Shamanism in the Art and Iconography of Ancient Peru

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There are tens of thousands of beautiful pieces of art from pre-Columbian Peru, but their meanings and iconography remain mostly a mystery to this day. Traditional writing did not exist in ancient South America, so the messages encoded in their art are vital clues to understanding who they were and how they lived. Themes including warfare, human sacrifice, erotic sex, and a pantheon of bizarre deities have been noted, but there's a deeper layer – one of the shamanic ability to contact the supernatural world. Even in iconography traditionally interpreted as violence or sex, there is an underlying element of shamanism that may belie the true messages their ancient artists intended to convey.

This lecture presents a fascinating reinterpretation of ancient Peruvian art, revealing shamanic healing ceremonies, the calling of supernatural spirits, and how decapitation is not execution, but actually about enslaving the souls of one's enemies. A powerful deity will be revealed, a jaguar-like being who emerged from his lair in the Amazon thousands of years ago. From the origins of civilization in the Andes, all the way up through Inca times, the Fanged Deity was the one true god of the shamans depicted in ancient Peruvian art, an all knowing and all powerful creator deity who has been hidden in the shadows of misinterpretation until the groundbreaking work of your presenter, Dr. Edwin Barnhart.

Archaeoastronomy in the Ancient Ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia - The Zenith Passage

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Around 1300 AD, the City of Angkor in Cambodia was likely the largest city on Earth. Recent studies have finally found a way to estimate its ancient population and discovered its citizens numbered almost 1 million people! Despite that amazing fact, very little is known about the Khmer culture people who lived there. The urban complex spans almost 1000 square kilometers, most of which is still hidden underneath dense rain forest overgrowth. Years of domination by the Khmer Rouge in the mid twenty century and the land mines they left behind prevented archaeology from reaching Angkor until just a few decades ago. Even know, as the ruins are open for tourism and protected by the Cambodian government, many questions remain unanswered. One of those questions is what they knew about astronomy and Dr. Barnhart is hot on the trail.

Over the course of two expeditions to Angkor, he has discovered that the temples produce spectacular displays of shadow and sunlight, illuminating their inner altars and statues on the day of zenith passage. During this presentation, he will show the photos of those light displays, explain how they relate to ancient astronomy, and present his grounds breaking theories on why zenith passage was so important to the ancient Khmer. 

Maya Hieroglyphs - The Story of How the Code was Finally Broken

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Five hundred years ago, Spanish conquistadors swept like a storm through Mexico and Central America virtually ending Maya civilization. European diseases wiped out 90% of the population in the first 50 years after contact and the survivors where Christianized and enslaved. When this happened, Maya hieroglyphic writing, one of only five original written languages ever created, vanished from the Earth. For centuries they lay hidden in the jungle, carved on monuments that were little more than curiosities to early explorers. Even as the age of archaeology began in the late 1800's, those that studied them had no idea what they said.

The beginnings of true decipherment began not in Mexico, but in a humble office of a brilliant scholar in Moscow. This lecture chronicles the strange set of stories and coincidences that led to the final breaking of the Maya code in 1973 and how the Maya are now speaking from the past to tell us who they were in their own words.