Turned Turtle

This is a story about a bit of scientific sleuthing. Using zenithal positions of the sun, the orientation of a pyramid, and the deflection of a compass needle near the head of a large sculptured turtle, geography professor Vincent H. Malmstrom has made some startling discoveries and is challenging the belief that the cradle of the Olmec civilization, the mother culture of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, lay in the Gulf coastal plain of Mexico.

Malmstrom contends the Olmecs trace their origins instead to the lowland community of Izapa on the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state. The key to Malmstrom's theory is the 260-day sacred calendar used in that region in the days before Columbus. Malmstrom searched for a place where a 260-day interval exists between overhead passages of the sun. He discounted one site because it was founded too late and finally settled on Izapa because of its latitude and because of the presence of the lowland tropical creatures that the Olmecs used to name many of their days.

Malstrom visited the area two winters ago and found evidence that the 365-day secular calendar also began there. The main pyramid at Izapa is oriented in such a way that the sun appears to rise out of the crater of the highest volcano in Central America, thus allowing ancient priests to calibrate both their sacred 260-day calendar and the 365-day calendar.

We haven't forgotten to tell you about the sculptured turtle. This winter Malstrom discovered that a compass needle is deflected sharply near the head of a large sculptured turtle. When the compass was placed near the sculpture, the needle pointed to the turtle's nose. Malstrom speculated that the sculpture of magnetic basalt was deliberately carved so all the lines of magnetic force focused on the turtle's nose. The Izapans, known to be a seafaring people, may have associated the turtle's uncanny ability to navigate over long distances with magnetism.