With its grand monuments and golden treasures Egypt has long been the shining star of interests in the study of ancient civilizations. No other culture of antiquity has been studied to the extent as the land of the Nile. And no other civilization has left so much to study. From Cairo to Memphis, the biblical city of Ramses and the Giza Plateau ancient engineers and architects planned and built cities of stone that rival our own modern accomplishments. Also to their credit are finer achievements such as the birth of modern medicine under the once mythological figure, Imhotep. He diagnosed and treated tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and arthritis as well as more than two hundred other diseases, fifteen of the abdomen, eleven of the bladder, ten of the rectum, twenty-nine of the eyes, and eighteen of the skin, hair, nails and tongue. [1] He also performed surgery and practiced dentistry during a time a hundred years, or more, before the great pyramids were constructed. For 3,000 years Egypt was the finest culture brought forth by mankind.

During the last century, through various disciplines, Egyptologists have painstakingly constructed the history of ancient Egypt from the Early Dynastic Period to the New Kingdom. Although flavored with a dash of mystery, as is all of prehistory, a consensus of scholars explains that the land of the Nile was united as a kingdom under Menes just before the 3rd millennium BC. But in the Turin Kings list, a unique papyrus written in hieratic [2], Menes follows a list of gods or demi-gods that ruled before him.[3] The Palermo Stone [4] contains the names of these kings: Geb, Ausar (Osiris), Setekh (Seth), Hor (Horus – Hor gods, 300 years), Djehuty (Thoth – life, prosperity, health, 7,726 years), Maa't (100 years), and again Hor (Horus). Without historical verification, these kings have been relegated to myth. Forced by the increasing dryness of West Africa, primitive peoples migrated east to the Nile Valley during the last quarter of the 4th Millennium BC to begin Egyptian civilization; with them came their mythology.

Rainy Days for the Egyptian Sphinx

In 1992, writer and scholar John Anthony West [5] teamed up with geologist Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University to investigate the possibility that the Egyptian Sphinx was carved, at least in part, before 2500 BC. West believed that weathering of the Sphinx and its enclosure depicted erosion from rainwater, which, of course, would have had to occur well before the 2nd millennium BC, before North Africa became a desert. The results of their investigation led to the 1993 NBC special presentation entitled The Mystery of the Sphinx, narrated by Charlton Heston for which West was awarded an Emmy.

Although Schoch was confident he was going to “point out the error of his [West’s] ways,” [6] concerning the Sphinx, a detailed survey of its structure and features led him to believe there was more to the story than established history was willing to explain. According to Schoch there were four distinct types of weathering exhibited in the geologic area in and around the Sphinx. Rainwater, wind, flaking (from the efflorescing of dissolved and re-crystallized minerals), and dissolution (from the re-crystallization of calcite and other minerals in the rock).[7]

Precipitation induced weathering exists on the body of the Sphinx and in its enclosure where there is a rolling and undulating vertical profile to the weathered rock. According to Schoch, this erosional feature is prominent within the enclosure. Erosion from rainwater also tracks along joints and faults in the bedrock.[8] It is the oldest predominant type of weathering identified on the Giza Plateau. These observations, and the known mechanism that causes them, suggests the Sphinx was carved prior to the last great period of major precipitation in the Nile Valley, 12,000 to 5,000 years ago.

According to Dr. Schoch’s professional opinion as a geologist, the Sphinx and the Valley Temples were constructed in two stages. The core of the Sphinx Temple was constructed out of titanic limestone blocks, which was taken directly from the quarried area around the Sphinx. This requires that the Temple is as old as the Sphinx itself.[9] Egyptians later faced these cores with Aswan granite. Schoch believes “that the core blocks in both temples were exposed to the elements and underwent considerable weathering and erosion before the granite facings were installed.”[10]

He also postulates that in 2500 BC Khafre restored the Sphinx, its temples, and carved out its back from the enclosure wall. The base of the Sphinx’s rear, as the rest of its body, has been weathered and then repaired with limestone. Four feet of subsurface weathering has also been detected in the area from its rear to the enclosure wall. A New Kingdom restoration, a thousand years later, would be indicative of no subsurface weathering. Schoch also believes it may also be the case that Khafre widened an already existing passage between the Sphinx and the enclosure wall, thereby, uncovering the limestone floor. At that time, 2500 BC, the floor on the western end of the sculpture began to weather. Either way, with the weathering of the limestone floor, fifty to a hundred percent deeper on the front and sides, than at its rear, Schoch estimated that its initial carving (the front and the main portion of the body) may have been carried out between 7000 and 5000 BC. In other words, the core body is approximately fifty to one hundred percent older than 2500 BC. This is Shoch’s minimum date under the assumption that weathering rates are not constant. He also believes the possibility exists that the initial carving may have taken place prior to 7000 BC.[11]

Schoch announced his findings to the world’s leading Egyptologists in a special meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The results of his investigation did not fair well. Egyptologists required proof in any other way that a prehistoric civilization existed with the appropriate technology to carve such a large statue – an inscription, tomb, potshard, or anything. According to Egyptologists there is none. Nevertheless, Schoch is confident of his analysis and says that his opponents go to lengths to avoid using water erosion from rainfall as a cause for the Sphinx’s weathering.[12]

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt and Director of the Giza Pyramids Excavation refuses to consider the idea. He suggests any alternative explanation of the Sphinx’s carving should be ignored and that it is “not good to argue then the theory can die.” [13] Egyptologist and author of Riddles of the Sphinx, Paul Jordan, explains this position:

If you are going to make the Sphinx much older, as some people would like to do, like Dr. Schoch, well then, you have really done some violence to the whole view of Egyptian Civilization as we have painstakingly built it up. [14]

The heart of the matter, for the Egyptologist, is that an older Sphinx questions the conventional wisdom concerning when and how civilization developed in the Nile Valley. If true, it forces Egyptologists to rethink their traditional story as to exactly who the dynastic Egyptians were and where they came from, culturally as well as geographically. It seems they would prefer not to do that.

In a critique of Schoch’s research published in Archeology Magazine (September-October 1994), Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner reject Schoch’s claims and direct their attack toward the television documentary, The Mystery of the Sphinx, which, according to Schoch, “was never intended to take the place of the serious articles” he has published on the subject.[15] Hawass and Lehner’s argument for a younger Sphinx asserts that its present condition is representative of past weathering. They state, “Ancient and modern weathering on the Sphinx are, for the most part, the same ball game.”[16] They discuss the variations in limestone quality, layered in the rock, and claim that the flaking of the stone is the cause for the erosion, past and present. Schoch’s opinion is that this is superficial weathering, and is due to modern-day pollution, acid deposition, salt deposited by water tables from a nearby village, and the damming of the Nile.[17]

In 1999, Schoch published a book, Voices of the Rocks, to further elaborate the geological evidence and his theory on the age of the Sphinx. At first it appeared that Schoch was alone with his ideas, but during the late 1990s other geologists also looked into the matter. David Coxill and Colin Reader, independent British geologists, went to Egypt separately to study the Sphinx. They returned with similar results.

