Tour the New Maya Cosmovision Museum

Exhibit illuminates Maya Vision of the Sky

On Saturday, August 23rd, following the "Maya Prophecy 2012" Conference, which was held at Casa Santo Domingo, over 400 members of the community flooded the Jades S.A. Factory and Museum in Antigua.

While the smell of hundreds of perfect blue, yellow, and white corn tortillas was enough to draw anyone in, the generous Mayan buffet was only a small part of it: the evening marked the unveiling of Jades S.A.'s new Maya Cosmovision exhibit.

In the days and weeks preceding the inauguration, the front hall of the Jades S.A. Jade Museum was stripped bare to become the perfect canvas for the imaginations of Mary Lou Ridinger, Raquel Perez, and Baldo Perez, who aim to share their passion for the Maya's profound relationship with the cosmos with everyone who visits the Jade Museum.

They imagined a room where visitors would become immersed in a scene where the stars tell a story of the creation of the universe. The new museum is a place where it is easy to understand the ancient Maya's vision of the future, our present, THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE.

The Museum's interior, showing the ballcourt, the solstice sun, and the cross of the four directions

The new museum is dedicated to the memory of Linda Schele, author of Maya Cosmos, expert Maya iconographer and epigraphist, and friend of Jades, S.A. and the Ridinger family. Linda learned how to carve jade in the Jades factory, and the sales of her creations from the Jades store helped to fund her Maya Hieroglyph Workshops during the 1990s.

Schele's life and work, as well as the research and work of John Major Jenkins, author of Maya Cosmogenesis serve as the inspiration for the museum.

In late August, the Museum came to life thanks to the hard work of Karina Schlesinger of Brika Designs (who created a blueprint for the layout of the room), Miguel Ortiz (the artist who transformed the room with color and light), Carlos Baquix (who crafted the ballcourt replica), Lindsay Carver (who created an original sketch of the "dawning face"), and especially Baldo, Raquel, and Mary Lou themselves.

Entrance to the new museum is through the original Jade Museum. Before visitors enter the Cosmovision exhibit, they have a chance to view the video "Understanding 2012," which was created by Jim Reed, editor of the Institute of Maya Studies Newsletter. Guests also have chance to read information about the significance of what they are about to see.
These wall displays explain some of the basic concepts behind the Maya cosmovision: the concept of World Ages, the notion of "As Above, So Below", the "four directions" cross, and the significance of the end-date of the Long Count calendar. Click on these images for full-size view.


These concepts ALL relate to the exhibit's central feature -- the ballcourt!

1. Peering through the goalring towards the solstice sun; 2. The fire of creation is lit above the ballcourt wall

Visitors learn that the ballgame wasn’t played just for sport, but to dramatize the celestial process of the Sun’s rebirth, and the start of a new World Age!

The Maya ballcourt itself is constructed as a depression in the earth, and represents the Underworld. The ball used for play represents the Sun, and therefore the Solar Deity, One Hunahpu.

Both the ballcourt and the goalring are associated with the birth canal, or the dark rift in the center of our galaxy. Even the Maya glyph for “ballcourt” is a clear symbolic reference to rebirth via the Underworld.

In the glyph for "ballcourt" can you see the "ball" (sun) aligned/cradled in the "goal" (rift, depression), and the way it resembles a sun dawning on the horizon?

As such, victory in the ballgame occurs when the ball passes through the goalring – a pre-enactment of the rebirth of the Sun on December 21st 2012!

Visitors to the Cosmovision museum will also notice various symbolic features intended to enhance their understanding.

Amidst the museum's star canopy shine the three bright stars of Orion's belt, encircled in the outline of a turtle's shell. This detail reflects the myth of the turtle and the Maya hearth:

One Hunahpu is not only the Solar Deity but is also considered the Fire God and the God of Maize (corn). He is sometimes depicted as being reborn from the cracked shell of a turtle.

The Maya located the turtle in the cosmos as the three stars of what we call Orion’s belt. The southernmost star in this belt or turtle’s back, combined with the two stars of Orion’s legs, creates another important Maya symbol, the Hearth.

Every Maya home was centered around the family hearth, which consisted of three stones guarding the fire.

One Hunahpu’s emergence from the turtle’s back in the sky is representative of the lighting of the first fire at the beginning of time. And when the Sun moves through the Orion constellation in June, the cosmic image conjures the annual rebirth of Maize during the growing season.

Turtle's Back, Orion's Belt

Every visitor to the exhibit will find themselves walking atop the bright cross of colored light in the center of the room's floor. This element is a visual interpretation of the ever-important presence of the Four Directions in Maya astronomy, art, and myth.

The cross itself, in astronomical terms, is formed by the line of the ecliptic (the path followed by the planets, and the sun and moon), and the Galactic Equator (the line representing the plane of our galaxy). The cross is formed at the center of the Milky Way's bulge, near the dark rift.

To the Maya, the cross shape is a symbol of the place of creation. It also stands for the Sacred Tree, points to both the four year-bearer symbols in the Maya calender round and the four sides of a pyramid.

Maya Wakah-Chan, or Sacred Tree

The biggest and brightest feature of the museum, however, is the "dawning face" that visitors will encounter before they exit. She is a symbol for the dawn of a new age, rising above the horizon, bejeweled in resplendent jade. Her face represents the next World Age, the age of transformation that the ancient Maya predicted to begin with the dawn of the solstice sun on December 21, 2012.

The Dawn of a New Era

The Museum of Maya Cosmovision is located inside Jades, S.A. at 4a Calle Oriente No. 34 in Antigua, Guatemala. Entrance is free.