The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology

by James A. O'Kon

  The Analysis of the Surveys

  The 1934 survey was greatly penalized by the lack of appropriate survey equipment. Villa was equipped with a handheld compass that was dependent on the variable magnetic north. The magnetic declination in the Yucatán is approximately 5 degrees. Villa could not take global coordinates. His survey, when plotted on a Google Earth satellite image, actually places Cobá some 5 kilometers south of its actual position. However, Villa is a true hero of archaeology. He and his team hacked their way though the 100.33-kilometer route of the sacbe. He substantiated without a doubt the true goal of his mission: to prove that the sacbe did exist and that it terminated at Cobá. He reported on the nature of the construction of the road and artifacts along the way. He prepared a report that, even in the 21st century, is unparalleled in the narrative, graphics, and photographs of a survey for a sacbe. His drawing of the survey indicates the complete route with stations of the road and villages along the way. He exceeded the goals of his mission and stands today historically as the sole author of a complete visual, graphic, and narrative published document relating to in situ sacbeob. The accuracy of the measurements is not of great importance. The real achievement of Villa’s expedition was the proof of Maya technology.

  The graphic results of the 1995 survey using the GPS positioning data are indicated in Figure 9-3. The 2000 survey verified the readings at all four points indicated a bearing of 269°58’ 32.4” between Yaxuná and the intersection of the Yaxuná–Cobá sacbe and Sacbe No.3. This is 99.992 percent accuracy for an east–west line between Yaxuná and the entrance to Cobá. If a true east–west line were extended from Yaxuná to Cobá, it would miss the target of the terminus by only 87 meters. It is noted that the sacbe on the Carnegie Institution survey deviated at several points from a straight alignment. However, the alignment of the start and finish of the road is unique. The length of the route was calculated to be 98.45 kilometers using global coordinates, versus the 100.336 kilometers surveyed by Villa. The global-coordinated calculations used a straight line to determine the length between points. The Villa measurements indicated slight turns in the route of the road, which would require a longer distance between points. Villas measurements of the exact road may be more accurate, but it would take a ground survey to verify the actual distance. Our aerial survey in 2001 verified the actual route of the sacbe. This alignment is indicated on the satellite image (Figure 9-3); the actual alignment was based on the tracking study carried out on the Google Earth image.

  In summary, the 1934 survey verified the route and characteristics of the route. O’Kon surveys verified the unique east–west alignment of Cobá and Yaxuná, and the course of the road as it traversed between the two ancient cities. It sometimes deviated from a true east–west course, but always returned to the east–west line of the route. The route between Cobá and Yaxuná did exist and connected the two cities on a true east–west direction.

  The Legendary Sacbe: The Pilgrims’ Path to the Sea

  The existence of various forms of sacbeob in the Maya world has remained in folk memory and includes mythological roadways, celestial skyways, and subterranean routes. This search, however, seeks the lost road from Mérida to Cozumel, and is confined to observable and measureable terrestrial roadways that are the result of technological achievements of Maya engineers. This most intriguing of the mystic terrestrial sacbeob is the legendary path of pilgrims that extends from the city of T’hó, today’s Mérida, in the Yucatán, to the east coast and on to the Island of Cozumel. This sacbe presents more tantalizing clues of its existence than any other example of Maya roadway. This fabled road extended 285 kilometers from T’hó eastward to the Caribbean coast and the city of Puerto Morelos. From this port, pilgrims would embark on seagoing vessels for the sacred crossing to the Island of Cozumel and the opportunity to worship at the temple of Ixchel. She was the goddess of the moon, fertility, midwifery, medicine, and magic. Ixchel was a woman’s goddess. The temple of Ixchel had a long history; it has been determined that her temple was an active and popular shrine from 100 BC until the conquest during the 16th century. Millions of the faithful traversed the sacbe and made the sea passage. Maya women visited the shrine at least once during their lives, coming from distant points in the Yucatán, Guatemala, and Honduras.

