296 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
The oldest date for the pyramid goes back to late pre-Classic times, no earlier
than 400 B.C.; it was probably completed in its ultimate form around 200 A.D. These
construction periods are many centuries after the 12th-century B.C. destruction
of Atlantis, which the Cholula pyramid was intended to memorialize, thereby
demonstrating how seminal the cataclysm continued to be regarded by subsequent
generations of Mesoamericans.
(See Asteroid Theory)Xi Wang Mu
The Chinese goddess of compassion, also known as Kuan Yin, whose name and
function as protectress of the Tree of Life from a sunken kingdom suggest Lemurian
origins. She mythically represents an actual event—namely, the transference of
Lemurian spirituality to China after the inundation of the Pacific realm.
(See Mu, Tree of Life))Xicalancans
Described in the Cakchiquel Manuscript, a collection of ancient Mexican
traditions collected for Spanish conquerors by Aztec chroniclers in the mid-
16th century. The Xicalancans were said to be Mexico’s first civilized people,
“forerunners of the races that followed; they came from the East in ships or
barks” after the Third Sun. This was one of four epochs in Earth’s history defined
by universal catastrophes. The Third Sun ended with the near-destruction of
the world by “the fire from heaven.” Such an event places the arrival of the
Xicalancans at sometime in the late third millennium B.C., when Atlanteans were
fleeing the second series of their island’s major geological upheavals.
The Xicalancans were doubtless the same people archaeologists refer to as
the “Olmecs,” who experienced a sudden increase in population about 1200 B.C.,
when Atlantis was finally destroyed. The progenitors of Mesoamerican civiliza-
tion, the Olmec were believed to have developed their first ceremonial centers at
La Venta, circa 1500 B.C., but further research by writer Zecharia Sitchin and
others implies a more probable date around 3000 B.C.Xmucane and Xpiyaoc
Cited in the Mayas’ great cosmological book, the Popol Vuh, as the god and
goddess who made the first animals and human beings. The beasts, however,
grew into ferocious monsters, while men degenerated into mean, selfish perver-
sions. Regretting their own creations, Xmucane annihilated the whole lot in a
universal flood. In Plato’s account, the Atlanteans’ decadence similarly prompted
their punishment.