In most basic terms, it is:

1. A center.
2. It is also a source-point, or “creation place.”

The first thing is to recognize is that the region of the Galactic Center contains several features - visible to the naked eye - that call attention to it as a unique place along the Milky Way. These are:

1. The Milky Way is filled with brighter stars and is wider in the region of the Galactic Center.
2. The dark-rift, or Great Cleft, of the Milky Way extends to the north of the Galactic Center.
3. The cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic.

Two Factual Indicators

Now we can access established, academic (not my own), identifications in Mayan ethnoastronomy and starlore.

1. Among the modern-day Quiche Maya, the dark-rift is called the xibalba be. This mean “road to the underworld.” In the ancient Maya Creation text, the Popol Vuh, this same feature serves as a road to the underworld and is also called the Black Road.

Associated iconography with the “underworld portal” concept includes caves, monster mouths, and birthing portals. In general, the Milky Way was conceived as a Great Goddess and the dark-rift was her birth canal. This demonstrates that the Maya understood the region of the Galactic Center as a source-point or birth place.

2. The cross formed by the Milky Way with the ecliptic near Sagittarius has been identified at Palenque and elsewhere as the Mayan Sacred Tree. In the Popol Vuh, it is the Crossroads. The cross symbol, according to accepted epigraphic and iconographic interpretation (e.g., on thrones), denotes the concept of “center” and usually contextually implies a “cosmic” or “celestial” center. The concept of “cosmic center” and the principle of world-centering, was important to Mesoamerican astronomers, city planners, and Maya kings - who symbolically occupied and ruled from the “cosmic center.” Thus, the Maya, via the Sacred Tree/Cosmic Cross symbology, understood the region of the Galactic Center to be a center.

Center and birthplace - understandings that are true to the Galactic Center’s nature. This is not speculation, but assemblage of academic evidence. I repeat here the evidence available in my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, which contains 24 pages of bibliography and 20 pages of academic documentation in end notes.

I speak of “region” in referring to the Galactic Center becasue the visible “nuclear bulge” of the Galactic Center is not an abstract, invisible point, is not limited to high frequency radio spectrum, but rather covers a large area or “region” in the night sky. Now, my book argues, as its primary thesis, that the Maya intended 2012 to mark the rare alignment of the solstice sun with the band of the Milky Way. In astronomical terms, this is the alignment of the solstice meridian with the Galactic equator - an astronomical fact. Notice that my thesis does not require knowledge of the Galactic Center in order for it is to accepted. Nevertheless, knowledge among the ancient Maya of the Galactic Center as a “creation place” and “cosmic center” is strongly implied, indeed demonstrated, by established Maya concepts, as outlined above.

Ancient Maya knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes is the hitch that most closed-minded scholars invoke to discredit my work. The evidence for precession knowledge is found in the academic data, in asrchaeastronomical realignment of temples, in the Creation monuments and texts, in the structure of the Long Count calendar, and in the work of respected Mayanists like Gordon Brotherston and Eva Hunt. Appendix 2 of my book surveys the evidence. Citations to the work of Brotherston, Tedlock, Schele, Smiley, Hunt, Aveni, etc. etc. etc. are available upon request (electronically) and are also contained in my book. Important points that are demonstrated here, which will help us understand how and why the Maya knew where the Galactic Center is located:

1. We need to recognize that naked eye observation alone can identify the uniqueness of the Galactic Center region.
2. We need to compare ancient Mayan terms and metaphors with modern scientific terms and metaphors to determine if the ancient Maya had an accurate understanding and conception of it. Clearly, without even using speculation but rather by accessing the available and accepted academic data, they did.
3. We need to spearate unfounded accusations of my work as new age psychobabble from the integrative, deductive, and well-researched and documented approach that it is.

I am trying to establish here a foundation for astronomers to approach my material without judgment before the evidence I’ve assembled is assessed. I anxiously await further dialog, comments, and feedback.

John Major Jenkins author of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 kahib@ix.netcom.com