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This is a limestone bas-relief created about 50 years after the death of Pakal. It was discovered in 2002. The full panel depicts Pakal seated on a jaguar throne surrounded by two descendants and two jaguar priests.
In this section of the bas-relief Pakal is to the right, and at the center is either his son or grandson. To the left is a jaguar priest.
I call this photo:
"Pakal bas-relief".
(The show travels to San Francisco from September 4 - January 2, 2005. California Palace of the Legion of Honor.)
July 30, 04: Maya religion revolves around the mythology of the Hero Twins. From the viewpoint of Jung and archetypal psychology, the Hero Twins were the dominant archetypal form when the vernal equinox was in the constellation Gemini - more than 6 thousand years ago.
In the ancient Maya, I am convinced that we have a window into an era of human history predating the pyramids.
The Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are discussed in the Popul Vuh . See for example "Popul Vuh: The Book of the Ancient Maya" (1954) by Adrian Recinos. English translation (from the Spanish) by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Griswold Morley.
Sept 1, 04 Also compare with Greek mythology: the first ten kings of Atlantis were five pairs of twins - all sons of Poseidon. In ancient Rome we find the mythical founders Romulus and Remus. And in ancient Egypt - Osiris and Set.
In contrast with the Egyptian and Roman brothers, however, there is no conflict between the Maya Hero Twins. Instead they work together against the older gods of the underworld - the Lords of Xibalba. After a harrowing struggle the twins overcome the old order and ascend into the heavens - one twin becoming the sun, the other twin, the moon. On Pakal's sarcophagus, he is depicted about to enter the underworld where he will reenact this drama as one of the twins.
Looked at psychologically, the descent into the underworld can be compared to the ego's confrontation with the unconscious psyche and the hoped-for synthesis between the two. See for example "The Gnostic Jung" selected and introduced by Robert A. Segal (1992).
In more recent times, the Hero Twins can be found in native American legends (in the southwest) and the Mormon church. For example: the twin messengers that Joseph Smith, Jr saw in a vision (1820), or Nephi and Laman the two brothers who founded a fabled prehistoric American civilization, or the Mormon practice of sending two missionaries into the world. ...
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world
That has such people in't!
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
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