The Mayans were simply amazing mathematicians and scientists. They observed patterns and rhythms meticulously over days, weeks, months, and years. It is likely that their writing system was created in order to record their scientific observations. They tracked every movement in the sky, on land, and in the sea to determine if there were patterns. Those who saw the patterns could predict the future and gained great power.
The sun and moon cycle are the most obvious and like most ancient civilizations they developed a sun calendar of 365 days, with some adjustments, and a lunar calendar of 29 or 30 days. Then they developed a Venus calendar, tracking how many days it was an evening star and how many days a morning star. Next they began to track the eclipses. They did this by noticing that eclipses always occurred in multiples of every 5 or 6 lunar cycles. An eclipse period lasts up to 30 days and usually contains at least one partial solar eclipse at full moon and one partial lunar eclipse at new moon, although they are usually only visible on part of the earth.
One Mayan text was a notation of lunar months of 29 or 30 days and then grouped the lunar months into series of either 5 or 6 months each. This is clearly an eclipse tracker and this is how the Mayans were able to predict eclipses hundreds and thousands of years into the future. Now with super-computers, modern scientists have created a better predictor, but it took over 2000 years.
The Mayans also developed a Long Count, which was a way to track dates. It is about a 5,200 year calendar that began in 3114 BC. There is much speculation on why that date. The Aztecs did not use the Long Count calendar so it is much harder to determine actual (Gregorian) dates on Aztec writing.
One other calendar used by the Mayans was the 260 day calendar or Tzolk’in calendar, also called Chol K’ij, the organization of time. The Aztecs later adapted it. The Mayans set up this calendar since it corresponds to the eclipse cycles. Each eclipse cycle is approximately 173.3 days long, so that there are three eclipse cycles for every two calendar cycles. Coincidentally, the Mars cycle happens to be about 780 days, to that the Mayans also were able to predict the motion of Mars in the sky – for example when it turned retrograde – using three cycles of the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin can accurately predict eclipses and Mars’ motion for over 100 years, which could explain why certain Mayan kings re-set the Tzolkin calendar. Most ethnologists believe it was to establish a new reign and new identity. I believe it was to recalibrate the calendar to the eclipses. Perhaps the king before was put out of power in shame for having wrongly predicted the motion of Mars. (Too bad we couldn’t have used that one to get rid of ‘W’!)
The Tzolk’in 260 day calendar consists of 13 day weeks, which rotate over 20 different day signs. No one has quite figured out why they used a 13-day calendar. What rhythm in life, in the sky, on land, in the sea, has 13 days? I think it has to do with where the Mayan civilization began, along the Pacific Coast of El Salvador and Guatemala. If you fish or sail in the ocean you might know. Next time…
First posted, Dec. 2, 2009 on BlogBox
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