Domain (45 page)

That’s far enough. I planted the seed, now I have to regain his confidence
. She turns her attention back to the map of Chichén Itza. For some reason, the aerial image of the cenote catches her eye. She thinks back to the previous night, her walk through the jungle.

The cenote walls … glistening in the moonlight. The grooves in the limestone
…

“What is it?”

Startled, she looks up, surprised to find him hovering over her. “Uh, nothing, it’s probably nothing.”

“Tell me.” The ebony eyes are too intense to fool.

“Here, see this map. The aerial image of the cenote resembles the pattern of concentric circles found within the Nazca pyramid drawing.”

“My parents came to the same conclusion. They spent months scuba diving inside every cenote, exploring every sinkhole and subterranean cave in the area. The only thing they found were a few skeletons, the sacrificial remains of the dead, but nothing even resembling a passage.”

“Have you checked the cenote since the earthquake?” She cringes as the words escape her mouth.

“Earthquake?” Mick’s face lights up. “The earthquake on the fall equinox struck Chichén Itza? Jesus, Dominique, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I don’t know—I guess I didn’t realize it was that important. By the time I found out, Foletta had doped you into a vegetable.”

“Tell me about the earthquake. How did it affect the cenote?”

“It was just a blurb in the news. A bunch of tourists claimed they witnessed the well’s waters churning during the seismic disturbance.”

Mick takes off running.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“We’ll need a car. We’ll probably have to spend a day or two in Merida picking up supplies. Eat something. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

“Mick, wait—what supplies? What are you talking about?”

“Scuba gear. We need to check out the cenote.”

She watches him jog down the road, heading into town.

Way to go, Sigmund. You weren’t supposed to encourage him
.

Annoyed at herself, she leaves the barn and enters the Formas’ home, a five-room stucco dwelling brightly decorated in Mexican motif. She finds a plate of fried bananas and corn bread on the kitchen table and sits down to eat.

Then she notices the telephone.

JOURNAL OF

JULIUS GABRIEL

I
t was the summer of 1985, and we were back in Nazca. For the first six months, the three of us commuted daily from a small apartment in Ica, a bustling little city located 90 miles to the north of Nazca. But our dwindling budget soon forced us to relocate, and I moved my family into a sparse, two-room dwelling in the farming village of lngenio.

Having sold our camper, I was able to purchase a small hot-air balloon. Each Monday morning at sunrise, Maria, Michael, and I would soar a thousand feet over the desert pampa, photographing the myriad lines and magnificent animals etched upon the plateau. The remainder of the week would be dedicated to a thorough analysis of the photos, which we hoped would reveal the message that might guide our entrance into the Kukulcan pyramid.

The overwhelming challenge of translating the Nazca drawings is that there are far more false clues than real ones. Hundreds of animal figures and thousands of shapes proliferate the desert canvas like prehistoric graffiti, the majority of which were not created by the original artist of Nazca. Rectangles, triangles, trapezoids, cluster, and impossibly straight lines, some over 25 miles in length, are spread over 200 square miles of dun-colored flats. Add to these the humanlike figures carved into the surrounding hillsides, and you can see how daunting our task was. Nevertheless, our efforts eventually helped segregate what we deemed to be the more vital etchings from the rest of the Peruvian epigraph.

It is the older, more intricate drawings that hold the real message of Nazca. We can only guess at the date of their origins, but we know they are at least 1500 years old.

The hieroglyphs of Nazca serve two distinct functions. Icons we termed “primary” drawings are used to describe the story behind the doomsday prophecy, while “secondary” figures etched in proximity to these icons provide us with important clues to help decipher their meaning.

The artist’s tale begins at the center of the desert canvas with a figure Maria had nicknamed the Nazca sunburst, a perfect circle consisting of 23 lines extending outward from its perimeter. One of these lines is longer than the rest, extending some 20 miles across the desert. A dozen years later, I would discover that this elongated line was precisely aligned to Orion’s belt. Shortly thereafter, Michael would locate an iridium canister buried at the heart of this mysterious starting point, the contents of which contained an ancient map of the world (see June 14,1990 entry). This parchment seem to identify the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico as the final battleground for the Armageddon to come.