Although cautious about providing absolute dates to the structure, Coxill implies that the Sphinx is at least 5,000 years old and pre-dates dynastic times.[18] His opinion is that the Sphinx “is clearly older than the traditional date for the origin of the Sphinx — in the reign of Khafre, 2520-2490 BC.”[19] Colin Reader believes there is a distinctive increase in the intensity of weathering towards the west end of the Sphinx enclosure. To explain this he points to rainwater. It is the most likely mechanism – rainfall running off the higher plateau into the northwest corner of the Sphinx enclosure. Large quarries created during the time of Khafre, who supposedly built the Sphinx, would have prevented any significant water run-off from reaching the enclosure. Reader concluded his survey in much the same manner as Schoch and Coxill:

When considered in terms of the hydrology of the site, the distribution of degradation within the Sphinx enclosure indicates that the excavation of the Sphinx and the original construction of the Sphinx temple, pre-date Khufu’s early Fourth Dynasty development at Giza. The spatial relationships between “Khafre’s” causeway, the Sphinx and Khufu’s quarries provides additional evidence that the causeway and the Sphinx were constructed some time before Khufu’s quarrying began. The prominent location and close association of the Proto-mortuary temple with the causeway indicates that this structure may have also formed part of the early development of the site. [20]

Geologic evidence supports an old Sphinx, but there still exists a lack of evidence for the civilization that created it. With no one to carve it, West and Schoch’s observations remain a curious anomaly, but there is more mystery to this Egyptian story.

Ancient Contraband – Trick or Trade?

In Paris, France, 1976, the mummified remains of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramses the Great, visited the Museum of Mankind. Scholars from across Europe gathered there for a unique opportunity. The bandages wrapped around the mummy needed replacing, so botanists were given pieces of the fabric to analyze its content. Dr. Michele Lescott, from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, was fortunate enough to receive a small sample from the royal burial cloth for study. Upon close inspection she discovered what looked like specks clinging to the fibers of the fragment. Under a microscope, she was amazed to discover that the specks were from the tobacco plant. She tried several different views, but kept getting the same result. It was likely contamination by a pipe-toting worker she was advised. Tobacco wasn’t introduced to Egypt until modern times.

More than a century ago the king of Bavaria bought the ornate sarcophagus of Henut Taui, mummy included, to a museum in Munich, Germany. In 1992, researchers began a project to investigate the contents of the mummies at the museum. And for a chemical analysis they relied on Dr. Svetla Balabanova of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Ulm. From her tests she obtained very baffling results. The body of Henut Taui contained large quantities of cocaine and nicotine, which, during ancient times, were grown only in the Americas, and cocaine, only in the Bolivian Andes.

The first five positive results were shocking to her, so she sent samples to three other labs. They were also positive so she published a paper. The reaction was fierce, Balabanova says:

I got a pile of letters that were almost threatening, insulting letters saying it was nonsense, that I was fantasizing, that it was impossible, because it was proven that before Columbus these plants were not found anywhere in the world outside of the Americas.[21]

However, the tests Balabanova performed, on hair shafts, are a well-accepted method for determining drug use and have been for the last twenty-five years. There is no chance for contamination. Drugs and other substances consumed by humans get into the hair protein, where they stay for months, or after death. They can stay there forever. To be sure no external contamination is present, the hair sample is washed in alcohol and then the washing solution itself is tested. If the testing solution is clear, but the hair tests positive, then the drug must be inside the hair shaft, which means the person consumed it at some time during their lifetime. Toxicologists consider it proof against contamination before or after death. Balabanova stands by her methods and results:

There’s no way there can be a mistake in this test. This method is widely accepted and has been used thousands of times. If the results are not genuine, then the explanation must lie elsewhere, and not in my tests, because I’m one hundred percent certain about the results. [22]

So where does the explanation lie? The lotus flower, which contains powerful nicotine, was used, as inscriptions depict on the grand temple at Karnak. They show Egyptians dropping the lotus flower into a cup. Its contents, possibly wine, would react with the plant thereby releasing the nicotine. But there is a problem to this solution. The levels of nicotine found in the mummies were lethal. Balabanova believed that tobacco had to be used in the mummification process. High doses of nicotine are anti-bacterial and would help in the preservation process. Was this part of the well kept secret of mummification? Another explanation is that a species of tobacco existed that is now extinct. Botanists assure us, however, that if another ancient species of tobacco existed, they would have known about it.

Finding cocaine in these ancient remains is a completely different matter. According to Dr. Sandy Knapp, of the Natural History Museum in London, finding cocaine in Egyptian mummies is almost impossible.[23] Test were performed on the mummies to ensure they were authentic. They were. Balabanova says it is a mystery, but admits it is conceivable that the coca plant was imported into Egypt before Columbian times. It is the only alternative to explain the facts. Could there really be an ancient international drug trade with links extending all the way to the Americas? Egyptologists, such as Professor John Baines of Oxford University, believes it is ludicrous:

The idea that the Egyptians were traveling to America is, overall, absurd. I don't know of anyone who is professionally employed as an Egyptologist, anthropologist or archaeologist who seriously believes in any of these possibilities, and I also don't know anyone who spends time doing research into these areas because they're perceived to be areas with any real meaning for the subjects.[24]

Even though Professor Baines does not know of any, there are, such as Professor Alice Kehoe of Marquette University and Martin Bernal of Cornell University as well as Robert Schoch who set forth his theory in Voyages of the Pyramid Builders. Kehoe believes there is evidence of both transatlantic as well as transpacific contact between the eastern and western hemispheres, but admits some archeologists avoid discussing the issue. The sweet potato, she claims, proves it and there are sculptures of Eastern Indian goddesses holding an ear of corn. Peanuts, found in Western China, add more credence. Bernal agrees in theory and calls these voyages to the Americas “overwhelmingly likely.”[25]

These beliefs are backed, in part, by Roman jars found in 1975 in a Brazilian harbor called the Bay of Jars. Some scholars suggest that a sunken Roman galley could be the source, but interpretations are vigorously disputed. However, in Brazil there is also an inscription that appears to be that of an ancient Mediterranean language. And in Mexico, there are 3,000-year-old figurines with beards, a feature unknown in Native Americans plus colossal statues that are said to look African, items pointed out so publicly by the best selling author Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods.

The problem that faces those who espouse such theories of transoceanic travel is the lack of artifacts to back it. Physical evidence, in Africa or America, is hard to come by. It may be that the Egyptians were not a seafaring people, but it could be the case that others were. The question then becomes, who were they? Opinions are divided. Some fully believe that exploring peoples crossed the continents separated by the oceans. Others believe the idea is absurd. However, science has a history of labeling theories as absurd only to find out, one day, that they are true.

Augustus Le Plongeon’s Legacy of Mayan Voyages

Today’s scientists are not the first scholars to believe ancient cultures crossed the oceans. Augustus Le Plongeon did over a hundred years ago. His story is as fascinating as it is shocking.

During the twilight years of his career Augustus Henry Julius Le Plongeon (1826-1908) was labeled “absurd” by the scientific community of his day. Not for the difficult and sometimes dangerous fieldwork he performed, but for the conclusions and theories he set forth from the data he collected. Despite the stamp, Le Plongeon was a brilliant man whose career moved from gold mining to photography, to medicine, and archeology. He spoke French, English, Spanish, and Yucatec Mayan, which he learned by living and working in the Yucatan for twelve years at Mayan ruins. He and his wife, Alice, never gave up on their convictions. Amidst vigorous opposition, they died promoting their work and their thoeries.