  In modern transportation planning, a “desire line analysis” is a study that plots the desired destinations of travelers and the volume of traffic to certain points. The analysis is used to plot and plan the routes of proposed highways. If one was to plot the desire lines of Maya pilgrims from the major cities in the Yucatán to the port of departure for the sacred voyage to Cozumel, the route of the pilgrims would extend from major Maya population centers directly to the coast of the Caribbean.

  The legendary highway was more mystical than mythical, but it had many real and practical applications in addition to the travel of pilgrims over the 285-kilometer roadway, not only to the shrine of Ixchel, but to the holy city of Izamal, where faithful visited the birthplace of Itzamna, the Maya God of wisdom, art, and languages. The passage of pilgrims, plus the commercial and administrative traffic between the largest cities in the Yucatán, made this a very popular route.

  The existence of the long mystical sacbe has been reported since the 16th century by Spanish chronicles, and traces of the route have been investigated by explorers and archaeologists into the 21st century. In the 16th century Bishop Diego de Landa observed that a sacbe extended from T’hó to the ruins at Izamal. In 1688, Diego Lopez de Cogolludo reported his finds on this fabled road in Historia de Yucatán (History of the Yucatán): “There are remains of paved highways which traverse all this kingdom and they say they are ending in the east on the seashore...so they might arrive at Cozumel for fulfillment of their vows, to offer their sacrifices and to ask for help in adoration of their false Gods.”

  In 1966, archaeologists Dr. Edwin Shook and Lawrence Roys investigated the 32-kilometer sacbe from Aké to Izamal, 200 kilometers to the east along the same alignment. Geologist A.E. Weidie reported, in 1962, the discovery of a raised bed of an ancient roadway that extended 20 kilometers from Puerto Morelos on an east–west line along the same alignment as the Aké to Izamal route. From 1995 to 2002, archaeologist Jennifer Mathews of FAMSI confirmed evidence of that same east–west elevated sacbe extending more than 20 km to the west from modern Highway 180 at Puerto Morales.

  The legend of the sacbe of the pilgrimage route traversing the northern Yucatán persists in folklore, historical accounts, and archaeological investigations. Segments of the route have been mapped and investigated, but the entire 285-kilometer route has not been assembled and assessed in a logical study using global positioning, remote sensing, and satellite imagery until the O’Kon survey of 2010.

  The O’Kon Investigation of the Pilgrims’ Sacbe

  The route of the sacbe from T’hó to the Caribbean coast has been the subject of historical conjecture since the Spanish conquest. Segments of the legendary route have been investigated, but the complete 285-kilometer route has not been surveyed as a complete road running from Mérida to Puerto Morelos. To physically trek over the entire route using ground-based survey equipment would be daunting for any explorer, in any era. However, with Global Information Systems (GIS) the feat can be accomplished with a minimum of boots on the ground. The GIS system integrates information from digital data received from satellites feeding geographical information into ground-based software and hardware.

  The object of the O’Kon survey was to register global positioning data at critical locations along the route of the pilgrims from Mérida to the Caribbean coast. Then the global positioning data was introduced into the GIS software using the system to develop vectors along the path of the road. The vectors will basically map the route. Furthermore, to verify ground features of the route, the vectors will guide the way to the extant vestiges of the ancient road and develop a ground track, and confirm the GIS vector studies and develop a virtual route of the road. The plan
for acquiring ground-based GPS readings along the route included strategic points at known positions along the road. These include positions at the salient cities including Mérida, Aké, and Izamal, and points along the road terminus at Puerto Morelos. Traveling by automobile, our team started the ground survey and acquisition of GPS positions in Mérida and traveled east toward the Caribbean coast. GPS readings were taken at the following points:

  Mérida: A GPS reading was recorded in the zócalo or central plaza of Mérida.

  Aké: A GPS positioning reading was taken at the center of the site.

