textfiles/bbs/KEELYNET/KEELY/mayacous.asc

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|  File Name      : MAYACOUS.ASC     |  Online Date     :  10/28/95          |
|  Contributed by : Steve Wingate    |  Dir Category    :  KEELY             |
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The following was from a post to Glenda Stocks NeoTech list server.  It
provides some fascinating information on the acoustic properties of certain
Mayan ruins.  I lifted it for KeelyNet.

                ->  Posted by: Steve Wingate <steve@linex.com>
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From: LQYM67A@prodigy.com (Wayne Van kirk)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.research
Subject: Mayan Ruins & Unexplained Acoustics 1
Date: 20 Oct 1995 12:42:34 GMT
Organization: Prodigy Services Company  1-800-PRODIGY
Message-ID: <4685fq$135a@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>

Were the Mayans really good at physics or did they have Help?
   Note: These acoustics have never been studied to date.
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                          Musing About the Soundscape
                    Mayan Ruins and Unexplained Acoustics:

Note: This discussion started on Alt.Sci.Physics.Acoustics Newsgroup and was
      forwarded to the acoustic-ecology discussion group. All notes are in
      sequence of posting.

----Initial Topic--------------------------------------

At least two structures at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexican display
unusual and unexplained acoustical properties.

The Great Ballcourt:

The Great Ballcourt is 545 feet long and 225 feet wide overall.  It has no
vault, no discontinuity between the walls and is totally open to the sky.

Each end has a raised "temple" area.  A whisper from one end can be heard
clearly at the other end 500 feet away and through the length and breath of
the court.  The sould waves are unaffected by wind direction or time of
day/night.  Archaeologists engaged in the reconstruction noted that the sound
transmission became stronger and clearer as they proceeded.  In 1931 Leopold
Stokowski spent 4 days at the site to determine the acoustic principals that
could be applied to an open-air concert theater he was designing.  Stokowski
failed to learn the secret.

The Castillo:

This structure is a temple that looks like a pyramid and is the one most
commonly pictured on travel brochures for the Mexican Yucatan.  Apparently if
you stand facing the foot of the temple and shout the echo comes back as a
piercing shriek.  Also, a person standing on the top step can speak in a
normal voice and be heard by those at ground level for some distance.  This
quality is also shared by another Mayan pyramid at Tikal.

I believe a good case can be made that the Maya somehow engineered these
acoustical phenomena.  After months of research, I cannot locate any
scientific discussion or investigations regarding any of this.  Any
information or comments appreciated.

----Response--------------------------------------

I was at Chichen Itza two years ago.  These acoustic phenomena are
fascinating. The idea that they were intentionally engineered is not
implausible, but it seems clear that it would have been different than our
definition of 'engineering' in the modern world. It is really cool though and
I would enjoy knowing more about it if people can add to the discussion.

----Response--------------------------------------

There are other "undocumented" acoustical properties of the ruins. When I was
there several years ago the guide showed me a stack of what looked like stone
artillery shells. He said that to this day no one has been able to determine
what they were for.

Then with a wink he picked up two sticks and proceded to play a tune on the
"shells". Each one was precisely tuned. Perhaps the "ancients" knew more about
acoustics than we give them credit for.

--Response from reposting on acoustic-ecology

discussion group --------------------------------------

A similar phenomenon to that reported at the Mayan ballpark structure can be
experienced in Vancouver. At Science World two parabolic dishes have been set
up across a large open noisy room. One can speak softly into one and the sound
can be easily heard at the other end.  I'm sure the two are not identical but
the concept is the same and there is quite a bit of novelty appeal.  The
dishes are about 300 feet apart and have approx. a four foot radius.

The effect only works when one speaks at or listens from the focal point of
each dish which is not consistant with the report from Mexico, however, it
might be a starting point into thinking about how it works.