Arriving in the Yucatan

The Le Plongeons arrived in the Yucatan peninsula in 1873, a land that was divided between the Mexican government and Mayan rebels. There, they planned to document the Mayan ruins by the new photographic method Augustus had helped to perfect – the wet collodion glass-plate negative process. With him came years of experience in surveying and photography, recently in Peru, and a hunch he planned to test by systematic observation. It was his untested belief that a culture from South America was the founders of the civilized world, a speculation that he first postulated while surveying the ancient ruins at Tiahuanaco. The facts they were going to uncover would either prove or disprove his hypothesis. He wanted to judge for himself rather than rely on the theories by other scholars.[26]

A week after they arrived in Merida, Yucatan’s capital, Alice was struck with yellow fever. After her recovery, they moved from their hotel to better accommodations and began investigating the local area. They studied nearby ruins, noting architectural features, inscriptions and carvings, which could point the way to further research. They also spent considerable time learning to speak Yucatec Maya and searching the Merida historical archives. Le Plongeon viewed understanding the Mayan language, and the ability to communicate with the living Mayans, as an important step to interpreting the past.

The Le Plongeons first visited the ancient city of Uxmal during the l873-74 dry season, one of the more accessible and larger ruins in the Yucatan. Controlled by the Mexican government, it was beyond the reach of Maya rebels. It was also an opportunity to attend a number of festivals and to observe customs of the people. As a result of their increasing involvement with the natives, it was their conviction that the Yucatan people were the direct descendants of the ancient Maya who had built the once-magnificent cities and temples. Uxmal provided some evidence in support his theory, but the primary proof would have to come from Chichen Itza, just as large and equally important. However, it lay in land controlled by Mayan rebels. Getting their proved to be an adventure in itself.

Upon arrival in Chichen Itza, his first goal was to find the Akab Dzib (the house of dark writing) in order to examine the hieroglyphic text Mariano Chable, a very old Mayan from Merida, had described. The old man said it contained an inscription that was a prophecy, and that one-day the inhabitants of Saci (Valladolid) would converse with those of Ho (Merida) by means of a cord that would be stretched by people foreign to the country. He discovered the building overgrown by brush and behind a rotunda styled observatory, known as the Caracol. The glyphs he sought were found on a stone lintel atop a door in an interior room, the portrait of a Mayan priest or ruler beneath it. As soon as it was cleared he began deciphering. According to Le Plongeon, some of the glyphs did represent lightening or electricity. It also included a reference to the cord the old man spoke of. The find was so important that he set up his photographic equipment and embarked on a thorough documentation.

Le Plongeon wrote of his discovery to the President of Mexico, and the American Antiquarian Society noting that the text was “said to be a prophecy.” The American Antiquarian Society published it in 1877 and from thereafter those who opposed his views claimed that he believed the Maya used the telegraph for communications. It was the beginning of the end of his formerly reputable career.

Excavating the Story of Queen Moo

In Chichen Itza, from the Upper Temple of the Jaguars, the Le Plongeons copied the remnants of murals depicting scenes of village life, religious events, warfare, and rulers. After studying the scenes, Augustus concluded that they told the story of a single generation of Maya rulers and that it offered the answer to the question of Mayan diffusion. For Le Plongeon, it was evidence of history, as opposed to myth, as well as the origin of other civilizations and their mythology.

Animal representations on these murals were symbols of their totems or spirits. He identified the eagle as a macaw, the symbol of a Maya princess. Her name became “Queen Moo” from the Maya word for “macaw.” “Prince Chaacmol” was her brother and referred to as a “powerful warrior,” because of his jaguar totem. His spotted shield appeared in the mural and other carvings about the temple.

Using these murals, Augustus selected the spot where he believed an important statue lay buried. Whether it was because of a correct interpretation of the murals or sheer luck, the spot where he chose to dig did, in fact, hold the statue of Prince Chaacmol. According to Le Plongeon, it was the same character as the warrior image depicted on the temple walls:

In tracing the figure of Chaacmol in battle, I remarked that the shield worn by him had painted on it round green spots, and was exactly like the ornaments placed between tiger and tiger on the entablature of the same monument. I naturally concluded that the monument had been raised to the memory of the warrior bearing the shield. [27]
— Augustus Le Plongeon

He immediately sent word of his discovery, north, to his colleagues. The Stateside editor of Le Plongeon’s field reports, Stephen Salisbury, changed the spelling of the “Chaacmol” to “Chacmool,” a Maya word for puma. Unknown to Salisbury, Le Plongeon had specifically used chaac andmol, the Mayan words for “powerful warrior.” However, “Chacmool” became the accepted spelling, although Le Plongeon re-asserted his authority and later changed the name in his own writings to “Coh,” a more common Maya word with the same meaning.

The Chaacmol

Deep in the mound, where Le Plongeon ordered to dig, they found a large stone sculpture of a reclining jaguar with the same round dots inscribed on the murals of the Temple walls. Le Plongeon identified it as the Maya Prince, Chaacmol, the youngest brother and consort of Queen Moo. Along with the statute they also uncovered a number of artifacts. Eighteen flint projectile points were found at the base of the statue. Seven were chipped from green stone; two were flat ceramic plates. There was also ceramic pot. Le Plongeon had a jade tube mounted in a gold brooch as a gift for his wife, which symbolized her spiritual connection with the ancient queen of the Maya. It became Alice’s talisman.

On the chest of the figure was a bowl containing a broken flint blade, a jade bead, and organic remains Le Plongeon believed to be the cremated remains of Prince Chaacmol’s heart. Le Plongeon verified that the material through Dr. Charles Thompson, a Professor of Chemistry at the Worcester Free Institute. Thompson’s analysis declared that it “once part of a human body which has been burned with some fuel.”[28]

With this discovery, Augustus believed that he had correctly deciphered the murals. It gave him the interpretative poise to further construct Mayan history.

In light of their findings, they returned to Uxmal to inspect figures carved there and obtain a broader view of Mayan iconography. The brief visit was long enough to convince Augustus and Alice that Queen Moo and other Maya figures were historic, since they were at both sites, Chichen Itza and Uxmal. They believed Queen Moo’s profile was included in the facade of the Governor’ Palace, although the image was unclear and not visible from all angles. Nevertheless, according to Le Plongeon’s Maya history, it was carved under the direction of Queen Moo’s other brother, Prince Aac.

In documenting their work at Uxmal, he photographed the facade and highlighted some of the details to help clarify Queen Moo’s profile. It fostered another charge from his antagonists, one of great damage. The accusation was that he was intentionally falsifying his pictures in order to promote his theory of Mayan cultural diffusion.

Prince Cay

During the final field season at Uxmal they discovered an inscription Le Plongeon believed to be a reference to Chaacmol’s elder brother, Prince Cay (Mayan for fish). With a hunch that the effigy of Prince Cay may be hidden in a lower section of the Adivino Pyramid, he tunneled into a wall. There he found the splendid sculpture of a royal man, head adorned with a fish, his totem.

Excited about his find, he showed two Americans from Merida the sculpture of Prince Cay and asked then to keep it under raps. They did not and leaked it to a Merida newspaper. Hearing the news, a nearby plantation administrator embarked on a mission to discover where Le Plongeon found the sculpture, not only for its historic value, but also for the limestone blocks that would naturally be part of the site. He wanted them for their resale value. To prevent this, Le Plongeon devised a plan that would frighten him and any other scavengers considering a raid. He published a false notice in the Eco de Comercio explaining that he had rigged the site with dynamite for demolition. Although the structures were never really rigged to explode, it brought Le Plongeon harsh criticism. His already tainted reputation, in the eyes of American scholars and archeologists, grew worse.