  Izamal: A GPS positioning reading was taken at the zócalo.

  Puerto Morelos: GPS positioning was taken at two locations on the terminus of the road. Readings were recorded at the east and west ends of the 16-kilometer stretch of road.

  Google Earth was used to plot the GPS positions derived from the survey, enabling the plotting of the route from Mérida to Puerto Morelos. Close observation of the satellite imagery along the projected route indicated clear traces of the degraded sacbe at several locations. Evidence of the road was clearly indicated between Mérida and Aké, and between Aké and Izamal. Images of the sacbe were obscured by dense forest for an approximate distance of 100 kilometers. The clear configuration of the sacbe again was revealed 21 kilometers from the Caribbean. The route extends along the road and into Puerto Morelos. Puerto Morelos appears to be the departure point for countless Maya pilgrims to Cozumel.

  Analysis has indicated that the weight of evidence from eyewitnesses, historical accounts, survey investigation, and GIS analysis makes its highly likely that the pilgrim road from Mérida to the coast actually existed. Furthermore, the alignment of three ancient cities and the port city exactly along an east–west azimuth and the route of the road is more than coincidental. The bearing of 269.87° 53’ 42” is 98.94 percent accurate compared with an east–west line of 270 degrees. The strong evidence indicates that an east–west alignment along the major pilgrim route begs the question, Which came first—the cities or the road? The parts have been proven to exist; now research must be carried to prove that the sum of the parts is equal to the whole. Though the investigation of the road started in the mid-20th century, this legendary road still requires more investigation to verify the exact path of Ixchel’s sacbe.

  10

  Bridging the Gaps in the Forest

  The Yucatán Peninsula has an abundance of natural characteristics that presented challenges to the survival of the Maya civilization. However, natural barriers to overland travel did not present a challenge. The Maya lowlands had a flat terrain with minor differences in elevation. There are few surface features or geologic gaps that offered impediments for travel between Maya city-states. The absence of natural obstacles to land travel minimized the requirement for Maya engineers to erect bridge structures.

  There is an obvious linear relationship between the need to span a natural impediment and the number of bridge structures that were constructed by Maya engineers. Considering the minimal requirements for construction of bridge structures in the Maya domain, it is no surprise that few examples of Maya bridge structures have been encountered by archaeologists. Furthermore, the location of bridges near large cities would attract more attention and would be more likely to be discovered than a bridge located in an isolated area. An urban-based bridge would surely have been discovered and investigated early in the annals of Maya archaeology.

  The majority of the Maya bridges that have been documented are of short and medium spans. These bridges spanned canals, moats, and small streams, and engineered urban structures within the precinct of the ancient cities. The range of span lengths and the type of engineered materials used in the bridge structures varied widely. Techniques for construction of bridges by Maya engineers became embedded in their culture and have become a part of the technological patrimony that extended from the Classic Period, through the conquest and the colonial period, and continues on in contemporary Maya building skills.

  Examples of Maya bridge engineering include short-span, cast-in-place concrete structures over streams or canals, medium-span timber bridges over rivers, and long-span rope-cable suspension structures over broad rivers. Maya technology had an engineering solution for each type of spanning requirement. The remains of some bridges exist today, though others that were constructed with degradable construction materials have faded into the past. However, many structures have left tantalizing clues to their existence.

  Historical Perspectives of Pre-Columbian Bridge Technology

  The Americas had a technological advantage over much of the world in the construction of long-span suspension bridges. The Inca Empire, which ruled South America from the 12th to the 15th century AD, developed suspension bridge systems as part of their long-range road system. Suspension bridges spanned the numerous canyons and gaps in the mountainous terrain. The saga of legendary Inca bridge-building technology has become a popular part of American and world history books, the chronicles of the King under Spanish Colonial rule, and best-selling novels, all of which brought the romantic story of the Inca and their bridges to the attention of the world. This was not the case for the Maya, whose civilization had collapsed 600 years before the conquest and did not have Spanish chronicles describing examples of their lost technology.

