After a brief query email, I received the following response and an email exchange commenced:
-----Original Message-----
From: Laughton, Timothy B
[mailto:laugt@essex.ac.uk]
Sent: Thursday, February 08,
2001 3:50 AM
To: John Jenkins
Subject: RE: Izapa trip
Dear Mr. Jenkins,
I am pleased to hear that
you are still working on Izapa. I would be interested to see your new research
and by all means send me the file. The
thing is though that I am incredibly busy at the moment so I will not be able
to give you a quick response. I note
that the jpg is of the Group F ballcourt.
The thing that worries me about this is that the monuments were reset
there from the main group after it was abandoned and I am not sure how well the
original meaning of the sculptures was understood by those who did it. When you are at Izapa don't forget that some
of the monuments are in the museum in Tapachula (as well as Mexico City). Have a good trip.
Dr. Tim Laughton.
Department of Art History,
University of Essex,
Colchester,
Essex, CO4 3SQ, UK.
Phone 01206 873009
Before leaving for Izapa in late February, I wrote an essay on Izapa and designed a web page for it, hoping that during my absence Laughton would check it out and have something to say:
Hello Dr. Tim Laughton,
Inspired by your interest in
my Izapa research, I created a web page that briefly summarizes, with some nice
diagrams, the material I've already published on Izapan astronomy. Nothing here
is new, except that it is more to the point, less labyrinthine, and therefore
more accessible. I guess it's significant that my main thesis has survived five
years of double-checking. In the interest of simplicity, I focus solely on the
Group F monuments and have omitted large amounts of supportive material. It's
only six pages, with many diagrams, so it shouldn't take long to read. I'm
really hoping to receive some feedback or response. This is a closed web page
created only for your use; there is a brief letter at the end. It is at: http://alignment2012.com/Izapa.html
(It takes a moment for the images to load, but this was better than emailing
you a 950K file!)
Regarding the resetting of
the Group F monuments; yes, but how much later? And regardless of when, do not
the monument's arrangements still reflect the intentions of those who put them
there? Okay, enjoy the page. It's been 11 years since I walked Izapa last. I'll
be returning March 11th. Thank you again for your interest,
John Major Jenkins
By early April I hadn’t
heard back; in the meantime I had acquired an interesting essay written by
Laughton on the astronomy of Izapa; I commented to engage dialogue on this
topic but did not respond to this email and by the 25th I had been
laid off from netLibrary:
Hello Dr. Laughton,
I ordered and read with
interest your essay in the Indiana Journal of Hispanic Literatures called
"Izapa: A Preclassic Codex in Stone." It is an intriguing reading
of the astronomical content of Izapa sculpture and possible ceremonial procession.
If the summer solstice was significant, then perhaps the winter solstice
horizon, though not marked by a volcano, would also have been of interest?
After all, because of the site's 23 degree azimuth orientation to Tacana, then
the perpendicular sight-line, towards which many of the monuments face, would
be the December solstice sunrise horizon. According to my reading, a dialectic
exists in Izapa sculpture that sets astronomical events occurring in "the
north" (the rise and set of Ursa Major over Tacana) in opposition to
events in "the south" (the convergence of the December solstice sun
with the Milky Way, tracked over the December solstice horizon). I even extend
the metaphor to the level of precessional movement; in fact, it seems to be all
about precessional movement.
Before visiting Izapa last
month I was honored to be able to meet with Marion Popenoe Hatch at her famous
house in Antigua. We talked of her new discoveries at Abaj Takalik (which
implicate precession), but, most importantly, she confirmed the likelihood of
the following idea I had proposed in my book: The "fall" of Seven
Macaw / Big Dipper is really about the increasing distance between the Big
Dipper and the north celestial pole as caused by precession, which accelerated
dramatically between 1500 BC and 100 AD. This northern precessional movement
would then seem to "dialogue with" the rebirth of the solstice sun
through the dark-rift in the Milky Way to the south. We might feel like these
categories of north and south do not belong together (because it is not a true
opposition astronomically).
However, we can't be sure
that early Maya concepts didn't perceive this conflation of categories and
directions as precisely elegant for their mythologizing needs. In fact, this
astronomical dialectic appears to be told nicely in the Popol Vuh's
story of the fall of Seven Macaw and the resurrection of One Hunahpu (who I
have argue was the December solstice sun).
I understood this
precession-caused "fall of the Big Dipper" by studying astronomy software
several years ago; Hatch confirms its likelihood independently. In addition,
have you seen the book Homer's Secret Iliad by Florence and Kenneth
Wood? They also invoke this concept and read the Fall of Troy as its
pseudo-historical mnemonic. Izapa was a thrill, though hot of course. I did not
observe anything that changes my ideas as presented in Maya Cosmogenesis
2012. Have you read the brief summary I posted for your perusal, at http://www.alignment2012.com/izapa.html?
I realize now that the MM 4 vertical pillar figure should face north. Apart
from that, what do you think? Best wishes,
John Major Jenkins