In 1883, the Le Plongeons returned to Chichen Itza to record the murals in the Upper Temple of the Jaguars (referred to as the Memorial Hall) and excavate what they hoped was the mausoleum of the Prince Cay. On the exposed portion of the Venus Platform was the carving of a fish. This, of course, led Le Plongeon to believe it was his tomb. The similarity of the mound adjacent to the Venus Platform, with the one next to the Platform of the Eagles (where he found the Chacmool) suggested it was a good place to start digging. They planned to be meticulous in recording this excavation so that their work, and thereby interpretation, would allow no room for criticism.

Work began with a trench in the northwest corner of the platform where a few facing stones remained. Core stones, now rubble with a little mortar still between them, were soon found. After eight days, workmen finally uncovered a sculpture four feet north of the platform at ground level. Alice reported its results in Scientific American:

The figure was thickly coated with loose mortar. One leg was broken off below the knee, but we found it under the figure, and afterward adjusted it in place to make a picture. [29]
— Augustus Le Plongeon

The statue rested on small conidial pillars placed on their sides. It was part of a design that comprised 182 cones covering twenty-four square feet. Two-thirds were painted blue, the other third red. All were varying in height from three to four feet. Twelve serpent heads, oriented in various directions, were on a level with the pillars. Their decorations and colors had survived undisturbed, although they had been broken before their burial:

“From the top of each head rises a kind of plume or perhaps flame, and on each side of the front of the head perpendicular ornaments like horns.” The heads were painted green and had feathers incised on the upper part. Their undersides were covered with serpent scales. The edges of the jaws were also yellow, while the forked tongue and the gums were red. The teeth were white. Around the eyes and “over the brow” was blue and the eyes were filled with a white “shell.” The horns or nose plugs projecting from the snout were green, and tipped in red as was the “feather” on the top.[30] Also found in the area of the stone cones was an urn set into the floor that contained a flat trapezoidal object, two half beads of jadeite, a jade tube, a small spherical crystal ball, and the remains of a mosaic.

Digging continued through three earlier floor levels, where they uncovered more artifacts, including an obsidian projectile point, shards of pottery, and the bones of a small animal. After reaching the final floor, found at bedrock and painted red, Le Plongeon directed work toward the southwest. There they uncovered several flat stones, carved in low relief. Further to the south they discovered another stone with a fish engraved on it, enclosed by the folds of a serpent’s body. At that point Le Plongeon was convinced that they had found the burial chamber of Prince Cay. All he needed to do was publish his work and his theories.

Developing Mayan History — Le Plongeon Style

Using murals, sculptures, and engravings from Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Augustus recreated and narrated a history of several key Maya rulers and their link to other cultures. The story, according to Le Plongeon, occurred 11,500 years ago. It appeared fully developed in his book Sacred Mysteries Among the Maya and Quiches and told of the love between Queen Moo and Prince Coh, and of his death by the hand of his jealous brother Aac. According to his interpretation, during a period of civil unrest after the death of Prince Coh, Queen Moo was forced to flee to Egypt and, on her arrival, was recognized as a long-lost sister. The story was substantiated, Le Plongeon felt, not only by the by the wealth of artifacts recovered during excavation, but also by, what he interpreted, as the cremated remains of Prince Coh’s heart. It was the story, Le Plongeon tells us, that was graphically illustrated on the walls of the Upper Temple of the Jaguars and in the story of the Troano Manuscript.

However, some believe he had other motives for developing the connection between Egypt and Maya. He wanted to find the origin of Freemasonry, which some wanted to trace to Egypt. As a mason himself, he was familiar with their symbolism and believed he had discovered ample evidence of it at Uxmal. Le Plongeon decided that the Maya were direct antecedents of the founders of Masonry, which infers that its origins were more ancient than if it had begun in Egypt.

The skull and crossbones carved on the Adivino Pyramid, and a sculptured torso with an inverted hand on an apron, both Masonic symbols, were convincing. He showed the torso to two friends in Merida, but it later disappeared without a trace. Without this piece of evidence to support the Freemasonry connection, a more cautious person might have dropped that line of reasoning, knowing it would be controversial. But Augustus persisted and even used certain architectural features, including the Maya corbelled arches, as further evidenced of the connection. It was another strike against him.

Developing the Mayan Alphabet

In November of 1880 the Le Plongeons returned to the Yucatan to continue their research. This time they visited Mayapan, the ancient capital, in search of the key to deciphering the Maya hieroglyphics. It was a reaction to scholars who apparently dismissed the existence of a Maya alphabet. This alleged alphabet was recorded in the sixteenth century after the Spanish Conquest and was believed to be an invention of the Bishop of Yucatan, Diego de Landa. Le Plongeon hoped to prove the alphabet authentic. By studying the ancient monuments, and through his detailed knowledge of Maya life and language, he would be able to reconstruct it. With his experience and knowledge of the Mayan language and culture, could there be anyone better suited for the job? Le Plongeon thought not:

My knowledge of them must, of necessity, be greater than that of gentlemen, who write from behind their desks, ignorant of the true facts.[31]
— Augustus Le Plongeon

Le Plongeon arranged Maya phonetics into an alphabet and linked it not only with Egypt, but also Greece and Akkad (ancient Mesopotamia). According to Le Plongeon, many of the key syllables of these languages had identical or near identical meaning. For example, the Maya character Ma, , is composed of two different symbols, and . The symbol represents an outline of their country, the Yucatan Peninsula. The two imix symbols, , represent the bodies of water on each side of the peninsula — the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. This imix represents a woman’s breast, with nipples and areola, meaning bosom. But bosom can mean more than a woman’s breast. It is also an enclosed place, such as “the bosom of the deep.” Thus, Le Plongeon believed the symbol for Ma, the angled chimney between two imix, signified their “earth” or “place” – an area of land between two bodies of water. Akkadians used this same syllable, Ma, to express the idea of physical locality.[32]

The Egyptians also had a similar symbol for their letter M, , which also means place or site. The Greek word (place or site) of the Greek text inscribed on the Rosetta Stone is expressed in the hieroglyphic part of the of the tablet by an owl for M, and the extended arm for the A, which gives the Coptic word (ma), ‘site,’ ‘place.’ Le Plongeon comments that:

No one has ever told us why the learned hierogrammatists of Egypt gave to the sign the value of ma. No one can; because nobody knows the origin of the Egyptians, of their civilization, nor their country where it grew from infancy to maturity.[33]

Le Plongeon offers other coincidences such as the name for water. In Maya it is “ha,” in Egyptian and Chaldean “a.”[34] The Egyptians called their land the “place of the crocodiles,” since it was, naturally, swarming with crocodiles. Ain was the word they used on monuments and in the hieroglyphs. It depicted the tail of the animal that it stood for. It is also the Maya word for crocodile. Its tail serves as rudder to the animal so it symbolized a boat as well as a crocodile.[35]

Egypt has always been a relatively treeless land. During the inundations trees were uprooted, carried away by the waters, and deposited all over the land. The farmer, in order to plough the soil, had to clear the land of rubbish. Assyrians gave the names Misur and Muzur, to this land. Coincidentally, miz, in Maya language, means “to clear away rubbish of trees,” and “muuzul” to uproot trees.”[36]

According to the scholars of his day, the Greek word thalassa, for “sea,” is of unknown origin. Had Greek scholars been acquainted with the Maya language, Le Plongeon believes, they would have easily found it in the word thallac, which means a “thing unstable.” The Greek verb tarassoor thrasso means, “to agitate.”[37]

In 403 BC, during the archonship of Euclid, Greek grammarians arranged the Athenian alphabet to its present form. For the names of their letters they adopted words formed by the combination of the various sounds composing each line of Le Plongeon’s Mayan epic. In this most interesting philological and historical fact, as Le Plongeon refers to it, he found the reason why certain letters having the same value were placed apart, instead of juxtaposed, as they naturally should be. What else would have provoked Euclid and his collaborators to separate the Epsilon from the Eta, the Theta from the Tau, to place the Omikron in the middle, and the Omega at the end of the alphabet?[38]

In August 1882, Le Plongeon published in the Revista de Merida, a daily paper of Merida, a Spanish translation of the Maya epic formed by the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet. He invited Maya scholars to review and correct it, in case any word had been used incorrectly. He was also eager to present his discovery to the scientific world. No corrections were offered, although at the time it attracted the attention of students in a country where Spanish and Maya were the vernacular of the people.