I also heard a similar pheomenon during last year's Vancouver Folk Music
Festival. I work at the Jericho Sailing Centre about 1/4 mile due west of the
westernmost edge of the festival site. Between the sailing centre and the site
is a small hill, large enough to block out a good deal of the ruckus (except
of course for the low frequencies). The west wall of the centre is about 35
feet high and about 60 feet long, it's surface is stucco and glass.

Standing in front of it, I could hear perfectly the performances from one of
the westernmost stages of the festival. My theory (and this is just plain
speculation, no math involved here) is that the wall is high enough to reflect
the sound that was being blocked by the hill. The stucco provided enough
surfaces at the right angle to bounce the sound down.  It could have also been
bent down around the hill, by a temperature inversion or some other
atmospheric or geographical factor but that theory breaks down because the
sound was quite clear only in front of the wall.  Clarity also varied at
different distances and positions in front of the wall.

----Response--------------------------------------

I think you are awfully lucky to be able to go to the wonderful Vancouver Folk
Festival whenever you like.  ;-)

Seriously, there's also Michelangelo's dome in St. Peter's/Rome.  A whisper
from the dome can be heard in the church.  I believe there are some humorous
stories associated with this particular phenomenon.

----Response--------------------------------------

RE: The Castillo:

The 'piercing shriek' sounds like it originates from some sort of a periodic
structure.  Is the Castillo covered with stone steps?  A similar effect occurs
when you clap your hands near an iron fence or corregated wall, and the
impulse is returned from each corregation.  The echo then sounds like a
'twang.'

The acoustic ducting effect is something else again.  Might a periodic
structure on the building surface act to diffract the waves and make them
follow the surface?

----Response--------------------------------------

I was in Northern Guatemala last year at some famous ruins that I have
forgotten the name of (mostly due to my brush with death from an intestinal
parasite).  Two pyramids stand face to face with a football field sized court
between them, and low steps and wall on either side.  One could easily hear a
person talking in a normal voice at the opposite end of the grass covered
courtyard.

As we were working on a film and were trying to get wide shots, we used this
phenomenon to our advantage,  where yelling or radios would have been the
normal practice.  What was even more amazing, were that the stones of the
pyramid were some type of resonant stone!  I sat on one a foot square and when
tapped it would produce a clear short sustained sound.

A large part of the pyramid seemed to be made of this "limestone" as the
locals called it, and the result was that as a person decended from the top of
the pyramid, on the slightly over-sized steps, they would drop slightly and
thus create a huge gonglike sound that would resonate across the courtyard and
out into the surrouding area.  It was amazing to hear the whole temple resound
to a persons footsteps!  Well worth the trip for you ear-tourists!

----Response--------------------------------------

A few months ago, someone from Houston sent me a copy of an article called
"Parametric Amplification of Sound - Ancient Mayan Wall Provides Example for
Design of Modern Acoustical Surfaces" written by Frank Hodgson in something
called the Wall Journal (not to be confused with the Wall Street Journal)
May/June 1994.

It's a bit over my head, but he seems to be saying the unusual acoustics at
Chichen Itza are due, in part, to the gaps which are part of the surface of
the temple's exterior walls.  The fellow in Houston says a researcher from
Central Florida University was doing an acoustical survey there in late '94.
I'll let you know if I hear anything more specific.

One other thought on this subject - back in 1988 or thereabouts, acoustician
Steve Garrett (then at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monetery, CA) did some
work on ancient Peruvian Whistling pottery vessels.  They made a sound when
you poured water from them.  Garrett was convinced there was more to the
vessels than that.  He got a couple of them and found they were tuned fairly
precisely, if you blew into them.

Two vessels blown simultaneously produced difference tones.  He hypothesized
this was intentional and a clue to the Vessel's real purpose.  There's a paper
on this somewhere in the annals of the Acoustical Society.

----Response--------------------------------------

I'm very interested in this type of phenomenon, and I've been mounting a
research program at my institution to evaluate the absorptive and reflective
properties of surfaces _in situ_.  No doubt the gaps in these Mayan temple
walls create a favorable interference pattern for the range of frequencies
involved in the sounds of their ceremonies.

