An extraordinary formation with Aztec connotations has appeared in Northamptonshire, and GEOFF STRAY believes he may have some vitally important insights into its symbolism, tied in with some astonishing discoveries of his own…


i) THE SUNSTONE

In 1790, a massive carved stone disc (12 feet in diameter) was dug up in Mexico City and is now on display in the Museum of Anthropology. It is known as the Aztec Sunstone, or Calendar Stone, since the central motif is said to show the five ages of the world, called ‘Suns’. Each of these Suns is said to have ended in catastrophe, with the central image - usually said to be Tonatiuh, the Sun god - representing the present era. The Aztecs had inherited their calendars from earlier civilizations in Mesoamerica, but some of the knowledge had been lost. The Maya people, for example, had a system of cross-referenced calendars, including one known as the ‘Long Count’, which tracks immense stretches of time and includes a 5,125-year cycle called the Great Cycle, or 13-Baktun Cycle, that started in 3114 BC and ends in 2012 AD, hence many of the prophecies surrounding 2012. For several years I had been interested in the possible consequences of this termination point, when I bought a plaster copy of the Aztec Sunstone, and hung it on my wall. Since the 20 Day Signs of the Maya were clearly shown on the Stone, and the central image implied that the Aztecs knew they were living in the "final era", I wondered if the Sunstone might retain a few clues.

I noticed that the ring of Day Signs shows the glyphs upside-down at the bottom of the ring, and the right way up at the top, as if the ring was designed to be rotated! There is also a pointer (above Tonatiuh's head), apparently designed to indicate a different Day Sign each day, as the ring rotates (clock-wise!). There are also several places on the Sunstone, where the designs are OVERLAID. In other words, the Sunstone represents a series of ROTATING LAYERS. I then worked out a way that, if the Sunstone was based on an earlier design with moving parts, it could have acted as a giant chronometer, measuring the 260-day Tzolkin cycle, the 384-day lunar year; the 56-year eclipse cycle (3 x 18.61-year lunar node cycles); the 52-year Calendar Round cycle, and the 104-year Venus Round (65 orbits of Venus). However, the cycle I was most interested in - the 13-Baktun cycle - was impossible to discover, since the number 18 was nowhere to be found on the Sunstone; 20 Kin (days) = 1 Uinal; 18 Uinals = 1 Tun; 20 Tuns = 1 Katun; 20 Katuns = 1 Baktun; 13 Baktuns = 1 Great Cycle. "If I could only find the 18 Uinals, the chronometer would tick away the whole 5,125-year Great Cycle", I thought... Then I found the ‘Secret Dial’...


ii) THE CROP FORMATION CONNECTION

The amazing formation (already nicknamed the ‘Aztec Pizza’!) which appeared on 3rd June this year at Wakerley Woods, Barrowden, Northamptonshire certainly suggests the Aztec Sunstone, with its concentric rings of glyphs, though it at first seems to be "a couple of olives short of a pizza". The Aztec Sunstone has a ring of 20 Day-signs, surrounded by a ring of 56 quincunxes, surrounded by a ring of 104 "eagle-feathers", within a ring formed by two "fire-serpents", of 12 segments each.

The weird thing is, I have been working on an animation of the Sunstone to demonstrate the rotating features described above, and this reached completion (apart from a proposed soundtrack) on Friday 1st June, after having come up with the idea about 18 months ago and worked on the animation for the last three months. The following day, I was presented with a brass replica Sunstone which a friend (Joy) had found at a boot sale. I took this as a synchronicity, or a meaningful coincidence, that my efforts had been given the thumbs up by the Universe.

This ‘Aztec Pizza’ formation was reported on Sunday the 3rd - the same weekend! That’s a COSMIC thumbs up! What is more, it encodes the significant numbers which formed the breakthrough that the animation demonstrates.