According to Le Plongeon the following translation may be regarded as absolutely correct, being an English rendering of that published in Spanish at Merida.[39]

Greek Alphabet	Maya Vocabulary	(with their English Meaning)
ALPHA	Al	(heavy) paa (break) ha (water)
BETA	Be	(walk) ta (place)
GAMMA	Kam	(receive) ma (earth)
DELTA	Tel	(depth; bottom) ta (where)
EPSILON	Ep	(obstruct) zil (make edges) on-om (whirlpool; to whirl)
ZETA	Ze	(strike) ta (place; ground)
ETA	Et	(with) ha (water)
THETA	Thetheah	(extend) ha (water)
IOTA	Io	(All that lives and moves) ta (earth)
KAPPA	Ka	(sediment) paa (break; open)
LAMBDA	Lam	(submerge) be (go; walk) ta (where; place)
Mu	Mu	(Mu)
Ni	Ni	(point; summit)
Xi	Xi	(rise over; appear over)
OMIKRON	Om	(whirlpool; whirl) ik (wind) le (place) on (circular)
Pi	Pi	(to place by little and little)
RHO	La	(until) ho (come)
SIGMA	Zi	(cold) ik (wind) ma (before)
TAU	Ta	(where) u (basin; valley)
UPSILON	U	(abyss) pa (tank) zi (cold; frozen) le (place) on (circular)
PHI	Pe	(come; form) hi (clay)
CHI	Chi	(mouth; aperture)
PSI	Pe	(come out) zi (vapor)
OMEGA	O	(there) mee (whirl) ka (sediments)

Le Plongeon’s language coincidences did not end there and extended into ancient cosmology. According to Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea during the second century, in the Chaldean legend of the creation, at the beginning of time a woman ruled over all the monstrous beasts that inhabited the waters. Her name was Thalaatth. The Greeks translated it Thalassa, and applied it to the sea itself. Modern philologists believe that the etymology of that word has been lost. Le Plongeon, again, finds the answer is in the Maya language. Thallac denotes “a thing without steadiness,” like the sea.[40] He adds that the names Tiamat and Bel-Marduk add corroborating evidence to confirm this historical truth, since no language except Maya offers such a natural etymon and simple explanation of their meaning. Tiamat, “the depths,” is a Maya word composed of the four primitives,ti, ha, ma, ti (that is, ti, “there;” ha, “water;” ma, “without;” ti, “land”), Tihamati; by elision, Tihamat, or be it Tiamat, “everywhere water, no where land,” the “deep.”[41]

The same evidence turns up in Hebrew studies. In an article published by Century Magazine, January 1894, Morris Jastrow, Jr. explains that the word tehom occurs both in the cuneiform tablets and in Genesis with the meaning of the “deep,” which is precisely its import in the Maya language – te or ti means “where;” and hom, “abyss without bottom.” [42]

Maya Migrations

With this linguistic evidence, Le Plongeon mapped out the prehistoric migrations of the earliest Mayans. They journeyed from their homes in the “Lands of the West” across the Pacific, along the shores of the Indian Ocean to the head of the Persian Gulf, then up the Euphrates – on the banks of which they formed settlements. He does not claim that they were the sole force that built cities and societies. Local populations obviously played a role as did the mixing of cultural ideas and traditions, but it was the Maya explorers that provided the impetus to civil growth. Sumerian cosmology goes as far to support such an idea in the myth of the Seven Sages where fish-like creatures, under the command of Enki (Akkadian Ea), arrived from the sea, full of wisdom, to serve as councilors for the kings. They were responsible for the invention and the building of the cities.[43]

Some of these Maya-speaking peoples, following the explorative and migratory instincts inherited from their ancestors, left the Mesopotamia Plain, and made their way across Syria (now a desert), toward the setting sun, in search of new lands. They reached the Isthmus of Suez and continued until they entered the fertile valley of the Nile. Following the banks of the river, they selected an area of Nubia, where they settled and named it Maiu, in remembrance of their cultural birthplace in western lands. There they established their worship and ways in a new country.[44]

Maya History or Le Plongeon Heresy

According to their history and legend, during prehistoric times, the Maya entered the Yucatan from the west led by Itzamná, their earliest mentioned leader and hero. Along a pathway mysteriously opened through the waters, they came from the Far East, beyond the ocean. A second migration occurred sometime later, during the second century AD, led by Kukulcan, a miraculous priest and teacher, who became the founder of the Maya kingdom and civilization.[45]

During the fifth century AD, invaders from the south, the Nahualts, destroyed the principal Mayan cities including the carvings of heroes, rulers, and celebrated women that adorned the public buildings. Philosophers and priests carefully hid the books containing the record of the ancient traditions and history, texts that reach back to the settlement of the peninsula by their ancestors. According to Le Plongeon, these books have remained hidden to this day.[46]

The Itzaes, who preferred isolation to submission, abandoned their homes and colleges, preferring to wander in the desert.[47] The arts and sciences soon declined, as did their civilization. Political strife and religious dissension led to civil war. Before long, the kingdom was disassembled and the capital, Mayapan, destroyed. During this horrific time, the old traditions and lore were forgotten. Mixed with the traditions, superstitions, and fables of the Nahuatls, they assumed the form of myths. The great men and women of the primitive ages were transformed into gods of the elements and of the phenomena of nature. With their ancient libraries gone, new books had to be written to contain those myths, of which the Troano and Dresden manuscripts seem to belong.

With the disappearance of the old priesthood, went the knowledge of their sacred mode of writing. The legends graven on the facades of temples and palaces, written in those characters, were no longer understood, except perhaps by a few, who were sworn to secrecy. The names of the builders, their history, the phenomena of nature they witnessed, were as much a mystery to these people, as they have been to others up to the present day.

Land of the Scorpion

Of special interest to Le Plongeon was a story contained in the Troano Manuscript that told of a dreadful cataclysm. According to his research, four different authors left descriptions of this same event in the Maya language. Besides the Troano, there was the Codex Cortesianus, an engraving in the Temple of the Jaguars in Chichen Itza, and the fourth was in Athens in the form of an epic poem.

