The 5-ton stone slab, the most remarkable burial artifact ever unearthed in the Americas, has been identified as an astronaut in a space ship and as a man falling into the underworld and being swallowed by the jaws of death. I think the Sarcophagus shows a man who is aware of his own immortality and who knows he will be regenerated after death and transformed into divinity. This tomb carving of his explains the processes as he understands them.

Lord Pacal, the great Mayan king, was entombed in 683 CE under the seventy-five foot high Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, Mexico. In 1952, after three seasons of work removing the rubble and boulders that had been pushed down the tunnel, archeologists found a 30 ft. long x 13 ft. wide burial chamber at the bottom. It contained a 12-ft. long x 7-ft. wide carved slab that appeared to be the floor. Archaeologists described the interior of the corbel vaulted tomb as a "fantastic, ethereal sight, a huge magic grotto carved out of ice, the walls sparkling and glistening like snow crystals. Stalactites hung like tassels of a coat and the stalagmites on the floor looked like the dripping from a great candle."

The lime issuing from the walls and ceiling created these startling visual effects. When the archeologists lifted the slab from the coffin, they were met once again with a fantastic sight as they gazed upon the Great Green of the Cosmic Ocean - the thousand pieces of jade covering the king's body.

"The great man - he was probably a priest - had no gold ornaments, but here were quantities of jade objects-beads, rings on every finger, bracelets, ear ornaments, and exquisitely carved figurines. These were in the form of flowers, little gourds, bats, snakes and heads, and figures with the characteristics of certain Mayan gods. The buried man had a jade ornament in each hand and another in his mouth; his neck and shoulders were covered with a huge collar ­and breast ornament of jade beads. On his face were the remains of a mask of jade mosaic." (I)

The explanation that is currently offered regarding the ocean of jade that covered the king is that he was a great king, highly esteemed by his subjects. There may be another reason for the quantity of jade, one more complex and fascinating.

The Sarcophagus of Lord Pacal could be the king's expression, within the context of a single, unified, conceptual construct, of the World Soul that contains his own individual soul. When art and artifacts finely depict cosmic truths, many interpretations become possible. With that in mind, the offered interpretation here is that this artifact, along with the others contained in this book, show varying portrayals of the diagram called herein the World Soul (my version, the completed lightmatrix tree, left), which was constructed based upon the ancient Kabala Tree of Life. Therefore, the Sarcophagus of Lord Pacal, the Shroud of Turin, the Maze of Daedalus and many more identical, hidden patterns found in art and collected in this book are interpreted to show that glyph.

According to the symbolism displayed on the sarcophagus, Lord Pacal may have believed the cosmos was preceded by a time when Nothing Existed. This Nothing, which Existed before the material universe was emanated and before anything existed in the sense that we think of as existence, was "That One Thing, breathless, breathed by Its own nature: Apart from It was nothing whatsoever." (2) In Egypt, That One Thing was characterized as That-Which-Is, a "darkness beyond all conception, a thrice unknown darkness." (3) In this Nothing, Creator and Created, Thinker and Thought, Mind and Idea existed in the Primal Realm of Silence, in the primordial state of unindifferentiation, where no bonding was experienced because no individuation existed. The Primal Realm of Silence is portrayed on the top portion of the Sarcophagus, as recorded in the Mayan creation myth of the 16th century CE, 800 years after the Sarcophagus and the Temple of Inscriptions were completed.

"Before the world was created, Calm and Silence were the great kings that ruled. Nothing existed, there was nothing. Things had not yet been drawn together, the face of the earth was unseen. There was only motionless sea, and a great emptiness of sky. There were no men anywhere, no birds or fish, no crabs. Trees, stones, caves, grass, forests, none of these existed yet. There was nothing that could roar or run, nothing that could tremble or cry in the air. Flatness and emptiness, only the sea, alone and breathless. It was night; silence stood in the dark. In this darkness the Creators waited, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucamatz, the Forefathers. They were there in this emptiness, hidden under green and blue feathers, alone and surrounded with light. They are the same as wisdom. They are the ones who can conceive and bring forth a child from nothingness." (4)

Within this context, the child brought forth is Lord Pacal. Atop Pacal's sarcophagus (left) is the green and blue Quetzal bird, the sacred bird. This is Portal 1 (P1) on the World Soul (left [Illus. 2]). Hidden under the green and blue feathers of the sacred bird are the round faces of the Forefathers, P2 and P3, who are "the same as wisdom." Horizontal 1 (Hl) joining P2 and P3, is only partially defined. The sacred bird, having emanated it, stands on a little section of it. If this Quetzal bird is turned upside-down, so that its head dips into the area of V1 just below H1, then we can see the same concept as the one shown by the falcon that pierces the limit in the papyrus text. Just as the falcon regenerates the individual, so does the Quetzal regenerate Lord Pacal.

Vertical 1 (Vl), which begins the vertical pillar (the Central Pillar and world axis) of Pacal's World Soul, extends to a small semicircle, hidden Portal 4 (P4). All the P4 area and above are on the other side of the Limit and in the realm of Mind and Idea, where "the Creators waited, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucamatz, the Forefathers. They were there in this emptiness, hidden under green and blue feathers."