North
America
As with other continents, the mounds and pyramids
of North America vary greatly. It could be that humankind has a primal need to
build fake mountains, and that there are absolutely no connections between these
sites. Or perhaps size and shape are irrelevant, and location is everything,
and the guidelines for their placement was once universally known.
Monk's
Mound at Cahokia, USA
Just east of St. Louis, near Collinsville, Illinois
is the largest earth mound in the western hemisphere. It is 30 metres high and
dates back to 1100-1400 AD.
"The
largest of these mounds, Monk's
Mound covers 16 acres; it rests on a base 1,037 feet long and 790 feet wide,
with a total volume of approximately 21,690,000 cubic feet, a base and total volume
greater than that of the pyramid of Khufu, the largest in Egypt. In all the world,
only the pyramids at Cholula and Teotihuacan in central Mexico surpass the Cahokia
pyramid in size and total volume. No other structure in the United States approached
the size of the Cahokia pyramid until the building of airplane hangars, the Pentagon,
and skyscrapers in the twentieth century."
[1]
There are more than one hundred
other, smaller mounds at Cahokia - as well as Woodhenge, which is of course a
wooden counterpart to England's Stonehenge.
 This
is just a small portion of my online book, Survive 2012 - a look into possible
ways our world might end, and how to survive. Available in bookstores sometime
before 2012, fingers-crossed... |
According
to the Cahokia
website, around March 1998 something unexpected happened:
"During the process of installing horizontal drains to
relieve the internal water in Monks Mound that had contributed to several severe
slumping episodes along the west side (Second Terrace), the drilling rig encountered
stones about 140 feet in and 40 feet below the surface of the Second Terrace.
The operator said it felt like "soft stone," probably limestone or sandstone,
and that it was mostly cobbles or slabs at least six inches in diameter. The
drill went through about 32 feet of stones and the drill bit broke off. We
have no idea what it is, what shape or size it is, or why it is there. It should
not be there. No other cores or excavations have revealed stone in Monks Mound
or any other mound at the site, or, as far as we know, at other Mississippian
mound sites. We do not know its vertical thickness or the extent of it horizontally,
other than the 32 feet that the drill went through."
Etowah
Mounds of Cartersville, Georgia, USA
These were
made during the same Mississippian Temple Mound Building Period, as were mounds
at Moundville (near Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and at Cahokia - roughly 700 AD to 1400
AD.
The six flat-topped earthen knolls and a plaza
were used for rituals by several thousand Native Americans between 1000 and 1500
A.D. The largest mound has a height of 63 feet. Only nine percent of this site
has been excavated, but we already know that the mounds have caves underneath
them as do some Mayan and Giza pyramids.
It may
also just be a coincidence, but there is a Limonite mine at Etowah. Limonite
is a iron-bearing ore with a very special use - as radiation
shielding for atomic bomb tests, nuclear reactors and space stations. It is
also what gives Mars its red colour.
Poverty Point,
Louisiana, USA
Poverty Point combines mounds with an aspect of ancient
Rome - an amphitheatre. Consisting of concentric ridges 5-10 feet high and 150
wide, the construction has a diameter of ¾ of a mile, five times the diameter
of the Colosseum in Rome. The ridges were built with 530,000
cubic yards of earth (over 35 times the cubic amount of the Great Pyramid of Giza).
Of the earth mounds, one has a base of 700 feet by 800 feet and is 70
feet high. It is shaped like a bird.
Miamisburg
Mound, Ohio, USA
This mound is conical, like Silbury Hill in England.
Archaeologists believe that it was constructed by the Adena Indians (800 BC -
100 AD). The mound sits on a 100 foot high bluff, and measures 877 feet in circumference.
Originally it attained a height of 70 feet.
| It is hard to determine how many mounds were built
in North America, for many have been destroyed by modern civilization - but there
were many. One hundred and fifty years ago, for example, there were approximately
20,000 Indian mounds in Wisconsin alone, with a large portion of them alongside
the Mississippi River. Now, after a century of plowing, town construction and
urban sprawl [2] , there are less than 2,000 mounds
remaining in the state. As anyone who was in the
area in 1927 would tell you: the Mississippi floods. In that year over one thousand
people drowned, almost a million people were forced from their homes, and over
five million acres of farmland were ruined. Regular flooding replenishes the
soil in this region and makes it rich. This is the same reason the ancient Egyptians
lived alongside the Nile. In fact, the similarities between the Mississippi and
the Nile (floods and pyramids) caused the original settlers of Illinois to name
new towns after places in Egypt, such as Goshen, Cairo and Thebes. Floods.