In February 1882, the discovery of a partial mural, painted on an edifice at Kabah, enticed Le Plongeon to devote many months to the study of the old Maya text. Several pages at the beginning of the second part were dedicated to the recital of the “awful phenomena” that occurred during the cataclysm that submerged ten countries. Among them was the large island call the “land of Mu,” situated among the strangely crooked line of islands historically known as the West Indies. To the Maya it was the “land of the Scorpion.” Le Plongeon was astonished and gratified to find a written account of the events during the lives of the characters he found in the ruins. Their history, described in the mural paintings, was also told in the legends and sculptures still adorning the walls of their palaces and temples. He was also pleased to learn that these ancient celebrities had already been converted, at the time of the Troano Manuscript, into the god of the elements. To the new Mayas, they became the agents who produced the terrible earthquakes that violently shook the “Lands of the West,” as told in the narrative of the Akab-cib, and laid them to rest beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.[48]

Queen Moo’s Voyage

With the deciphering of the Troano Manuscript, the story of Queen Moo continued. Sailing out from the Yucatan, she sought refuge in the Land of the Scorpion, but discovered that Mu, the heart of the land, had vanished. With no alternatives, she continued her voyage eastward, and succeeded in reaching Egypt. Le Plongeon substantiates this by inferring that she is mentioned on Egyptian monuments and in papyri, always referred to as Queen Mau (Moo). To the Egyptians, she is better known as the goddess Isis, wearing vestments of various colors that imitate feather work,[49] similar to the plumage of the macaw, after which she was named in Mayach. According to Le Plongeon, Isis was a term of endearment applied to her by followers and new subjects, a corruption or possibly a dialectical pronunciation of the Maya word icin (pronounced idzin), which means “little sister.”

Before leaving Mayach, Queen Moo ordered the erection of a memorial hall, the Temple of the Jaguars, which was dedicated to the memory of Prince Coh. She had the principal events of their life painted in bright colors on the walls of the funeral chamber. Not satisfied with this, she also raised over his remains a mausoleum equivalent to the marble splendor of modern structures of similar purpose.

All four sides of the monument were decorated with sculptured panels in mezzo-relievo. One frieze represents a dying warrior on his back, his knees drawn up, the soles of his feet firmly planted on the ground. His head, thrown backward, is covered with a helmet. From his parted lips the breath of life escapes in the shape of a slender flame. His posture is the same as that given by the Mayas, during those times, to all the statues of their great persons, a position that represented the contour of the Maya Empire as nearly as the human body could be made to assume it.

The upper part of the body, instead of being erect, is pictured lying down, and with his head thrown back, is emblematic of the nation’s chief being dead. In his right hand, which is placed upon his breast, he holds a broken scepter composed of three spears, the weapons that inflicted his mortal wounds. One wound was under the left shoulder blade, aimed at the heart from behind, depicting that the victim was treacherously murdered. Two others were in the lower back. His left arm is placed across his breast with the left hand resting on the right shoulder, as a token of respect among the living. Le Plongeon interjects that this signifies an attitude of humility in which the souls of the departed must appear before the judgment seat of Yum-cimil, the “god of death.” Le Plongeon asks if this same custom displayed in Egyptian inscriptions and papyri where the souls, when standing before the throne of Osiris in Amenti, are waiting to receive their sentence. He believes it is very probable.

“The Egyptians,” says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, “Placed the arms of the mummies extended along the side, the palms inward and resting on their thighs, or brought forward over the groin, sometimes even across the breast; and occasionally one arm in the former, the other in the latter position.”[51] Champollion Figeac, speaking on the same subject, says that the upper end of the scepter is ornamented with an open dipetalous flower, with a half-opened bud in the center of the corol.[52] Significant to the fact that the dead warrior was killed in the flower of life, before reaching maturity. The lower portion of the scepter is carved to represent a leopard’s paw and intended for the name of the dead hero, Coh, or Chaacmol, “leopard.”

The etymon of the last word is Chaac, “thunder,” “tempest,” hence, “irresistible power;” and mol, “the paw of any carnivorous animal.” The leopard being the largest and fiercest of the beast of prey inhabiting the forests of Yucatan and Central America the Mayas, who, as we have said, named all things by ono matopoeia, called their most famous warrior Chaacmol; that is, “the paw swift like thunder,” “the paw with irresistible power like the tempest.”[53]

On the panels adorning the architrave were carved two figures. One was a leopard and the other a macaw in the act of licking (or eating) hearts. According to Le Plongeon, the first is the totem of the warrior to whose memory the mausoleum was erected. The other is that of his wife, Queen Moo, being portrayed in the act of licking the hearts of her enemies defeated in battle, so to inherit their valor.

At the foot of the balustrades, large serpent heads with open mouths and protruding tongues, adorn the staircase leading to the top of the mausoleum. These serpent heads, totems of the Cans (the ruling Mayan family), were used in all edifices erected by them, to announce that they were built by their order. The tongue protruding from the mouth was the symbol of wisdom among the Mayas and was often used in the portraits of priests and kings that were endowed with great wisdom.

The Mayan Sphinx

A very interesting statue crowned Prince Coh’s mausoleum, a dying leopard with a human head. To Le Plongeon it was a “veritable sphinx,” and possibly the prototype of the mysterious Egyptian Sphinx. This Mayan sphinx, like the leopard in the sculptures, had three deep holes in its back, symbolic of the wounds inflicted by his brother Aac.

This brave Maya warrior, whose enemies could not kill in a fair fight, was treacherously slain by his cowardly brother just as Osiris in Egypt was murdered by his brother Set, and for the same motive, jealousy. In Egyptian history, Osiris comes to us as a myth. However, according to Le Plongeon, Prince Coh, the beloved Ozil, was a tangible reality – the remains of his charred heart found, as well as the weapons that caused his death.

Since its discovery, the Egyptian Sphinx has been a riddle of culture and antiquity that has remained unsolved to our day. It is still, as Bunsen says, “the enigma of history.”[54] The name most conspicuous on the Stella, in the temple between the paws of this statue, is that of Armais.” According to Osburn, it was the work of King Khafra; but he is still in doubt, for he adds:

“On the other hand, the great enigma of the bearded giant Sphinx still remains unsolved. When and by whom was the colossal statue erected, and what was its signification? … We are accustomed to regard the Sphinx in Egypt as a portrait of the king, and generally, indeed, as that of a particular king whose features it is said to represent.”[55]

In the hieroglyphic written character the sphinx is called Neb, “the lord.”[56] Richard Lepsius remarks that:

King Khafra was named in the inscription, but it does not seem reasonable thence to conclude that Khafra first caused the lion to be executed, as another inscription teaches us King Khafra had already seen the monster, or, in other words, says that before him the statue already existed, the work of another Pharaoh. The names of Thotmes IV, of Rameses II, as well as that of Khafra, are inscribed on the base. [57]

Plinius, the first author to ever mention the Sphinx refers to it as the Tomb of Amasis.[58] Its age is unknown. De Rouge, in his Six Premiere Dynasties, supposes it to be as old as the fourth dynasty; but it is probably of equal age, if not older than the pyramids. As to its significance, Clement of Alexandria simply tells us that it was the emblem of the “union of force with prudence or wisdom;”[59] that is, of physical and intellectual power supposed attributes of Egyptian kings.

Le Plongeon points out certain analogies that exist between the Egyptian Sphinx and the leopard with the human head that crouched atop Prince Coh’s mausoleum. In order to better understand these analogies, it is necessary to consider not only the meaning of the names of the Sphinx, but also its position relative to the horizon and to the edifices that surround it.

