64 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
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Bacab
A Mayan name given to anthropomorphic figures usually carved in relief
on sacred buildings. They simultaneously represent a single god and his own
manifestation as twin pairs signifying the four cardinal directions. The Bacabs
are portrayed as men with long beards, distinctly un-Indian facial features, and
wearing conch shells, while supporting the sky with upraised hands. Their most
famous appearance occurs at a shrine atop Chichen Itza’s Pyramid of the Kukulcan,
the Feathered Serpent, in Yucatan. Placement in the holy-of-holies at this structure
is most appropriate, because the Mayas venerated Kukulcan as their founding
father—a white-skinned, yellow-bearded man who arrived from over the Atlantic
Ocean on the shores of prehistoric Mexico with all the arts of civilization. Bacab is
synonymous with Kukulcan and undoubtedly a representation of Atlas in Yucatan.
Indeed, the conch shell worn by the Chichen Itza Bacabs was the Feathered
Serpent’s personal emblem, symbolic of his oceanic origins.
Plato tells us that sets of royal twins ruled the Atlantean Empire, which was
at the center of the world. So too, the Bacabs are twins personifying the sacred
center. Among the many gifts they brought to the natives of Middle America was
the science of honey production, and even today they are revered as the divine
patrons of beekeeping. In ancient Hindu tradition, the first apiarists in India were
sacred twins called the Acvins, redoubtable sailors from across the sea. Each brother
Bacab presided over one year in a four-year cycle, because Bacab was the deity