Pyramids. |
Central America
This
region has many, many pyramids. Here I choose to merely describe a handful of
them.
Palenque, Mexico
There
are three stepped pyramids within this ancient Mayan ceremonial centre, located
in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The more famous of these is the Pyramid of Inscriptions.
Its height of 20 metres consists of eight stepped storeys, not counting the temple
on top. Inside the temple, two large vaulted chambers
house three glyphic panels which collectively make the second longest known ancient
Mayan inscription . Deciphered in the 1970s, the inscriptions revealed
that the funerary crypt within the pyramid belonged to Lord Pacal, whose reign
ended with his death in 683 AD. The crypt is found via a secret staircase below
a slab in the temple floor. Within this crypt was found a five-ton slab of carved
rock lying on top of Pacal's sarcophagus. Much has been made of this lid, especially
by Erich von Daniken, because of its bizarre imagery - easily taken to be a man
in a spaceship. See it here
|  |
Central American pyramids are closely related to the ziggurats
of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria: they are step pyramids with a central staircase,
and a shrine at the top. Size and geometric perfection seem to be less important
than religious and mathematical function. Pyramid
of Inscriptions (left) Ziggurat (below) |
|  |
Teotihuacan
Near
Mexico's current capital, this city of ruins was thought to have been home to
125,000 people in 600 AD. Teotihuacan was founded in 100 BC, and deserted by
750 AD, which sounds tragic yet few civilizations manage to last 850 years.
Founded
by who? Archaeologists have been trying to figure this out and have few clues
to work with. The civilization was smart enough to create this massive city,
but no trace has yet been found of a writing system - there is the occasional
pictograph, but no hieroglyphs or words have been found.
Whoever
they were, they were succeeded by the Toltecs, and then by the Aztecs. The Aztecs
named the place ("Place of the Gods") and its major structures.
From
the air, it looks not unlike a computer circuit board, containing two large processor
chips, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, and 600 smaller pyramids.
Once again, there are parallels with Egypt - the construction of satellite pyramids.
The Pyramid of the Sun has sides of 225m, giving it a similar base area to the
Great Pyramid of Giza, although it is only half the height. Like the Great Pyramid,
it incorporates the mathematical ratio of "pi". The perimeter of the base of
the Pyramid of the Sun is 4pi times its height, whereas the Great pyramid of Giza's
base perimeter is 2pi times its height.
Another Giza
connection: the tops of the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun are level, because
the smaller Pyramid of the Moon is built on an elevated location. The same relationship
exists between the two largest pyramids at Giza.
And
another. Bottom middle of the red layout below is The Citadel, which many consider
to be the base of a pyramid the size of the Pyramid of the Sun, that was never
built. Had it been, the three main pyramids would've had a similar Orion layout
as Giza.
In 1971 it was discovered that the Pyramid of the Sun
was built over a natural cave with four chambers, which had been enlarged from
a natural lava tube (the region is very volcanic). The cave was obviously a sacred
place for it contained remains of offerings and rituals from a period much earlier
than the pyramids.
It is common for ancient sites
to have been built in stages, reinforcing the idea that it is the location that
is most important. The Pyramid of the Moon went through five distinct phases
of building successively larger pyramids on top of previous ones, often partially
destroying the previous pyramid in the process. If the unknown civilization had
continued for a few hundred years more, perhaps even larger pyramids would have
been built on top of the existing ones. Anyone looking for meaning in the angles
and lengths of the pyramids should perhaps take into account the prior phases
buried beneath the last layer of construction.
