35 Among the Maya it represented the five directions: north, south, east, west and center. The design also includes the quincunx, five dot, design which in Mayan has the phonetic value bi or be. Swift Creek pots appear to also represent this glyph. It looks like a flower with four petals sometimes with a dot in the center of each petal. The Mayan glyph for “sun” is known as kin.

As Malbrath notes, “the double-headed serpent on Lintel 25 intertwines with a volute bearing a heavy-lidded eye framed by five radiating elements, a form of Venus symbol that may refer to Venus as the ‘big eye.’” 34 ( Continues…) It should also be noted that Venus was also seen as a big eye in the sky. Thus the Swift Creek flint-eye is consistent with Mesoamerican beliefs. He then balanced the “Book of days,” (Sacred Calendar) and left, vowing that he would always watch down on us, his beloved people.

He (the Solar Beam) told us how to pray and fixed for us days of fast and feasting. Our old men and women, the astronomers and astrologists, could understand him and he could understand them. Then he spoke, his voice was like thunder, booming across the valley. There he stood for all to see, shining day and night. From the light there came a great, a very powerful being who stood on the very top of the rock and glowed like the sun in the sky. It glowed for four days in the sky, then lowered itself to that rock (the rock can still be seen at Tenochtitlan de Valle in Oaxaca ). On the day we call Tecpatl ( Flint ) a great light came from the northeastern sky. Coincidentally, the Spanish friar Juan de Cordova recorded a very interesting Mayan story that relates flint with sunlight and an all-seeing eye: Mesoamerican flint glyphs with various eye motifsįlint in Mesoamerican cultures is associated with the sun. Throughout Mesoamerica flint was often portrayed with an eye or face. The same symbol can be found on numerous Swift Creek pots.

On the same Olmec pottery sherd can be found another glyph that looks like an eye and represents flint. Olmec pottery sherd with diamond version of EK “star” glyph as well as flint “eye” 31 When contained within a cartouche they stand for the day sign Lamat 32 on the Mayan calendar and often associated with Venus, the morning and evening star. The earliest examples show up on Olmec pottery. Interestingly, these designs predate the Maya. Mayan Venus/EK glyphfeaturing rounded-cross design Mayan EK “star/Venus” glyphfeatures both a cross and diamond In Mayan, both of these symbols, the diamond and cross, are closely associated and used both separately and sometimes together to represent the Mayan word ek, “star/Venus.” The fact that the Swift Creek potters placed both symbols in a cartouche shows they believed these two symbols conveyed closely related or identical concepts. 30 The fact that this Swift Creek design features two such star symbols may represent Venus as the Morning and Evening star.Īnother Swift Creek design known as “mask like design with unusual mouth element” appears to contain two other versions of the Mayan ek glyph both within a cartouche. Other Swift Creek designs known as “long-nose mask design,” and “unidentified creature” are similar to various versions of the Mayan ek glyph which means “star” or “Venus.”Īlthough we do not know the meaning of the symbols on the Swift Creek pots we can deduce that they also have a relationship to stars since both designs feature two iterations of a symbol which consists of concentric circles with a central dot that has been shown to represent stars on petroglyphs in Georgia. As noted by Susan Milbrath, “in the Codex Borgia, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoat is the patron of the day Wind, the counterpart of Ik.” 28 The plumed serpent in Mexico is also associated with Venus. Due to its duck bill-like face it has been conjectured that it represents the wind aspect of the plumed serpent known by the Aztecs as Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl. Although this similarity has been dismissed by mainstream scholars as coincidental 26, in light of all the linguistic evidence it seems more likely that it is far from coincidental.įor instance, a plumed serpent-like figure has been found on a Swift Creek pot that is similar to feathered or plumed serpent designs from Mexico 27. Researchers noted in A World Engraved: Archaeology of the Swift Creek Culture that many of the symbols found on Swift Creek pottery are similar to designs from Mexico. As noted in my article “ Mayan Words Among Georgia’s Indians?” the Hitchiti language has several words of Mayan origin. In fact, this pottery tradition appears in the same places where the Hitchiti language was spoken thus the two are likely related. The arrival of corn at the Fort Center and Ortona sites in the Lake Okeechobee area of Florida by 200 AD coincides with a pottery tradition known as Swift Creek. Distribution of Swift Creek sites in Southeastern U.S.

Maya glyphs and meanings