The Pyramid of Kukulcan - Part 2
Special
acoustical designs were incorporated into the pyramid. A person talking
at the top can be heard from the ground, and hand claps from the top are
heard as high pitched chirps at the bottom. Various explanations for the
high pitched chirps have been given. Local tourist will say they are the
screams of sacrificial victims. In 1998 at a meeting of the Acoustical
Society of America, Acoustic specialist David Lubman argued that they
resemble the call of the Quetzal bird, left, the sacred bird of the Maya.
Besides making the connection between a glyph showing Kukulkan with a
huge Quetzal bird behind him, he also hypothesized that the chirps represented
the spirit echo of the Quetzal.
Acoustic amplification also takes place at the Ball Court, where sound is projected up to 60m away from certain spots. In 1931, Leopold Stokosvski, famous conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, visited the site to study the acoustics for an open air concert performance. He played phonograph records from many different places but left without unlocking the acoustical principals involved.
A
play with light during the last hour of day on the equinoxes casts a snake
like shadow on the pyramid starting with a tail at the top and ending
at 2 carved snake heads at the bottom of the pyramid (left). It has been
suggested to represent the Mayan god coming down to reward his loyal followers.
In the spring the occurance takes place in the early evening from mid
to late February, and through mid-April. In autumn the appearence is visible
from mid August through mid October. The phenomenon was heavily documented
by Luis E. Arochi and tens of thousands of tourist turn up every year
to witness the event.
For an alternative theory by Carl Munck on sacred number play incorporated into the pyramid, visit this site. He suggests that the pyramid was built taking longitudes from a Prime Meridian (0/360° longitude) that ran from pole to pole across the Great Pyramid at Giza, with a 31° 08' 00.8" longitudinal variance from our Greenwich Prime Meridian. He then argues that when we add the modern longitude of the site to the longitudinal variance, that is, Equation : 88° 34' 09.71620648" + 31° 08' 00.8" = ? We get 119° 42' 10.51620678" - what he calls the "original longitude of Kukulkan". The numbers add up to 52, 560. 9 terraces x 365 steps x 4 sides x 4 stairways also equals 52,560.