An interesting
fact highlighted by Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods is that some of
the pyramids contain broad, thick layers of mica, which had to be transported
over 2000 miles from Brazil.[3]
These sheets are ninety feet square and were not visible, but merely another layer
in the construction. Perhaps its purpose was radiation shielding? Sheets and
rods of mica bonded with glass can tolerate extreme temperatures, radiation, high
voltage, and moisture. One of the modern uses of mica is windows for microwave
ovens. It is also used in Geiger counters and cosmic ray detectors. (see here
) Chichen Itza
The
Pyramid of Kukulkan is 30 metres in height, with sides that measure 55.3 metres.
Graham Hancock explains the effects generated by it's positioning in Chapter XXX.
Most of the many other Mayan pyramids are of the same
basic shape.
Los Guachimontones
Los Guachimontones in Mexico, the only place you can find circular, stepped pyramids.
South America
Peru
Many
of Peru's ancient structures have lasted well, but not the pyramids. Most of
them have eroded so much they are unrecognisable. Below is a restored adobe pyramid
from around 800BC, located in the middle of the high-rise district of San Isidro.
|
|
Covering over 540 acres and including 26 major pyramids the
Tucume site dates to about 1100 AD. The largest of the adobe brick pyramids,
Huaca Larga, is 2300 ft long, 910 ft wide and 65 ft high, although it may have
originally been three times this height. |
| 
Huaca
del Sol, Moche |
Is it so surprising
that, with so many pyramids, the Americas also had mummies? This one was found
within a pyramid at Huaca Huallamarca.
Discuss Survive
2012 at our forumGive the author your thoughts, and discuss any 2012
ideas with others, at 2012 Forum |
Comments from Visitors
NeedToKnow:
(22.04.2004, 01:17)
NeedToKnow:
I meant the third pyramid in relation to the straight line the other two make.
(22.04.2004, 01:18)
Val Howard:
Did you know the North American pyramids have a Book of Mormon connection?
(26.05.2004, 16:23)
Ruthann Barr:
Hi:
- I was wondering what huaca meant?
- thankyou
(03.06.2004, 12:25)
michael k. pattersopn:
what are the mosrt cpmmon things that all pyramids and zigguats share the world over?
(25.07.2004, 22:57)
Ross L:
In Ohio we have an earthen mound built in the shape of a serpent. It was built by the Adena(?). Also in the area are the Miamisburg Mound and Fort Ancient. No one knows why the serpent mound was built since her architects are long gone. It is my theory that it is not a serpent. It is a comet.
-
- Serpent Mound in Ohio, see:
- http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/serp/hd_serp.htm
-
- also from:
- http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/serpent/
- "The head of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the coils also may point to the winter solstice sunrise and the equinox sunrise."
-
- Most of the local people here have no idea of the historic treasure that lay nearby.
-
- See a nice picture from the air on the metmuseum.org page.
(31.08.2004, 11:43)
Anon:
In Ohio we have an earthen mound builtin the shape of a serpent. It was built by the Adena?.
- Also in the area are the Miamisburg Mound and
- Fort Ancient. No one knows wht the serpent mound was built since her architects are long gone. It is my theory that it is not a serpent.
- It is a comet._
(16.10.2004, 15:19)
steven manshack:
I would like to know if there is any info. on the sabine river mounds, on the Louisiana side.
(04.11.2004, 17:41)
Alex:
A little less picture would be better
(03.01.2005, 16:09)
Arno:
I luv this site!!!!!!
(05.01.2005, 04:28)
evelyn:
Very good info but I am desperate to know more details about the cave under the pyramid of the sun at teotihuacan. How big is it and what is the alignement? Anyone know about surveys?
(06.04.2005, 03:04)
Michael Bonilla:
Is the Pyramid of the sun in Mexico, do we have the actual physical measurements? Was there a cubit used?
(20.04.2005, 12:04)
parlau:
(28.08.2005, 16:00)
kayla:
needs more things about North america.
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- ,
(13.09.2005, 12:03)
The comments section is now closed, but you can still email me, or even
better, visit 2012 Forum
Script by Alex
|
[1] Weatherford, Jack, Native Roots. How
the Indians Enriched America. Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1991. Page 9
[2] by Robert "Ernie" Boszhardt, Mississippi
Valley Archaeology Center, http://www.epa.gov/reg5ogis/t_histry.htm
[3] Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, p 188-9
