U: Ualuvu levu to Uxmal 281
An identical motif was emblematic of the Pelasgians, a “sea people” from
Atlantis, who brought civilization to the Eastern Mediterranean. Even earlier,
the egg-serpent symbol originated with the Atlantean Navel of the World mystery
cult. Its practitioners regarded the snake as a metaphor for the immortality of the
human soul, based on the serpent’s ability to slough off its old skin for a new one.
The egg was the omphalos, the “Navel Stone,” signifying life perpetually reborn
from the self-renewing demiurge implicit in the snake.
The recurrence of this imagery throughout Atlantis’ former sphere of influence
(the Atlantean kingdom of Azaes dominated Yucatan) implies that the tenets of
its chief mystery cult survived and flourished among the Mayas, whose Uxmal
pyramid embodies its esoteric symbols.The monument’s legendary dwarf is perhaps
reflected in the Old World Cabiri. According to the Carthaginian writer
Sanchoniathon, these were gods descended from the Rephaim, or Titans, “that is,
Atlas and his kin,” and worshiped in sacred mysteries at Samothrace, Thebes,
Macedonia, Lemnos, Phrygia, together with parts of the Peloponnesus (Spence,
174). The Cabiri themselves were envisioned as dwarves, great builders, and met-
allurgists armed with hammer tools, through which they were connected to
Hephaestus, the divine artificer.
A pre-deluge antiquity associated with the Cabiri and the similarity of their
cult to the Osirian mysteries underscores an Atlantean provenance. These are
the same esoteric principles sculpted in serpentine symbolism on the flanks of
Uxmal’s foremost structure. Yucatan’s
“Pyramid of the Magician,” so unique
among all the other sacred architecture
of Maya Civilization, appears to have
been built by descendants of cult-bearing
immigrants from Atlantis—descendants
who preserved and monumentalized the
Cabiri tenets of spiritual regeneration
for many centuries after the Atlantis
catastrophe.
The entire ceremonial complex is
oriented to various risings and settings
of Venus, the “star” associated with
Kukulcan, the fair-haired “Feathered
Serpent,” who brought civilization to
Yucatan from across the Atlantic Ocean.
This symbolic celestial alignment accents
the post-deluge, Atlantean character of
Uxmal’s founders and users.
(See Kukulcan, Navel of the World,
Venus)The massive stairway fronting Uxmal’s Pyramid of
the Magician.