----Response--------------------------------------

Yes, the building has 4 stairways of stone which represent the number of days
in the year, 91 steps per side and an upper platform for a total of 365. Also
the Maya had an 18 base for math and 18 months in a year.  The pyramid has
nine levels divided by the staircases or 18.

During the spring and autumn equinoxes a series of shadow triangles are
projected on the north stair case which has serpent heads at the base. The
triangles undulate in ascent in March and descent in September.  Add this to
the Nonlinear echo, and the sound projection from the top you get one tricky
pyramid.  The Question is was all this accidental or by design. If by design
How? The Mayas were stone age people.

----Response--------------------------------------

In December 1994 I travelled to Belize, and visited a ceremonial site on the
Guatemalan border which is still being excavated, called Xunantunich.  When we
had climbed the tall pyramid and looked down into the courtyard where people
assembled to be addressed, we noticed a strange illusion.  The people walking
across the courtyard appeared to be smaller and more distant than one would
have expected, since when in the courtyard the pyramid seems to loom quite
close above.

We could also observe that the people in the courtyard were talking,
apparently quite loudly, but that their voices sounded muted and distant. Yet
as we spoke to one another, our voices seemed amplified. A large recess in the
wall roof the pyramid behind us functioned as a resonator, and gave our sounds
back to us with a bright, ringing quality. We could be heard quite clearly in
the courtyard below. Our host suggested that this enabled one to sound larger
than life and that such designs helped to maintain the mystique of the Mayan
class structure. He also pointed out that the stone used in building the
pyramid had resonant qualities, although the structures as we see them now are
not in their finished form -- they are missing the polished stucco surfaces
and wood additions they were designed for.

----Response--------------------------------------

There's a considerable history to Mayan architecture, and although the pyramid
we ascended was a work added to periodically, with each generation of ruler,
there is a strong sense of overall design. Remember that the Mayan calendar is
much more accurate than the Roman, and that their mathematical skills are as
yet not fully accounted for.  Perhaps their sense of sound in general is worth
study?

----Response--------------------------------------

I posted the original Chichen Itza: unexplained acoustics in
sci.archaeology.mesoamerican newsgroup.  and got some interesting responses
including one on Tulum on 07/18 or 19 and another regading Chichen Itza's
"Musical Phalluses". These were public posting and should be discussed in
WFAE.

----Response--------------------------------------

Article 1:

"You could also mention Chichen Itza's "musical phalluses".  These are a
series of cones that produce musical tones when tapped with a wooden mallet.
Supposedly, back in the '20s members of Morley's team had some of them set out
in rows like a xylophone and played Xmas carols on them.  I've never read of
any musicologist studying them to determine their pitches and compare them
with Western scales and notation (has anyone else seen something of this
sort?)

About 20 years ago, the cones were laying stacked in piles behind the old park
entrance near the Castillo.  Someone put up a sign saying "Do not hit with
stones", so of course various tourists who otherwise wouldn't have given the
cones a second look banged away at the cones with rocks, breaking many of
them.                                               C.M. Froggy@neosoft.com

Article 2:

Another example:  When I was at Tulum on the Yucatan coast, I seem to remember
that there was a temple which gave a clear and long-range whistle or howl when
the wind velocity and direction were correct.   The guide, for what it's
worth, stated that this was used as a signal to warn of incoming hurricanes
and big storms.  I heard it that day, and I don't think it was an accident
that the sound was generated in this way.

Looks like a pattern here.  The Maya may have had a particular propensity for
acoustic engineering.  Why not, they were great at engineering for
specifically?  It would be an interesting research problem.

                       THIS IS THE END OF THE WFAE FILE

                      WAYNE VAN KIRK  LQYM67A@prodigy.com
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From: LQYM67A@prodigy.com (Wayne Van kirk)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.research
Subject: Mayan Ruin & Unexplained Acoustics 2
Date: 20 Oct 1995 12:44:02 GMT
Organization: Prodigy Services Company  1-800-PRODIGY
Message-ID: <4685ii$1u0a@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>

Two additional Mayan sites with unexpected acoustics

Palenque,has a group of three pyramids from which a three way conversation can
be held from atop.  Kohv(u)nlich was also mentioned by an archeaolgist to have
"weird" acoustics.

