By Scott Corrales
"Ancient astronauts" - a term that conjures up the covers of dozens of paperbacks in the mid-Seventies, juxtaposing advanced technical machinery, humanoids, primitive humans and some of the impressive stone monuments that have survived to the present, confounding experts and laymen, thrilling visitors who make pilgrimages to see them, and of course, representing a dynamic market for filmmakers and writers alike.
Impressionable audiences, fresh from the discoveries and adventure of the Apollo Project, had no trouble accepting the possibility that if humanity could now leave the confines of Earth, it was likely hat others had left their worlds, and perhaps visited our own in ages past. Science fiction authors of the calibre of Arthur C. Clarke had put the thought of ancient astronauts in the mind of Dr. Heywood Floyd, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as he considers that possibility of a terrestrial civilization in the Pleistocene - albeit non-human - being responsible for the "monolith" that drives the entire story. Collectors of ancient figurines now pored over their dusty curios to see if charming native antiques suggested helmeted space visitors rather than priests in ceremonial garb. A documentary inspired by Erik Von Daniken's "Chariot of the Gods" had a theatrical release in many countries, and its intriguing soundtrack found its way into many musical collections in the golden age of LP records.
The public was also exposed to a reinterpretation of many documents - even major religious texts - during this interest in ancient non-human visitors. The prophet Ezekiel's vision of strange entities was reinterpreted as spacesuited, moonbooted vistors piloting an atmospheric craft; Elijah was now swept away by a low-flying spaceship rather than a "chariot of fire". Alien big brothers had led primitive humans by the hand, leaving behind their wisdom in ways that our species could only begin to understand in the 20th century....
A PYRAMID LIKE NO OTHER
Cuicuilco Pyramid
"The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of fire were destroyed by fire." With these words, Jorge Luis Borges, one of South America's most distinguished authors and a pillar of modern literature, ends his story The Circular Ruins, which describes a timeless circular pyramid surmounted by a temple to the fire god in his short story. As if dealing with an onyric experience, Borges leads the reader through a surreal, metaphysical adventure. Does this well-known story describe the mysterious Mexican ruins known as the Cuicuilco pyramid?
Cuicuilco has been considered a bit of a embarassment to archaeologists: the massive, circular pyramid complex that straddles an ancient lava bed to the south of Mexico City is "a blow to the face of history," as one Mexican investigator called it. Even now, many scholars are silent accomplices to its destruction-- shopping malls, multi-family dwellings and industrial parks encroach upon the ancient ruins. The city's formidable pollution problem, coupled with the threat of acid rain, will surely take care of this archaeological embarrassment if no action is taken. "Sad to say, the current status of the pyramid is very bad and shows a state of near-abandonment. Grass grows everywhere and the museum, while having been expanded, is not in operation. The main access ramp is damaged by thoughtless human traffic and the lack of proper draining," wrote urban archaeologist Daniel Sch'avelzon in his La Pir'amide de Cuicuilco (Fondo de Cultura del Estado, 1983) which remains one of the few comprehensive works on the circular pyramid, compiling the orginal photographs and articles on the excavations performed at the "Mexican Pompeii". He has characterized the studies performed at Cuicuilco as "some of the most detailed work ever performed within Mexican archaeology."
All experts agree that the Cuicuilco pyramid is the oldest structure in the Anahuac Valley, which houses modern Mexico, and the very first monumental construction in the Americas. Disagreements as to its antiquity and the people who built it continue to this very day. Official records state that the Cuicuilco structures can be no older than 600 B.C., but revisionist figures claim the structure was built between 8000 to 10,000 years ago, thus making it almost as old as the "Tepexpan Man" -- the earliest prehistoric dweller found in Mesoamerica (human remains along with those of a wooly mammoth were found at this site).
American audiences were first introduced to the mesmerizing enigma through a feature in National Geographic Magazine (Vol 94) bearing the title: "Ruins of Cuicuilco May Revolutionize Our History of Ancient America: Lofty Mound Sealed and Preserved by Great Lava Flow for Perhaps 70 Centuries." The Society had financed a considerable part of the excavations at the site.