  “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the Gulf below...it had been woven of osier by the Inca more than a century before.” With these opening words, famed novelist Thornton Wilder begins his novel The Bridge at San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a best-selling work that has become popular throughout the world.

  “To make one of their bridges, a great quantity of osiers is collected. They make three single osiers into a long rope according to the length needed for the bridge. In this way, they increase and thicken the ropes until they are thicker than a man’s body or thicker. They mount them on two high supports...three of the great ropes are used for the floor of the bridge and two as handrails on each side.” This description of Inca bridge construction was written by Peruvian Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of an aristocratic Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess. Garcilaso traveled to Spain in 1561. His writings include Comentarios Reals de los Incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas). This work, published in 1609, has enormous literary value, and is not merely historical chronicles. The work includes Spanish history of the conquest, as well as accounts of daily Inca life learned at the feet of his maternal relatives, and provides firsthand details of the methodology for constructing Inca bridges.

  The two works, one by the son of an American diplomat and the other the scion of Spanish aristocracy, are separated by four centuries in time, but are bound by the political intrigues of their time; each chose to write a monumental work that involved Inca suspension bridge technology. Their works and the writings of archaeologists brought the Inca engineering of long-span suspension bridges to the attention of the world. Suspension bridges were not the only bridge in the Inca engineer’s repertoire. The Inca built pontoon rafts, wood beam bridges, and stone slab bridges. However, the suspension bridge was the most spectacular of their construction feats. It is estimated that more than 200 rope-cable suspension bridges constructed by the Inca were detailed in the Spanish chronicles. These bridges used thick cables crafted of grass, maguey fiber, and osier. Osier is the flexible branch or rod-like twig of the willow tree, similar to that used in wickerwork.

  The Inca are still constructing suspension bridges during the 21st century. The yearly rebuilding of each bridge is carried out by the Inca as a tribute to their creative ancestors. Inca suspension bridges have been constructed by students in modern engineering classes. However, in lieu of willow and ichu grass, the students use henequen rope from the Yucatán. The Maya used this type of rope for their suspension bridges more than 700 years prior to Inca bridge-builders.

  Because of the records left by the Spanish
chronicles, the Inca had a historic advantage over other pre-Columbian cultures, with the exception of the Aztecs. The Maya did not have this advantage. The Maya civilization and its technology had collapsed 600 years before the conquest. There were no technological accounts to record.

  Chronology of Maya Bridge Technology

  The majority of documented Maya bridges were erected at the height of the construction efforts during the Classic Period. These structures mostly fit the category of short-span bridges and are related to the construction of Maya cities and their close environs. These bridges include spans over canals, moats, streams, and urban architectural features. The Classic Period also saw construction of longer bridges, including medium-span bridges over rivers and long-span suspension bridges, including the longest bridge in the ancient world, which extended across the Usumacinta River. During the conquest, historic chronicles of the Spanish scribes recount bridge construction activities by the Maya to a single account of bridge building. The tales relate that a long bridge was built over a wide river crossing to assist the conquistadors in traversing a route across the Yucatán toward Guatemala.

  After the 1810 Mexican revolution, the opening of the boarders of Mexico and Central America to foreigners enabled discoveries that were previously closely guarded secrets by the xenophobic Spanish colonial government. The new policy of permitting explorers and scholars to traverse the jungles enabled the discovery of the technological achievements of the Maya civilization. Discoveries included techniques for using rope cables for construction of suspension bridges. Although archaeology has accepted the use of short-span structures in urban context or crossing water courses, it has not accepted the advanced technology applied for long-span suspension bridges. What follows is an examination of Maya bridges, using a reverse time line that starts with 19th-century rope-cable suspension bridges and travels back in time to bridge construction during the conquest, and further back to the Classic Period, when bridge construction reached its apex and became the lifeline of Classic Maya cities.