The Egyptian Sphinx faces east and is in front of the second pyramid, overlooking the Nile. It represents a resting or crouching lion (possibly a leopard) with a human head. Piazzi Smyth tells us “about the head and face, though nowhere else, there is much the original statuary surface still, occasionally, painted dull red.”[60]

The mausoleum of Prince Coh, at Chichen Itza, stands in front and to the east of the Memorial Hall. The statue on the top was that of a leopard with human head. The color of the Mayas was red brown, judging from the fresco paintings in the funeral chamber, and, according to Landa, even during the time of the Spanish Conquest the natives were in the habit of covering their face and body with red pigment.[61]

Concerning the Egyptian Sphinx, Henry Brugsch writes that:

To the north of this huge form lay the temple of the goddess Isis; another, dedicated to the god Osiris, had its place on the southern side; a third temple was dedicated to the Sphinx. The inscription on the stone speaks as follows of these temples: He, the living Hor, king of the upper and lower country, Khufu, he, the dispenser of life, founded a temple to the goddess Isis, the queen of the pyramid; beside the god’s house of the Sphinx, northwest from the god’s house and the town of Osiris, the lord of the place of the dead.[62]

The Sphinx, placed between temples dedicated to Isis and to Osiris by their son Hor, seems to indicate that the person represented by it was closely allied to both these deities. Another inscription shows that it was especially consecrated to the god Ra-Atum, or the “Sun in the West” thereby connecting it with the “lands toward the setting sun,” with “the place of the dead,” and with the country of their ancestor’s origin. There, they believed they returned after death and appeared in the presence of Osiris who was seated on his throne in the midst of the waters. He would then judge them for their actions while they were on earth.

Samuel Birch, noting the work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, says, “that the Sphinx was called Ha orAkar.”[63] In the Maya language these words mean “water,” and “pond” or “swamp.” In these names, Le Plongeon suggests, there is a hint that the king represented by the Sphinx dwelt in countries surrounded by water:

Its position, again, with the head turned toward the east, its back to the west, may not be without significance. Might it not mean that the people who sculptured it traveled from the West toward the East? From the Western Continent where Isis was queen, when she abandoned the land of her birth and sailed forth, with her followers, in search of a new home? May not that lion or leopard with a human head be the totem of some famous personage in the mother country, closely related to Queen Moo, highly venerated by her and her people, whose memory she wished to perpetuate in the land of her adoption and among coming generations?[64]

Le Plongeon asks, was the Sphinx the totem of Prince Coh? In Mayach, on the entablature of the Memorial Hall, and in the sculptures that adorned his mausoleum at Chichen, he was represented as a leopard. In Egypt, Osiris as king of the Amenti (king of the West) was likewise portrayed as a leopard. His priests always wore a leopard skin over their ceremonial dress, and a leopard skin always hung near his images or statues.[65]

In seeking to explain the meaning of the names inscribed at the base of the Sphinx, Le Plongeon make uses of the Maya language, and its phonetic coincidences with ancient Egypt. He cites Henry Brugsch’s History of Egypt: The Sphinx is called in the text Hu, a word which designates the man-headed lion, while the real name of the god represented by the Sphinx was Hor-makhu, that is to say, “Horus on the horizon.” It was also called Khepra, Horus in his resting place on the horizon where the sun goes to rest.[66]

Herodotus tells us that Horus was the last of the gods who governed Egypt before the reign of Menes, the first of their terrestrial kings.[67] He came into the world soon after the death of his father, being the youngest son of Isis and Osiris. He stood forth as his avenger, combating Set and defending his mother against him.

According to the Maya language Hormakhu is a word composed of three primitives — Hool-ma-ku: that is, hool, “head,” or “leader;” ma, “country,” or ma, radical of Mayach, that becomes syncopated by losing the inflection yach forming the compound name; and ku, “god.” Hormakhu would then mean “the God chief in Mayach.” It is noteworthy to add that Maya inscriptions and other writings, as generally were Egyptian writings, were read from right to left. Le Plongeon asserts that Ma stands for Mayach in this instance since the sign , which is the shape of the peninsula of Yucatan, forms part of the Egyptian hieroglyph resenting the name of the Sphinx.[68]

He deduces that, if this was not intentional the hierogrammatists would have made use of some other of the various signs to represent the Latin letter M. Le Plongeon reminds us of the fact that hieroglyphic writings were mostly pictorial. He further states that the Egyptian sign, , the “sun resting on the western horizon,” makes it evident that the hieroglyph, , was intended to represent a country, with a similar geography contour, situated in the regions to the west. The Mayas made use of the same sign to designate regions situated toward the setting sun. (The sign forms part of the word Alau in the Troano Manuscript, in part 1 plate 2 and 3. [69] In Maya, Khepra would read Keb-la — Keb means, “incline,” la is the eternal “truth,” the god, in other words the sun. So Kebia or Khepra is the sun inclined on the horizon. As for the name Hu, used in the texts to designate the Sphinx, it may be a contraction of the Maya hul, which means “arrow,” “spear.”

As symbols of their attributes, the Greeks often placed offensive weapons in the hands of their gods. So did the Egyptians. They representedNeith, Sati, or Khem holding a bow and arrows. They gave Horus a spear, hul, with which he slew Set, his father’s murderer. Sometimes he was represented standing in a boat, piercing the head of Set who was swimming in the water.[70] Was this to indicate that the tragedy took place in a country surrounded by water, reached only by means of boats? They also depicted Horus on land, stabbing the head of a serpent with a spear. Le Plongeon asks rhetorically, was the serpent in Egypt one of the totems of Set, Osiris's murderer, as it was in Mayach of Aac, Prince Coh’s slayer? He answers ‘yes.’

At the celebration of Osiris’s feast, worshippers were accustomed to throwing a rope into their assembly and hacking it to pieces as if they were avenging the death of their god. The rope represented the serpent, the emblem of his murderer. Le Plongeon asks again, was this reminiscent of the tragedy that occurred in the mother country, where one member of the Can (serpent) family slew his brother?

From the portraits of his children, carved on the doorway of Prince Coh’s funeral chamber, we know that his youngest son was named Hul. His totem was a spearhead, carved above his head. Are not Hul, Hu, Hor, and Hol cognate words, Le Plongeon asks?

In Sacred Mysteries Among the Maya and Quiches Le Plongeon endeavors to show, from the identity of their history, and from that of their names and totems the Egyptians worshiped Seb, Nut, and their children (Osiris, Set, Aroeris, Isis, and Nike) as gods. They were the same personages as the Royal Maya family: King Canchi, his wife, Zoc, and their five children Cay, Aac, Coh, Moo and Nike.

Not finding the land of Mu, Queen Moo went to Egypt where she became the goddess Isis, and was worshipped throughout the land. She knew that, centuries before, Maya colonists, coming from India and from the banks of the Euphrates, had already established themselves in the valley of the Nile. She sought refuge among them and they received her with open arms accepting her as their queen, calling her Icin, “the little sister,” an endearing word that in time was changed into Isis. As time went on, her cult became superior even to that of Osiris.[71] Apuleius, in his “Metamorphosis,” writes that she says:

But the sun-illumined Ethiopians and the Egyptians, renowned ancient lore, worshipping me with due ceremonies, call me by my real name Isis.[72]

Diodorus makes her say:

I Isis, queen of the country, educated by Thoth, Mercury. What I have decreed, no one can annul. I am the eldest daughter of Saturn (Seb), the youngest of the gods. I am the sister and a wife of King Osiris. I am the first who taught men the use of corn. I am the mother of Horus.[73]

In the Book of the Dead Isis says:

I am the queen of these regions; I was the first to reveal to mortals the mysteries of wheat and corn. I am she who is risen in the constellation of the dog.[74]

Was it Queen Moo, to perpetuate the memory of her husband in the land of her adoption, who built the Egyptian Sphinx in honor of her departed husband in Chichen Itza – similar to Prince Coh’s mausoleum? There she represented him as a dying leopard with a human head, his back pierced three times by a spear. In Egypt she figured him also as a leopard with a human head, but erected a proud and glorified soul to watch over the country that had insured her safety.