---------------------------------------------------------CHICHEN ITZA

Various excerpts regarding the Great Ballcourt's acoustics

The North Temple

The north Temple of the Great Ball Court is another example of the Maya's
ability to achieve beauty of proportion. The inside wall which now is an
effective sounding board, is covered with a carved frieze still bearing traces
of color. Standing in this temple one can speak in a low voice and be heard
distinctly at the other end of the court, five hundred feet away.

---------------------------
ACOUSTICS

Acoustically the court is amazing - a conversation at one end can be heard 135
metres away at the other end and if you clap, you hear a resounding echo.  A
remarkable feature of the Ball Court is its acoustics. A person standing in
one of its ends may whisper being heard 170 meters afar.  Or may drop a coin
and the sound travels that distance. The court has no vault. It is open to the
sky and has no continuity between the walls, the prescenium and the throne of
the bearded Man.

If one stands in the center of the court, near one of its walls and claps the
hands, he will hear at least nine times the echo of the clapping. Also if one
yells. This phenomena seems to be unique.

   "Thru the Lense, Guide to the Ruins of Chichen Itza" Jose Diaz Bolio 1971
                -----------------------------------------------
If it were a moonlight night and he wanted to give his guests a special treat,
he ordered a phonograph concert in the Ball Court.  Tarsisio and the servants
set up the phonograph in the north temple, where the back wall slopes forward
and forms a perfect sounding board.

At the opposite end of the court the servants supplied cushions and the guests
sat on a raised dais among the half-ruined pillars of the south temple that
extends eighty feet across the end of the Court. The acoustics were amazing,
for the audience could hear perfectly the strains of Sibelius, Brahms, and
Beethoven.  The total effect was indescribable.  The brilliant Yucatecan sky
formed a great overhead dome, the moon cast ghostly light on the stone walls
and the north temple, and the calm air, rarely disturbed by a breeze, added a
sense of mystery to the setting.  After the performance the guests, awed by
the uncanny effect, walked quietly back to the Casa Principal through the
moonlight, still under the magic spell.

One of the visitors in 1931 was Leopold Stokowski, who spent four days with
Morley. He brought the latest recordings of his Philadelphia Symphony
Orchestra and played them in the Ball Court, at the Castillo, and at the
Temple of the Warriors. One staff member believed that if Stokowski "and
Morley could have found a sponsor, their plan to conduct a symphony with
instruments all over the place would have gone through. We'd have loved it
too."

Actually, Stokowski had a far more serious purpose, as he and Morley attempted
to learn the acoustical secret of the Ball Court. At the time, the conductor
was designing an open-air theater for concert work. He and Vay spent hours
placing the phonograph in different positions in the Ball Court in order to
determine the reflecting surfaces.  Theoretically, the structure should have
had poor acoustics, but as every visitor to Chichen knows, it possesses
amazing properties of sound. After days of experiment, they failed to learn
the secret, which remains one of the unsolved mysteries of ancient America.

                  "Sylvanus G. Morley"  Robert Brunhouse 1971
---------------------------------------
UNEXPLAINED ACOUSTICS

"Chi Cheen Itsas'" famous "Ball-court" or Temple of the Maize cult offers the
visitor besides its mystery and impressive architecture, its marvellous
acoustics. If a person standing under either ring claps his hands or yells,
the sound produced will be repeated several times gradually losing its volume,

A single revolver shot sounds like machine-gun fire.  The sound waves travel
with equal force to East or West, day or night.  Disregarding the wind's
direction.  Anyone speaking in a normal voice from the ''Forum" can be clearly
heard in the ''Sacred Tribune'' five bundred feet away or vice-versa. If a
short sentence, for example, "Do you hear me?'' is pronounced it will be
repeated word by word. .. Parties from one extreme to the other can hold a
conversation without raising their voices. .

