Talk:Pacal the Great

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[edit] Pacal Votan

I have heard of a Mayan sage-king by the name Pacal Votan of Palenque. Apparently, he is one in the same as Pacal the Great. Is this true? I think this deserves some looking into.—This unsigned comment is by 199.79.112.254 (talk • contribs) 16 March 2006.

No, definitely not. "Pacal Votan" is a figment, conjured from the rather overactive imagination of the esotericist and New Age-fantasist author Jose Arguelles, who has written much (but, it seems, learned little) on aspects of mysticism and the Maya. "Pacal Votan" is Arguelles' name for some mystical prophet-like figure he supposes that he has identified, and who he indeed does conflate with the historical Pacal 'the Great' figure; but as with the rest of his ideas he has taken some details from Maya scholarship and blended them with a larger body of cosmological and mystical speculation of his own creation. His views are decidedly beyond the fringes of mainstream studies, and his conception of Pacal Votan bears no relation to the historical ruler of Palenque, Pacal.--cjllw | TALK 04:04, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pacal Tomb Lid

The pivot points on the Tomb lid of Lord Pacal reveal rotation points and when rotated intead of a single picture /glyth images of different scenes that amount to a drama or picture book. And those pictures detail important points of a key ritual, as e.g. the bat god pulling the soul out of Lord Pacal, interpreted to be a death or rebirth scene. (but step on path to enlightenment)

See The Mayan Prophecies: Unlocking the Secrets of a Lost Civilization by Maurice Coterell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.60.110.2 (talk) 10:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but there's no way this book by Cotterell and Adrian Gilbert qualifies as anywhere near a reliable source, and no way that any original statement in it is going to be put in the article. The book has nothing to do with serious Mayanist scholarship and none of it is in any way endorsed by the sources which as an encyclopaedia we are bound to use. The book has even been panned as seriously deficient and poorly researched by others in the "independent Maya research" authorship game, eg by John Major Jenkins[1]. Sorry, but there are no grounds to even mention that book in passing here, or elsewhere. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)