From: William Beaty 
Subject: Mayan Ruins and Unexplained Acoustics, Part 1 (fwd)
Message-ID: 
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 11:28:31 -0700 (PDT)

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This mayan acoustics file is also elsewhere online, on a gopher I
think.  I don't recall the URL, but it's there on my TAOS HUM home
page:

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/hum/hum.html
Taos Hum discussion group



....................uuuu / oo \ uuuu........,.............................
William Beaty  voice:206-781-3320   bbs:206-789-0775    cserv:71241,3623
EE/Programmer/Science exhibit designer        http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/
Seattle, WA 98117  billb@eskimo.com           SCIENCE HOBBYIST web page


Two additional  Mayan sites with unexpected acoustics

Palenque,has a group of three pyramids from which a three way
conversation can be held from atop.

Kohv(u)nlich was also mentioned by an archeaolgist to have "wierd"
acoustics.

                             CHICHEN ITZA

Various excerpts regarding the Great Ballcourt's acoustics

The North Temple The north Temple of the Great Ball Court is another
example of the Maya's ability to achieve beauty of proportion. The
inside wall which now is an effective sounding board, is covered with
a carved frieze still bearing traces of color. Standing in this temple
one can speak in a low voice and be heard distinctly at the other end
of the court, five hundre feet away

                      ---------------------------

ACOUSTICS  Acoustically the court is amazing - a conversation at one
end can be heard 135 metres away at the other end and if you clap, you
hear a resounding echo  A remarkable feature of the Ball Court is its
acoustics A personn standing in one of its ends may whisper being
heard 170 meters afar. Or may drop a coin and the sound travels that
distance. The court has no vault. It is open to the sky and has no
continuity between the walls, the prescenium and the throne of the
bearded Man If one stands in the center of the court, near one of its
walls and claps the hands, he will hear at least nine times the echo
of the clapping. Also if one yells. This phenomena seems to be unique
"Thru the Lense, Guide to the Ruins of Chichen Itza" Jose Diaz Bolio
1971

            -----------------------------------------------

If it were a moonlight night and he wanted to give his guests a
special treat, he ordered a phonograph concert in the Ball Court.
Tarsisio and the servants set up the phonograph in the north temple,
where the back wall slopes forward and forms a perfect sounding board.
At the opposite end of the court the servants supplied cushions and
the guests sat on a raised dais among the half-ruined pillars of the
south temple that extends eighty feet across the end of the Court. The
acoustics were amazing, for the audience could hear perfectly the
strains of Sibelius, Brahms, and Beethoven.The total effect was
indescribable. The brilliant Yucatecan sky formed a great overhead
dome, the moon cast ghostly light on the stone walls and the north
temple, and the calm air, rarely disturbed by a breeze, added a sense
of mystery to the setting. After the performance the guests, awed by
the uncanny effect, walked quietly back to the Casa Principal through
the moonlight, still under the magic spell.

One of the visitors in 1931 was Leopold Stokowski, who spent four days
with Morley. He brought the latest recordings of his Philadelphia
Symphony Orchestra and played the in the Ball Court, at the Castillo,
and at the Temple of the Warriors. One staff member believed that if
Stokowski "and Morley could have found a sponsor, their plan to
conduct a symphony with instruments all over the place would have gone
through. We'd have loved it too." Actually, Stokowski had a far more
serious purpose, as he and Morley attempted to learn the acoustical
secret of the Ball Court. At the time, the conductor was designing an
open-air theater for concert work. He and Vay spent hours placing the
phonograph in different positions in the Ball Court in order to
determine the reflecting surfaces.

