used in the research and writing of this book. It enhanced my ability to discover, dissect, analyze, and reconstruct projects of lost Maya technology.

  Investigation of Maya technology continued during my engineering career. As often as possible, I traveled to the Yucatán, driving across the domain of the ancient Maya, traveling by dugout canoe, and hacking my way through the jungle with a mac
hete in order to explore remote sites. My breakthrough revelation in Maya technology was the discovery of a Maya suspension bridge over the Usumacinta River at the ancient Maya city of Yaxchilan. My research has unveiled the advanced technology that was used to construct monumental Maya engineering projects. Investigations and identification of Maya technology included field exploration, remote sensing, digital tools, virtual reconstruction, and forensic engineering skills. Further investigation and research efforts have revealed additional examples of lost Maya technology. My efforts were rewarded by identifying Maya engineering projects were that constructed with a technology that was 1,000 years in advance of similar European technology.

  It became apparent to me that the technology of the Maya was a direct extrapolation of their scientific cosmology. My work has unveiled the technological secrets that enabled this great scientific civilization to thrive in a challenging natural environment. This book will detail the technology used by the Maya to fabricate cement, which was used to build innovative, cast-in-place concrete structures that included high-rise buildings towering above their great cities, water management systems that enabled dependable water supplies for potable and agriculture usage, paved all-weather highway networks, and structural systems for bridges that included the longest bridge in the ancient world. They utilized specialized stone tools that were harder than steel to carve their monuments and buildings, and developed a transport system using manpower that was more efficient than dray animals and carts.

  Because of this brilliant technology, the Maya had an artificially high population. When disaster struck the Yucatán Peninsula in the form of a drought, the worst in 7,000 years, the same advanced technology that built amazing cities with large populations could not save the Maya. Technology failed and catastrophe befell the Maya; their scientific civilization was no more. Their beautiful cities were abandoned and enveloped by the encroaching jungle.