Mayan Calender Past 2012

[belovelife]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/story/2012-05-08/maya-apocalypse-calendar-2012/54879760/1

 

Discovered in the ruins of Xultun (SHOOL-toon) , the astronomical calendar was unearthed from a filled-in scribe's room. While about 7 million Maya people still live in Central America today, the "Classic" Maya civilization of pyramid temples had collapsed there by about 900 A.D., leaving only a few birch-bark books dating to perhaps the 14th century as records of their astronomy, until now.

 

 

-=--------------------

 

so if the civilization dies 900 ad, then why was there writinngs in the 14th century?

[CraigD]

Interesting article, BL.

 

Having not read Saturno et al’s Sciencemag article, I don’t understand the details of their research, but gather the gist of it is that they’ve discovered an ancient Mayan calendar system different from and contemporary with the well-known Mayan Long Count.

 

This isn’t surprising to me, as as a veteran of Y2K computer system remediation projects I’m familiar with several present day calendars systems – that is, with different integer “day ones” – not widely known, even to other computer programmers. Like us, I expect various little communities of Mayan calendarists had different systems unknown beyond each community, as well as a few well-know ones in common.

 

so if the civilization dies 900 ad, then why was there writinngs in the 14th century?

It’s rare, perhaps without historic precedent, for everyone in a civilization to perish without passing on their knowledge and traditions. When archeologists say “classical Mayan civilization collapsed around 900 AD”, they mean something like what historians mean when they say “classical Western civilization collapsed around 500 AD”, with the “decline and fall” of the Roman Empire.

 

Just as small numbers of post-classical period Roman scholars continued their traditions, I expect the same occurred with post-classical Mayans. I don’t know, and don’t think archeologist know with much certainty, if the Mayans had an equivalent of the European Renaissance, where much of the “lost” knowledge of the classical period was regained and improved upon. I’m inclined to think not, because the Aztec empire was in such an intellectually and politically poor state when a small band of Westerners invaded it, despite their numeric disadvantage, they won.

[Turtle]

Interesting article, BL.

 

Having not read Saturno et al’s Sciencemag article, I don’t understand the details of their research, but gather the gist of it is that they’ve discovered an ancient Mayan calendar system different from and contemporary with the well-known Mayan Long Count....

 

i don't get that gist at all. from the article in the op:

...

"The numbers we found indicate an obsession with time and cycles of time, some of them very large," Saturno says. "Maya scribes most likely transcribed the numbers on the wall in this room into (books) just like the ones later seen by conquistadors."

 

Explorers first reported the site of Xultun, once a large Maya center, in 1915. But it was only two years ago that National Geographic Society-funded archaeologists noted a small residential room partly exposed by looters. The room's walls proved to hold murals and small, delicate hieroglyphs inscribed in rows between paintings of scribes and rulers that not only corresponded to a 260 day ceremonial calendar and 365-day year, but the 584-day sky track of Venus and 780-day one of Mars.

...

 

it appears to me the system is the same; what is different is that some of the dates written on the newly discovered wall(s) are well past the supposed 2012 "end" of the mayan calendar. recall that the only mention of that supposed 2012 end is a single incomplete stella and that most of the mayan books were destroyed by the spanish catholic priests, making any new mayan writing a notable discovery in its own right.

Edited July 22, 2012 by Turtle

[Guest MacPhee]

i don't get that gist at all. from the article in the op:

 

 

it appears to me the system is the same; what is different is that some of the dates written on the newly discovered wall(s) are well past the supposed 2012 "end" of the mayan calendar. recall that the only mention of that supposed 2012 end is a single incomplete stella and that most of the mayan books were destroyed by the spanish catholic priests, making any new mayan writing a notable discovery in its own right.

 

Does it really matter what the Mayans wrote? Whatever it was, hardly merits wasting time over. Probably some gibberish based on lack of scientific knowledge. Like Giant Serpents Swallowing the Sun If The Mayans Didn't Beat Drums, or something equally inane. Sounds like carp, and I don't blame the Spanish for junking it.

 

Nowadays we have proper science. Shouldn't we concentrate on developing that - not getting bogged down with old rubbish like what Mayans wrote on walls?