Theoretically, the structure should have had poor acoustics, but as
every visitor to Chichen knows, it possesses amazing properties of
sound. After days of experiment, they failed to learn the secret,
which remains one of the unsolved mysteries of ancient America.
"Sylvanus G. Morley"  Robert Brunhouse 1971

                ---------------------------------------
                         UNEXPLAINED ACOUSTICS

"Chi cheen Itsas" famous "Ball-court" or Temple of the Maize cult
offers the visitor besides its mystery and impressive architecture,
its marvellous acoustics If a person standing under either ring claps
his hands or yells, the sound produced will be repeated several times
gradually losing its volume, A single revolver shot seems machine-gun
fire. The sound waves travel with equal force to East or West, day or
night. disregarding the wind's direction. Anyone speaking in a normal
voice from the ''Forum" can be clearly heard in the ''Sacred Tribune''
five bundred feet away or vice-versa. If a short sentence, for
example, "Do you hear me?'' is pronounced it will be repeated word by
word. .. Parties from one extreme to the other can hold a conversation
without raising their voices. .

This transmission of sound, as yet unexplained, has been discussed by
architects and archaeologists... Most of them used to consider it as
fanciful due to the ruined conditions of the structure but, on the
contrary, we who have engagedin its reconstruction know well that the
sound volume, instead of disappearing, has become stronger and
clearer. . . Undoubtedly we must consider this feat of acoustics as
another noteworthy achievement of engineering realized millenniums ago
by the Maya technicians.

"Chi Cheen Itza" Manuel Cirerol Sansores 1947

                 -------------------------------------

Beside he Tiger temple stands the open oblong patio known as the Ball
Court, or Tlachtli, as which the Mexican Department of Monuments
fortunately uncovered and restored. In the distant past, this court
was an important place for sports. The parallel stone walls are thirty
feet high and one hundred and twenty feet apart. In the exact center
of each wall, twenty feet from the ground, are two huge stone rings,
each carved to represent a serpent biting its tail. The casual
stranger would have to stand a long while under these rings before
making the right guess as to their use. And his first discovery, if he
had a friend at a distance, would be that a shout uttered under either
ring is echoed at least a dozen times.


Although the Great Ball Court has been reffered to as a "Whispering
Gallery" (National Geographic Jan. 1925), it is unlike others
including the Dome of St. Pauls Cathedral in London, Statuary Hall in
the Capitol at Washington, DC, the vases in the Salle des Cariatides
in the Louvre in Paris, St. Johns Lateran in Rome, The Ear of
Dionysius at Syracuse, and the Cathedral of Girgenti.

All these are considered accidents. All  rely on curved walls, ceiling
etc to focus the sound, indeed the Whispering Gallery effect is
considered a acoustic defect caused by a long curved surface.The Great
Ballcourt has no curved surfaces.


The Castillo (Pyramid) Chichen Itza

A series of three articles were published in the Wall Journal during
1994, written by Frank Hodgson.  The Wall Journal ( P.O. Box  1217,
Lehigh Acres, FL 813-39-0451 fax) is a trade journal covering the
highway noise barrier manufacturing and related industry.  The Hodgson
articles seem to imply that the Castillo (Pyramid) at Chichen Itza
(located about two hundred yards away) can reflect sound in a
nonlinear way shifting the frequency upwards independent of angle of
incidence and unaffected by the character of the incoming signal .
Hodgson suggests that this shifting effect could be harnessed to
produce highway noise barrier wall design that would reflect sound
that was pleasant. (from Truck noise to Bach!).  Also used for concert
halls etc

Some say that when you clap your hands in front of this pyramid the
reflected sound resembles a ricocheting bullet.

They also say that when one speaks in a normal voice from the top of
the Castillo, another 150 yards away can hear the words clearly even
when the area is filled with tourists and peddlers. Structures at
Tikal are said to provide  similiar acoustics .

The Castillo is also a Mayan calander with 4 stairways of of 91 steps
each and a  upper platform for a total of 365.  During the spring and
autumn equinox a series of shadow triangles are projected on the north
staircase which has serpent heads at  the base. The triangles undulate
in assent in March and descent in September.

Nonlinear echo,  sound projection, large stone calender with
undulating serpent twice a year.

 Can anyone out there top that?



-
  WAYNE VAN KIRK  LQYM67A@prodigy.com



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