Mayan Calendar Prophecies: The Complete Collection of 2012 Predictions and Prophecies (7 page)

The other descriptions of Quetzalcoatl were that he arrived from the east, was bearded and wore a long robe, eventually departed and promised to return in the future. Does any of this symbolism also relate to comets?

In Europe comets were often referred to as “bearded stars” and modern astronomers also use the term “bearded” in reference to comets:

“...when the comet is east of the sun, and moves from him, it is said to be bearded, because the light precedes it in the manner of a beard…”
[35]

It was also common to describe comets and their long tails as stars wearing long robes. For instance, on a print by Friedrick Madeweis from 1681 that documented the path of Kirch’s Comet across the sky it included a reference to the “long trailing robe”
[36]
of its tail.

Friedrich Madeweis illustration of Comet Kirch with text noting its “long trailing robe.”

Could the image of beards and robes combined as an old bearded man wearing a long robe be a way ancient astronomers represented comets? This seems to be the case for Quetzalcoatl. Likewise, the other elements of this myth, i.e., rising in the east, departing and returning in the future are all consistent with the interpretation of Quetzalcoatl as a comet.

Quetzalcoatl is composed of two words:
quetzal
+
coatl
. 
Quetzal
refers to feathers and
coatl
refers to a snake thus the traditional translation of Quetzalcoatl is “feathered serpent.”

Yet
quetzal
does not simply refer to any old feathers of any old bird. Quetzal refers specifically to the bright green tail feathers of the Resplendent Quetzal bird from southern Mexico. Of all the birds the Maya and Aztecs could have used to represent Quetzalcoatl, they chose the Resplendent Quetzal. Why?

The Resplendent Quetzal, known simply as the Quetzal to Mexican peoples, is known for its brilliant green feathers. More specifically, the Quetzal is known for its long green tail feathers. The tail feathers of the Quetzal are longer than the entire body length of the bird. A bird that flies across the sky with a really long tail is a logical choice if the Maya intended to represent a comet.

Resplendant Quetzal from southern Mexico ©Kenneth Lilly/Dorling Kindersley RF/Getty Images

The Chinese also likened a comet’s tail to that of a bird’s tail feathers. The Chinese referred to comets as “long-tailed pheasant stars”
[37]
since pheasants had very long tail feathers. Thus it is not completely unheard of for a culture to associate a bird’s long tail feathers with the tail of a comet.

Comets can also
look
like a feather. On June 2, 1858 Donati’s Comet was discovered by Italian astronomer Giovanni Donati.
[38]
Drawings and paintings of this comet all reveal a comet whose tail had a feather-like appearance.

Illustration of feather-like appearance of Donati’s Comet over Paris in 1858.

Was the color green another important reason the Mesoamerican cultures chose the Quetzal bird or was it chosen primarily for its long comet-like tail feathers and the color was incidental? Most of the images of Quetzalcoatl portray the deity as a green serpent. Even the Aztec calendar day sign
coatl
was depicted as a green snake in their religious picture book, the
Codex Magliabechiano
[39]
. Thus the color green appears to be an important aspect of Quetzalcoatl.

Coatl glyph from Codex Magliabechiano

What are the associations for the second part of the name:
coatl
? In the Aztec language
coatl
means snake or serpent. Snakes appear to only have a head and a long tail just like a comet. Interestingly, in the Mayan language the word for snake and sky are the same. Thus Kukulkan, the Mayan name for Quetzalcoatl, has the following associations: feathered, sky, serpent.

Yet, just as
quetzal
did not represent any old bird,
coatl
did not represent just any old snake. Specifically, it represented the rattlesnake. Why would Mesoamerican cultures choose a rattlesnake to symbolize a green comet?

The Maya had one asterism, or star group, which was associated with the rattles of a rattlesnake: the Pleiades
[40]
.
Tzab-ek
, the Mayan name for this asterism, meant “rattlesnake rattles star.” Rattlesnakes were often depicted throughout Mexico with four rattles, which likely corresponded to the four brightest stars of the Pleiades. The
kan
suffix in Kukulkan not only means “serpent” and “sky” but also “four” which further supports this idea. This symbolism suggests the green comet is therefore associated with the Pleiades.

In the period of
Katun 4 Ahau
(1993-2012) were there any green comets associated with the Pleiades? Since 1993 there have been three green comets but only one was associated with the Pleiades: Comet Machholz. Comet Machholz was first discovered in August 2004 and became naked eye visible in November of that year. It reached its brightest level on January 7, 2005. At this time it also made its closest approach to the Pleiades. In fact, the tail of the comet entered the Pleiades
[41]
thus giving this green sky serpent its rattles! The return of Kukulkan, the green cosmic rattlesnake, appears to have occurred just as the Mayan ‘prophecies’ predicted.
[*]

“Comet Machholz meets the Pleiades” © Stefan Seip, Astromeeting.de

Yet, as noted previously, Comet Machholz is a long period comet with an orbital period of 12,500 years.
[42]
This means the last time anyone on Earth would have seen this comet (and thus been able to calculate its return) was in the year 10,500 BC. Could the Maya have had access to astronomical data going back that far in history?

Scholars have noted that the Mayan concept of the four world directions being associated with four different colors is remarkably similar to cultural practices in Asia and thus likely has origins in deep antiquity
[43]
; i.e., it came with them when their ancestors migrated across the Bering land bridge from Siberia at the close of the last Ice Age. Thus, at least one aspect of Mayan cultural practices still practiced today dates to that time period; thus, why not astronomical information encoded in their mythology?

More importantly, what message were the ancient Maya trying to convey by encoding the year 10,500 BC into their prophetic books? Since it is known that the
Maya believed time was cyclical
and that past events would reoccur in the future, did something happen in 10,500 BC which they felt might repeat again in the future?

In fact, one of the worst catastrophes ever to affect life on Earth occurred around 10,500 BC.
 
Before this date, Earth had experienced rapid global warming which resulted in the melting of the glaciers from the last Ice Age raising sea levels hundreds of feet.
 
Yet in 10,500 BC a catastrophe seems to have struck Earth. Temperatures plummeted as Earth entered a new period of extreme cold known as the Younger Dryas climate event.
[44]
 
In fact, this abrupt climate change happened within the course of only a few months!
[45]

This was brought about by the collapse of an ice dam that allowed the enormous glacier lake known as Lake Agassiz to catastrophically dump its contents into the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic. This influx of cold water shut down currents in the Atlantic which brought warm water up from the tropics to the northern hemisphere. Without this warm water the northern hemisphere reentered the Ice Age for another thousand years.

It was also at this time that mastodons, mammoths, and other mega-fauna all became extinct and the people known as the Clovis Culture disappeared from North America. Scientists consider this the most severe mass extinction since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. Ninety-five percent of all large mammals went extinct but small animals were affected too. For example, ten genera of birds went extinct at this time. Such an event would clearly have left a strong cultural memory in the myths and legends of the survivors.

Although this event appears to have affected North America the most, it also severely impacted Europe, Siberia, and South America. In their book
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: How a Stone-Age Comet Changed the Course of World Culture
, scientists Richard Firestone and Allen West argued that the impact of a comet or meteor caused both the mass extinction and climate event.