It is thought by most historians that the Aztecs had forgotten all about the Mayan Long Count calendar, which includes the 5,125-year cycle (The Great Cycle), or 13-Baktun Cycle. They had retained knowledge of the 260-day sacred Tzolkin calendar, the 365-day Haab, and the 52-year Calendar Round (52 Haabs = 73 Tzolkins). The Tzolkin is partially shown on the Sunstone in the form of the 20 Day Signs (which combine with 13 numbers – 13 x 20 = 260), and the Calendar Round is represented by the 104 Eagle feathers. Two Calendar Rounds = 104 x 365-day years (= 1 Venus Cycle, or 65 cycles of Venus at 584 days per cycle). However, as I confirmed in a conversation with researcher John Major Jenkins, nobody has ever found evidence of the Long Count on the Sunstone, because, although it is possible to find some of the necessary numbers, such as 13 and 20, the vital number 18 is absent (there are 20 days in one ‘Uinal’, and 18 Uinals in one ‘Tun’ of 360 days).

The breakthrough that the animation demonstrates (or will when released to the public), is that there is a ‘Secret Dial’ concealed on the Sunstone, and it has 18 segments, just like two of the three dials on the new Wakerley Woods formation! I had spotted what looks like a visible segment of a hidden ring, showing two quincunxes; I then electronically ‘cut and pasted’ eight copies of the suspected segment, each turned by multiples of a 40-degree angle, put them together, and found a perfect ring made from the nine segments of two quincunxes each: 18 Uinals!! This does not work on some of the colour paintings of the Sunstone, since the angle varies by up to two degrees on each side of the visible segment, and this can result in a 20-quincunx ring. However, it works perfectly on a photo of the real thing. See attached pictures. Thus, it has now been possible to show an animation of a theoretical original Sunstone with moving parts, which acts as a chronometer and ticks away the whole Great Cycle, starting in 3114 BC with the beginning of history, and ending in 2012 with... (well, see my website http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk for speculation – see the Swirled News ‘Links’ section)


iii) CONCLUSIONS

So, the Wakerley Woods formation shows the two critical numbers in my discovery; 9 (segments) and 18 (quincunxes or Uinals). The 18 central symbols are very suggestive of the four ‘lesser Sun Rays’, though pointing in towards the centre rather than out. The centre of the Sunstone is where the 18 are concealed, beneath the five ‘Suns’ or eras. The numbers 9 and 18 are also significant in the 26,000-year ‘precession of the equinoxes’ cycle, since it takes 72 years for the equinoxes to precess by 1 degree, and therefore nine years for an eighth of a degree, 18 for a quarter, and 36 for a half degree. The numbers also resonate with the Long Count numbers, since:
2 x 18 = 36 (360 days per Tun)
4 x 18 = 72 (7200 days per Katun, or 20-Tun cycle)
8 x 18 = 144 (144,000 days per Baktun, or 20-Katun cycle)
Jenkins has made a good case that the Long Count is based on precession, with the Great Cycle being a fifth of the whole precession cycle (5,200-Tun Great Cycle x 5 = 26,000 Tuns).

The number 9 is also reminiscent of Carl Calleman's theory that the nine Underworld Cycles (‘Hells’) of Mayan mythology represent the nine levels in the hierarchy of time cycles which make up the Long Count. This represents an evolutionary progression which goes all the way back to the Big Bang.

We had a Tun represented in a crop formation at Avebury Trusloe in 1999 (18 ‘tadpoles’ within a ‘fried egg’, surrounded by a ring of 20 circles). Last year we had a Baktun represented at East Kennett (a ‘waffle’ grid of 20 x 20, representing 20 Katuns of 20 Tuns each = 400 Tuns = 1 Baktun). Now we have a formation which suggests a secret knowledge of the 13-Baktun cycle, and maybe the precession cycle; possibly even the age of the Universe!

On the other hand, it could be a pizza (following a fried egg in 1999 and a waffle in 2000)…


[Many thanks to Nick Nicholson for the formation photo and diagram]