[belovelife]

that is just so rude

 

i bet you believe that europeans had calculus before the mayans also

 

 

 

 

[Turtle]

Does it really matter what the Mayans wrote? Whatever it was, hardly merits wasting time over. Probably some gibberish based on lack of scientific knowledge. Like Giant Serpents Swallowing the Sun If The Mayans Didn't Beat Drums, or something equally inane. Sounds like carp, and I don't blame the Spanish for junking it.

 

Nowadays we have proper science. Shouldn't we concentrate on developing that - not getting bogged down with old rubbish like what Mayans wrote on walls?

 

that is just so rude

 

i bet you believe that europeans had calculus before the mayans also

 

yes it's rude, but no the mayans did not have calculus. seems to me you both are on a par when it comes to ignorance. good grief.

[belovelife]

barely had the wheel also i bet

[Turtle]

barely had the wheel also i bet

 

what the hell does that mean? either you have a wheel or you don't.

 

never mind. i might as well be talking to a couple of nematodes.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Turtle

[belovelife]

<---trylobite

[CraigD]

i bet you believe that europeans had calculus before the mayans also

As Turtle notes, Mayan’s didn’t have calculus. Neither did the Spanish who conquered them in the 1520s, because nobody had it ‘til the 1680s, and it wasn’t widely known ‘til the mid 1700s.

 

Belovelife, you need to understand that, in a mathematical context such as is assumed in these forums, “calculus” refers to a specific kind of math which involves functions and specific kinds of transformations of functions know as derivatives and integrals, rooted in the concept of limits and/or infinitesimal numbers. It doesn’t mean, as I suspect you believe “the ability to calculate”, though the word has this more general meaning in some non-mathematical contexts.

 

You also need to support your claim with links or references, as our site rules require. If you did, you wouldn’t make so many blatantly wrong claims, and be considered such a simpleton by folk like Turtle.

 

The same goes for you, MacPhee, and also, per our rules, don’t be rude and offensive. There are plently of websites where you can be as nasty a proponent of cultural genocide or any other hate speech you like – this is not one of them

 

barely had the wheel also i bet

what the hell does that mean? either you have a wheel or you don't.

The subject’s a bit more complicated than a simple have/don’t have it. I think it’s accurate to say that ancient Mayans “sort of” had the wheel.

 

There’re many artifact Mayan toys that have wheels, but no larger scale applications of the concept, such as wheelbarrows or larger human or animal drawn carts. Curiously, they seem to have had the idea of axle-less rollers, but used them to crush and compact rock and soil for roads and buildings, not to carry heavy objects.

 

They also lacked potters wheels, having instead a device of similar function that I’d describe as a top – a disk resting on top of a board, but again, without an axle. They had spindles, used for spinning fiber, usually cotton, into thread – but again, this is a small, axel-less wheel.

 

There are several anthropological theories for why the pre-Columbian Americans never used wheels the way ancient in Africa/Asia/Europe did: their lack of strong draft (pulling) animals, their lack of non-ornamental metalworking, but like so much about these people, they’re really speculation. Perhaps American’s geographic isolation simply prevented them from seeing and imitating the technology

 

Sources: Real smart folks, but no wheel by Herman Smith ; wikipedia article Wheel

[belovelife]

13 moons per cycle

[LaurieAG]

Here's a Mayan Calendar link posted on hypography years ago. The cycles for the Tzolkin and Haab calendars are explained but it's a bit weird.

 

http://starroot.com/cgi/daycalc.pl

[Turtle]

Here's a Mayan Calendar link posted on hypography years ago. The cycles for the Tzolkin and Haab calendars are explained but it's a bit weird.

 

http://starroot.com/cgi/daycalc.pl

 

"How? through the use of the Dreamspell Oracle to arouse and reconstruct the memory of galactic time. By reconstructing the third-dimensional space suit, the human body, with its fourth-dimensional holon, galactic time is the direct revelation of the law of the kin. ...

 

yeah; that it explains it alright.

[Deepwater6]

If you were not from this planet and I handed you a calendar of 2112 you would see that there is nothing past Dec. 31st. It's not the end of the world it's just the end of the calendar. GET YOURSELF A NEW CALENADR. This thing hs fed itself into a mania, it's ridulous. :P