I met a guy today who is an archaeologist. But unlike most archaeologists who focus on the what they see, this guy focuses on sound. Since I had been to Chichen Itza in Mexico, he began to tell me a little bit about the acoustics at that site. First, he began to talk about the Ball Court. You know, the court where they would play some basketball like game but without using their hands or arms. Hundreds of feet away, priests could hide and speak near the temples and their voices can be heard on the ball court. The guy I met claims that the priests would use this echo chamber to mimic the voices of the gods so that the players felt like the gods were speaking to them as they were playing. In 1931, many hundreds of years after these temples were built, the acoustics of Maya were studied for the construction or new concert halls.
The second thing he talked about was the acoustics of a clap. Not "the clap". If you stand a couple hundred feet away from the front of the pyramid and clap the echo bounces off of the stairs and sounds like a "whoop" that starts at a high pitch and the pitch then lowers. According to this guy, that is the same sound made by the Quetzal Bird. The Quetzal bird was holy to the Maya and signified creation - You may be familiar with their god Queztalcoatl from some history class you once took. Again, this guy claims that the temples and pyramids housed the gods and the stairs were specifically constructed to make this sound so that the priests could make it appear as though the gods were responded to their requests. It's a common question when visiting these pyramids why the stairs are so narrow. Basically half of my foot fit on the step so it's scary coming down. The answer is usually "They were tiny people". And my next question was, "Well then, why are the stairs so friggin' steep if they were so tiny?" To that there's never a good answer. Until now. The steep steps were necessary for the Quetzal echo.
I tried to make that story as short as possible - Hopefully I'm not the only one that's amazed by the accomplishments of the Mayan civilization that occurred hundreds of years before European civilizations.
Da Bears - We seem to still be living in 1985 when it comes to football. Some dude decided to make a giant corn maze glorifying the 20 year anniversary of the Bears Superbowl.
In case you didn't read Cousin Dave's comment yesterday, check out Cereality.
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