This transmission of sound, as yet unexplained, has been discussed by
architects and archaeologists...  Most of them used to consider it as fanciful
due to the ruined conditions of the structure but, on the contrary, we who
have engaged in its reconstruction know well that the sound volume, instead of
disappearing, has become STRONGER and CLEARER. . . Undoubtedly we must
consider this feat of acoustics as another noteworthy achievement of
engineering realized millenniums ago by the Maya technicians.

"Chi Cheen Itza" Manuel Cirerol Sansores 1947
------------------------------------------
Beside the Tiger temple stands the open oblong patio known as the Ball Court,
or Tlachtli, as which the Mexican Department of Monuments fortunately
uncovered and restored. In the distant past, this court was an important place
for sports. The parallel stone walls are thirty feet high and one hundred and
twenty feet apart. In the exact center of each wall, twenty feet from the
ground, are two huge stone rings, each carved to represent a serpent biting
its tail. The casual stranger would have to stand a long while under these
rings before making the right guess as to their use. And his first discovery,
if he had a friend at a distance, would be that a shout uttered under either
ring is echoed at least a dozen times.
                             --------------------------------------
Although the Great Ball Court has been reffered to as a "Whispering Gallery"
(National Geographic Jan. 1925), it is unlike others including

     the Dome of St. Pauls Cathedral in London,
     Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington, DC,
     the vases in the Salle des Cariatides in the Louvre in Paris,
     St. Johns Lateran in Rome,
     The Ear of Dionysius at Syracuse,
     and the Cathedral of Girgenti.

All these are considered accidents.  All rely on curved walls, ceiling, etc.
to focus the sound, indeed the Whispering Gallery effect is considered an
acoustic defect caused by a long curved surface.  The Great Ballcourt has no
curved surfaces.

The Castillo (Pyramid) Chichen Itza

A series of three articles were published in the Wall Journal during 1994,
written by Frank Hodgson.  The Wall Journal (P.O. Box  1217, Lehigh Acres, FL
813-369-0451 fax) is a trade journal covering the highway noise barrier,
manufacturing and related industry.  The Hodgson articles seem to imply that
the Castillo (Pyramid) at Chichen Itza (located about two hundred yards away)
can reflect sound in a nonlinear way shifting the frequency upwards
independent of angle of incidence and unaffected by the character of the
incoming signal.

Hodgson suggests that this shifting effect could be harnessed to produce a
highway noise barrier wall design that would reflect sound that was pleasant.
(from Truck noise to Bach!).  It could also be used for concert halls, etc..
Some say that when you clap your hands in front of this pyramid the reflected
sound resembles a ricocheting bullet.

They also say that when one speaks in a normal voice from the top of the
Castillo, another 150 yards away one can hear the words clearly even when the
area is filled with tourists and peddlers. Structures at Tikal are said to
provide similiar acoustics.

The Castillo is also a Mayan calander with 4 stairways of 91 steps each and an
upper platform for a total of 365.  During the spring and autumn equinox a
series of shadow triangles are projected on the north staircase which has
serpent heads at the base. The triangles undulate in ascent in March and
descent in September.

Nonlinear echo, sound projection and a large stone calender with serpents that
undulate twice a year.

Can anyone out there top that?

                      WAYNE VAN KIRK  LQYM67A@prodigy.com
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Vanguard Notes

In case you missed it, consider the following excerpt from the above document:

   ...we who have engaged in its reconstruction know well that the sound
   volume, instead of disappearing, has become STRONGER and CLEARER. . .

Constructive interference to naturally amplify the original sound, marvelous.

This could definitely be used as Keely claimed to produce an 'augmentation' of
force by the proper use of waveguides, a Bose-Einstein condensate, and/or a
harmonious mass aggregate resonance.

In such a structure, a small 'introductory impulse' would be greatly amplified
and continue to resonate for a long period of time based on the 'purity of the
graduation'.

Disney world or the Mayan ruins, decisions, decisions........<g>...>>>  Jerry
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