The ancient Mayan astronomy of Earth, Sun and the Pleiades  

One year ago on May 8, 2008, a spectacular “yin yang” type of crop picture appeared near Avebury Stone Avenue. It told symbolically about the zenith location of our Sun at noon on the same day, near latitude 17.5^o N in the Mayan heartland of La Venta or Palenque (see aveburystoneavenue2008). Now this year on May 3, 2009, a conceptually related crop picture has appeared at East Kennett Longbarrow. It tells symbolically about the zenith location of our Sun at noon on the same day, near latitude 16^o N a little further south:  

 

Two characteristic symbols for “Sun” or “Earth” have been laid on top of one another in this new crop picture to suggest “zenith”. One of those symbols appeared recently in crops at West Kennett Longbarrow on April 19, 2009 (see westkennettlongbarrow2009), while the other appeared at Knoll Down on July 28, 2008 (see knolldown2008a).  

Due to the relative simplicity of this new pattern, we cannot be sure that it is paranormal in origin, and field inspection by Charles Mallett did not yield any firm conclusions (see fieldreport). Nevertheless, we can still discuss its symbolism in relation to other crop pictures that have appeared before. 

For example, its Celtic-cross symbol for “Earth” is certainly not new! That four-lobed symbol has been appearing regularly in crops since the early 1990’s (see time2007f). Last year on August 8, it appeared at Milk Hill to tell us about “Earth” laid directly over the Moon during a lunar eclipse, eight days later on August 16, 2008 (see 080808):  

A few years earlier on August 9, 2005, it appeared at Marden to tell us about the “Pleiades” laid directly over the “Earth” on a yearly date of November 18 at midnight (see marden2005a):  

Such an astronomical alignment was well known to the ancient Mayans:  

"According to accounts provided by Spanish explorers, the Mayans held a ceremony once in every 52 years to mark the end of their Venus calendar, which also coincided with observation of the Pleiades directly overhead at midnight. There is only one day of the year when one can observe that star cluster directly overhead at midnight: namely November 18, when our Sun lies directly overhead at noon on the other side of the Earth. The Mayans believed that, at some future time, the apparent movement of our heavens from east to west would cease at the time of an Earth-Pleiades conjunction, following the completion of a 52-year Venus calendar" (see pleiades-venus-mayan-calendar).  

Our current 52-year Venus calendar will end on March 28, 2013 (see time2007c). Likewise, the Mayan Long Count calendar will end on December 21-23, 2012, with an Earth-Pleiades conjunction one month before on November 18, 2012. Could those crop artists have had the Long Count calendar in mind, when they made this series of crop pictures?  

Very possibly! Thus the second part of Marden 2005 (see marden2005b) and Roundway 2009 (see roundway2009) both show symbols which suggest “18 months of 20 days”, for any 360-day year from the Mayan Long Count calendar:

In summary, all of these pictures seem to illustrate themes from ancient Mayan astronomy: (a) the zenial passage of our Sun, (b) lunar eclipses, or (c) Earth-Pleiades conjunctions. Some pictures also show symbols from (d) the Mayan Long Count calendar. Who could be making such field images, and why? 

PS We would like to thank Lucy Pringle, Phillippe Ullens and Steve Alexander for some of the photographs used here.