Cuicuilco measures some 17 meters in height and has a diameter of 115 meters. A series of ramps provided access to its uppermost tier, which housed a temple with a statue of Huehuete'otl -- the "Old God of Fire", the very first deity worshipped in this continent. The mighty circular pyramid is surrounded by smaller structures and rectangular buildings with well-finished floors which must may been homes. When viewed from the roadside, or from the slight vantage point provided by the Perisur shopping mall, the visitor may well think he or she is looking upon a colossal Celtic hill-fort.
The Cuicuilco site has yielded clay figurines depicting a series of dancers, acrobats and entertainers; ceremonial masks probably employed by shamans and actors engaged in recreating ritual ceremonies. There is reason to believe that this lost culture was highly specialized and had its full complement of bricklayers, masons, administrators, priests and bureaucrats. "One generation succeded the next," wrote Dr. Cummings in his article on the ruins, "and the cone of the old temple rose its head toward the endless blue, making its best effort to allow its builder's children to grow close to the deity and closer to a true understanding of natrual phenomena...some powerful ruler decided to repair the damage to the pyrmaid and calm the rage of the gods by expanding the temple."
The contented lives of the prosperous, unwarlike Cuicuilcans came to an end when the Ajusco, a 4000-foot tall peak located on the same mountain range as the Popocatepetl volcano, began to exhibit volcanic activity. The earthquakes which rocked Anahuac Valley caused an enormous hole to open in the ground -- a smaller volcano called Xitle, which poured a torrent of lava that destroyed nearby Copilco before engulfing Cuicuilco itself. The Cuicuilcans fled before the destruction, and all that was left behind was an eighty square mile lava field known today as El Pedregal.
Debate has raged on and off regarding the date of the Xitle's eruption. Scholars of the "Pre-Classic" period of Mexican history believe that the eruption took place between 500 and 200 A.D., while geologists have placed the volcanic event as far back as 7000 B.C. -- clearly a wildly divergent figure.
Efforts at "restoring" Cuicuilco in 1906-1910 led to the removal of a considerable number of huge adobe blocks from the upper tiers. Serious archaeological work, however, was not undertaken until April 1922, when anthropologist Manuel Gamio - the father of the "indigenismo" movement - appealed to Dr. Byron Cummings of the University of Arizona, asking him to bring a team of his students to Mexico to dig test pit aimed at ascertaining whether Cuicuilco was natural or manmade formation. The professor and his students, plus a brigade of laborers, worked diligently from 1924 to mid-1925 on what could well be the oldest pyramid on Earth. In 1933, Cummins wrote Cuicuilco and the Archaic Cultures in Mexico, a booklet on his findings, presenting a number of interesting photographs.
The site was apparently visited one night by an unidentified flying light which hovered over the ruins before speeding off into the distance; while this UFO event did not put a halt to the excavation of the Cuicuilco pyramid, the expense of digging through solid lava eventually did. Even though a considerable number of archaeologists have worked on the Cuicuilco site, the amount of literature on the area is very limited. The pyramid remains only partially uncovered, and the bulk of the Cuicuilco site is covered by a thirty square mile lava field with an average thickness of some twenty feet. The rapid growth of Mexico City now makes further excavations impossible, and we will never know what other artifacts might have given us a better clue as to the origin of the circular pyramid, its purpose and its builders. Scientists insist that its one-of-a-kind shape is a representation of the volcano beside it, but a reconstruction of the pyramid -- found in Mexico's National Anthropology Museum -- would cause even the most disinterested party to wonder: why was it shaped like a flying saucer?
According to historian Stuart J. Fiedel, between 5,000 and 10,000 people lived in Cuicuilco duirng the First Intermediate Period II (650-300 B.C.) and that the neighboring region was home to some 75,000 people. Population increased greatly duirng the First Intermediate Period III (300-100 B.C.), rising to 145,000 souls--twenty thousand of them at Cuicuilco and the remainder at Teotihuacan....
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