Lying in close proximity to the sunburst is the Nazca spider. Its specific genus—
Ricinulei
, is one of the rarest in the world, and can only be found in some of the most inaccessible areas of the Amazon rain forest. Like the whales and monkey, the Nazca spider is another species not indigenous to the Peruvian desert. For this reason, we considered it to be a directional icon, in this case, celestial by nature. It turns out the spider is an incredibly accurate terrestrial marker designed to direct the observer (again) to the constellation of Orion. The straight lines of the arachnoid have been oriented in such a way as to track the changing declinations of the three Orion belt stars, the same series of stars the Egyptians used to align the pyramids of Giza.

Surrounding the sunburst, scattered about the plateau, are more than a dozen bizarre drawings of winged predatory creatures. Note that I am not referring to the more recent drawings of the hummingbird or pelican, two species indigenous to the area, but, instead, to a series of hellish-looking beings, the likes of which I still cannot identify. These mysterious, taloned creatures proliferate on the Nazca canvas, and I am still at a loss as to their function.

The longest zoomorph on the plateau is the 617-foot Nazca serpent. Unfortunately, much detail of the beast has been obliterated by the Pan American Highway, which cuts across its torso. The serpent’s presence on the pampa may symbolize the dark rift of the Milky Way, then again, its proximity to the Nazca pyramid, like the monkey and whales, may offer it as a signpost directing us to Chichén Itza, a Mayan city dominated by the image of the Feathered Serpent.

The serpent’s tail, like the sunburst and spider, has been oriented to Orion.

There are several other drawings that stand out as pieces of the Mayan prophecy. The last that I shall mention—and our favorite—is the figure we nicknamed the Nazca astronaut.

Suffice it to say that the presence of this 2,000-year-old extraterrestrial being remained a vision of comfort during our days on the pampa, a convincing reminder that we were not alone in our quest, at least in spirit. The owlish-looking humanoid male, adorned in uniform and boots, has his right hand raised in what could only be interpreted as a gesture of friendship. Clearly set apart from the rest of the Nazca message, the giant E.T. has been etched upon one of the hillsides like an artist’s signature on the margin of a painting.

DECEMBER 23, 1989

After more than four years of work on the Peruvian desert, I decided to take my family to visit the most impressive of the ancient drawings: the Trident of Paracas. Located 100 miles north of the desert pampa, this figure, often referred to as
El Candelabro
, or the Andes Candelabra, has never been officially linked to the Nazca drawings, even though its intricate pattern, size, and age easily qualify it as a work of our mysterious artist.

The Trident’s creator chose to engrave this colossal symbol on an entire mountainside facing the Bay of Paracas. The magnificent icon consists of a three-pronged candelabra design similar to that of a devil’s pitchfork, except the pointed ends, all facing up, are embellished with petal-like features. Because the etching is exposed to much harsher weather conditions than those of Nazca, the artist dug much deeper into the hillside, carving the icon’s outline a full three feet into the salty crustlike surface of the mountain. At 600 feet long and nearly 200 feet across, the Trident of Paracas is an easy landmark to spot.

I remember the three of us staring at the ancient marker from our boat on that fateful day in December. As the setting sun at our backs turned crimson, the Trident’s crystal-like soil began sparkling in the diminishing light, giving the outline of the icon an almost luminescent red glow. This effect seemed to energize Maria, who quickly surmised that the Candelabra must surely have been left as an ancient signpost, directing our civilization to the Nazca desert.

The thought made me think of the arch in St. Louis, the symbolic gateway to America’s heartland. I was about to say as much when my beloved suddenly doubled over in excruciating pain and let out a mournful wail. Then, as Michael and I watched in horror, she collapsed onto the deck, unconscious.

—Excerpt from the Journal of Professor Julius Gabriel,

Ref. Catalogue 1985-90 pages 31-824.

Photo Journal Floppy Disk 8 & 9: File name: NAZCA, Photos 34 & 56.

Chapter 22