The Bottom of the Y-Axis of the Ancient Native North America Land Survey by Astronomy was Located in Today's Mexico: Monte Alban, Santos Reyes Nopala, Mitla, Rio Copalita

It was an easy task to find and decipher the sites that marked the stars of Lepus and Columba. More difficult, and surely not resolved yet, is the issue of finding a clear southern tip of Y-Axis that would also date officially to ca. 3000 B.C.

Initially, we thought the Y-Axis line ran through the cave paintings at Burgos Municipality, which we are certain mark principally the upper stars of Orion and Taurus in the survey system, but the exact location of that rock art is still a secret, so we looked further south for help.

Indeed, we thought the "Surveyor of Burgos", previously discussed, and located somewhat south of El Pico de Burgos, could be pointing to a more southerly location, so we initially extended our provisional Y-axis to Santos Reyes Nopala in Oaxaca, Juquila District, Mexico, because we thought we saw survey type geometric designs on the ground there via Google Earth and because we thought Juquila and Judaculla might share a common language origin.

Here is a clip from Google Earth of what are marked there as Santos Reyes Nopala ruins, which seem too modern for our purposes:

Santos Reyes Nopala, Oaxaca Ruins

We further considered whether the name Nopala might relate to the name Nibal, a variant of Nihal, an ancient name for beta Leporis in the star group today modernly called Lepus, which is located below Orion.

We subsequently examined the nearby archaeological location of Mitla, near San Palbo Villa de Mitla. As written at Planetware.com:

"The ruined site of Mitla, situated on the edge of the village of the same name, is one of Mexico's most famous archaeological attractions. Although the site, like its architecture, appears fairly unimposing, the elaborate stone ornamentation is unsurpassed in the art history of Meso-America." [emphasis added]

As written at the Wikipedia, "[t]he name Mitla is derived from the Nahuatl name Mictlán, which was the place of the dead or underworld. Its Zapotec name is Lyobaa, which means “place of rest.”" Lyobaa seemed close as a term to Lepus. The Mitla ruins were originally "built as a gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. That made sense for the Y-Axis, which is the "bottom of the sky". We decipher Mitla in coming postings.

According to Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning,
the ancient Pharaonic Egyptians saw the stars of Lepus as the boat of Osiris (Orion), who was the god of the afterlife. An astronomical "underworld" fit this location at the bottom of the Y-Axis for our land survey by astronomy. Was there an ancient Haplogroup X connection between the similar terms Osiris and Oaxaca? We find, by the way, that Teotihuacan clearly marks primarily the Belt stars of Orion, and that is the position of Teotihuacan in this system.

Monte Albán in Oaxaca thus also came into question as the bottom of the Y-axis, especially when we could read at Blaschke that:

"Monte Albán ... is the second largest ceremonial site in Mesoamerica.... The prehispanic name of Monte Albán has not been identified with precision.... Zapotecs mention a hill that was known as Dhauya quch o Dauyacach, or the Hill of the Sacred Stones.... Other names for the city were the Mixtec name Sahandevul which means At the Foot of the Sky/Heaven...." [emphasis added]

We thought then that Monte Albán was a good candidate at the foot of the sky, as it were, but we then deciphered that site, which we shall be posting soon,and it was clear that Monte Albán was too recent in the stars it represented.

The "oldest" date for a site in this region, as established by mainstream archaeology, is perhaps San José Mogote near Oaxaca City., which however dates back only as far as ca. 1500 B.C.

We then examined a site that has only recently been discovered and opened to the public in late 2010, Bocana del Rio Copalita Archaeological Zone, Boulevard Benito Juarez, near Playa La Bocana and the Copalita River, Huatulco, Mexico. See, Copalita: an archaeological treasure near Huatulco at Puerto Escondido.

Rio Copalita is dated back currently to only 500 B.C. -- but in traveler's photos we saw some enormous megalithic-like stones viz. sculpted boulders, which "could" date to ca. 3000 B.C. and the megalithic era.

One stone figure is clearly a giant sea turtle, which, as we noted at the cave paintings at Burgos Municipality, marked the stars of Columba. The Oaxaca coast is one of the world's five major turtle nesting areas. See Puerto Escondido, VisitPuerto.com, Exploring the mystery of sea turtles in Oaxaca.

A line from Copalita to Herschel cuts across the ruins of Mitla. We now had our Y-axis. A map from Google Maps of the ancient site locations in Mexico that we discuss is shown below, including also the famed Teotihuacan near Mexico City, which in this system clearly marks primarily the belt stars of Orion's Belt.

We will be deciphering the mentioned sites in coming postings.

The line to Herschel, Canada is not perfectly perpendicular. Subsequent triangulation from various alternative positions nevertheless led to interesting similar results, with one line nearly passing over Merida and Dzibilchaltun, Yucatan, Mexico, where we made the discovery that the Temple of the Seven Dolls of Dzibilchaltun near Merida marks stars of the "shield" of Orion, a decipherment upcoming and fitting in with the rest of the system described.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 20 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

The Bottom of the Y-Axis of the Ancient Native North America Land Survey by Astronomy was Located in Today's Mexico: Monte Albán, Santos Reyes Nopala, Mitla, Rio Copalita