After her death Queen Moo was deified, worshipped, and referred to as the “good mother of the gods and of men.” The Greeks called herMaia, the Hindoos, Maya, and the Mexicans, Mayaoel. Did she entrust to her son Hul the supervision of the carving of this lasting wonder of the world? Could this be the reason the texts refer to it as Hu? Augustus Le Plongeon believed it did.

Maya Genii of the Cardinal Points

The Mayas adopted the one ten-millionth part of the quadrant of the great circle that passes through the poles of the earth as a standard of linear measurement. How they arrived at this is not a mystery and is based upon their cosmology.

They believed their universe was infinite darkness, in which dwelt the unknowable, the enigmatic Will, called Uol. They came to this knowledge by sending their thoughts in every direction to the greatest limits of space. These formed radii of equal length that ended at the vault of a sphere whose limitation was a great circle. They also discovered, that in nature, the circle is the ultimate of extension, so they conceived that “Will, thatEternal One Being,” as a circle, which they also called Uol, whose center was everywhere and circumference nowhere.

This Will was believed to be androgynous, two in one and one in two, and in it, life unconsciously pulsated. At the awakening of consciousness, when the Infinite Sexless ceased to be sexless, the male principle, remaining distinct, fertilized the virgin womb of nature (the cosmic egg), pictured in the tableau of creation at Chichen. (Ubi supra, Le Plongeon’s Plate 23)

This new manifestation of the “Boundless One” they figured as a circle with a vertical diameter, and called it Lahun, the “all-pervading one.” It is derived from Lah, which means “he who is everywhere,” and hun, or “one.” It became the image of the universe growing from the boundless darkness, the number 10, the most mystic among the initiates of all nations, and formed of the triad and the septenary; the most binding oath of the Pythagoreans. They called it the Decade.

From this vertical diameter (symbol of the male principle impregnating the virgin womb of nature) originated the idea of the Phallus as the emblem of the Creator. The circle divided into four parts, vertically and horizontally, forming the tetraktis,[75] or “the sacred four.” The cross, enclosed in a circle, symbolized the universe under the jurisdiction of these four powerful intelligences. To these powers were entrusted the building of the physical world and the guardianship of the cardinal points. To distinguish the genii of the north and of the South, wings were added to the circle with its crossed diameters. This is evident from the inscriptions that adorn the facade of the sanctuary at Uxmal and from the Troano and other Maya manuscripts.

These genii of the cardinal points, the four creators, are known to the Hindoos as the “Four Maharajahs,” or “great kings” of the Dhyan Chohans.[76] In Ocosingo, Guatemala, as well as in Egypt, we see them portrayed as circles with wings.[77]

Reign of the Scorpion

The ancient Egyptians, themselves, remembered their history only in a vague, mythical manner. For thousands of years, King Menes (3050 BC) was believed be the first king of Egypt. He is clearly identified as such by ancient Egyptian records, but that was before the discovery of King Scorpion’s tomb in Abydos and an elaborate proto-dynastic tablet called the “Scorpion Tableau.” The story of this man, whose symbol was the scorpion, has gone from mythical to historical during the past 110 years.

In 1898, at Hierakonpolis, the ancient pre-dynastic Egyptian capital, a cache of sacred objects were unearthed relating to an unknown king. One of those objects was the famous Narmer (or Menes) Palette, a ceremonial cosmetic palette. Another was the ritual mace head of the Scorpion king. At first, this king was relegated to the world of myth with other pre-dynastic gods. But a hundred years later, German archaeologist Gunter Dreyer discovered the proof required to turn King Scorpion’s mythical life, factual. He found his tomb and among the artifacts was his ivory scepter. Dreyer went on to discover within the tomb small stamp-sized tags of ivory and bone. Each tag was carved with simple pictures; possibly hieroglyph-like writing that predates the accepted birth of writing by more than 200 years.[78]

More surprising is the discovery of a pre-dynastic tablet known as the Scorpion Tableau, by John and Deborah Darnell. Although obscured by 5,000 years of erosion much of its inscriptions are still visible. It depicts the familiar falcon (Horus) symbol over the scorpion, which identifies the subject as King Scorpion. The Darnells believes it was carved by order of King Scorpion to commemorate his victory over Naqada-a, a city that worshipped Set, the god of chaos.[79]

These recent discoveries have shed some light on Egyptian prehistory. However, shrouded in a mythical time, the prehistory of Egypt is still as mysterious as the Sphinx. We know, comparatively, very little of those archaic years when the Sahara was green and the rainfall abundant. The Sphinx’s diadem tells of a fourth dynasty carving, but the signs of weathering, in and around its enclosure, boasts of a beginning during a mythical time long ago.

The Antilles of the Caribbean were known to the Mayas as the “Land of the Scorpion,” Zinaan, and were represented in Mayan hieroglyphs by the figure of the arachnid or in cursive style by the symbol, ; evidence, Le Plongeon believes, that they were well acquainted with the general outline of the archipelago. Queen Moo found that the Mayan “Land of the Scorpion” had vanished under the waves of the Atlantic. What we see today she found as the remnants. In honor of her island countrymen, did she or her descendents carry on the name?

Schoching & Toxic Evidence for an Old Theory

The work Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon accomplished and the record they created in the Yucatan was as good as their contemporaries, but there was no one else working in the region to compare results. Augustus was a dedicated scholar, and a resourceful, brilliant man, but without proof or corroborating evidence his theories and ideas were nothing more than a debunking exercise for his scholastic adversaries who had already accepted a late date for American civilizations. If they could have refrained from theorizing, their work would have likely been hailed as a great archeological achievement. Instead, with the story of Queen Moo and the Mayan dissemination of civilization, their work was shoved aside and forgotten. Rarely is Le Plongeon’s name mentioned in contemporary texts of Mayan studies.

More than fifty years after the publication of Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx, Thor Heyerdahl, a man who firmly believed that ancient civilizations, separated by oceans, maintained contact proved it was possible to cross the Pacific and the Atlantic in the simplest of craft. Forty years later, Dr. Svetla Balabanova also found evidence that east knew west, and that they traded goods. And, of course, there is Dr. Robert Schoch who provided positive proof that the Sphinx is older than Egyptian civilization. The facts arrived a century too late for Augustus Le Plongeon. He was simply too far ahead of his time for his own good.

Although the case for Queen Moo and her voyage to Egypt remains circumstantial at best, with these new facts we can now wonder from a very different perspective. Le Plongeon never proposed anything out of the realm of possibility.

Finally, there is the question of pyramids, difficult not to mention when addressing ancient Egypt. It is clear that Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure and others of those early dynasties built pyramids. It is also evident that anyone anywhere, during ancient times, if they wanted to build big, it had to be a pyramid — a matter of physics. Yet, while pyramids of various styles have been found all over the world, it is a common fallacy that the land of the Nile contains more pyramids than any other country. The cultures of ancient Mexico hold that title. They built more than anyone else. With its base a half-mile wide on each side and six times larger than Egypt’s Great Pyramid, there exists in Guatemala the largest pyramid ever built by mankind — El Tigre.[80] Mayans built it.