Strangest Mysteries of the World and Beyond !

The Mayan Calendar

The Mayan Calendar: 

The Mayans were an advanced civilization who inhabited the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. The civilization consisted of several indigenous but related tribes and collectively they created a civilization which was on par with that of Ancient Greece in field of scientific advancements made.

The Mayans had a special penchant for time keeping. They understood time as something sacred and believed it their duty to keep track of the days. The Mayans had developed three separate calendars for different purposes:

1. TZOLKIN: It was a 260-day calendar mend to keep track of religious ceremonies and other festivals.

2. HAAB’: It was a 365-day solar calendar and kept track of ordinary days. It was very much like the calendar we use today.

3. LONG COUNT CALENDAR: It is this calendar which is so famous. The Mayans, it is believed, used this calendar to keep track of both the distant past and possibly, the ‘future’.

Because the Mayans considered time as a cyclic phenomenon, all three calendars were created in a way that they reset themselves after a certain period. The first two – Tzolkin and Haab’ – reset every 52 years but the Long Count Calendar reset after (roughly) 5,125 years and what has made this Long Count Calendar so famous is the fact that it is going to reset again on 21 December, 2012.

When the Europeans arrived on the American continent, all but four Mayan books were burnt so it is hard to exactly find out what the Mayans themselves thought of the Long Count Calendar. However, it is has been interpreted, from the what little survives, that the Mayans believed that the Gods had destroyed three races of humans for not keeping track of time – Mayans themselves considered it a sacred duty – and considered themselves the fourth race.

The Mayan calendar dates back to August 11, 3114 BCE in Gregorian reckoning and entails two separate calendar cycles.

The religious belief system of the ancient Maya, which included cycles of creation and destruction, informed their concept of time. Many historians who have studied the Mayan calendar believe that it most likely began as a type of Farmers' Almanac or divinatory tool. The Maya saw time as both linear and cyclical and had two main calendar-like systems to map these different timeframes. Like the months and the year of the Gregorian calendar, the Mayan calendar was based upon the repetition of seasons and events in the cosmos. The Maya calculated time in two cycles, a short, cyclical cycle called the "Calendar Round," and a long, linear cycle called the "Long Count."

The shorter measure of time was calculated by a calendar cycle of fifty-two years, or 18,980 days, and was called the Calendar Round.

 The Calendar Round was a combination of two smaller calendar measurements called the Sacred Round and Haab’ cycles, which were used for the measurements of one’s birthday as well as communal celebrations, religious festivals and agricultural cycles.

The longer phases of time were measured by the Long Count calendar.

The Long Count calendar is said to record the world’s creation, even though the Mayans did not consider this to be the beginning of time. Each day of the Long Count has a unique number, commonly represented as five digits separated by periods, such as 1.2.4.9.11. Each number represents specific units of chronological measurement, largest to smallest, from left to right. The units are named baktun, katun, tun, winal, and kin. A baktun is equal to 144,000 days, a katun is 7,200 days, a tun is 360 days, a winal is 20 days, and a kin is equal to a single day. The number of days indicated by the five digits is equal to the number of days since the Mayans believed the world was created.

The Mayans also recorded celestial movements, such as lunar phases, the rising and setting of the sun, and lunar cycles. The Mayans believed that all planets, the moon, and the sun were divine. In addition, the cycles of the planet Venus were recorded, as this planet was thought to be the bearer of bad luck and war. They also watched and recorded the thirteen constellations of the zodiac. The Mayan calendar and other Mayan cosmic recording systems are extremely intricate.

Through mathematical calculations, astronomers and scholars have been able to convert the dates of the Long Count calendar to those of the Gregorian calendar. Scholars generally agree that the beginning date of the Mayan calendar is August 11, 3114 BCE; according to Mayan belief, this date marks the creation of the world. In Mayan inscription, this date is represented as 13.0.0.0.0, where the thirteen serves as a zero. According to the Mayan mathematical system, the calendar covers a span of time that is 13 baktun, or 187,200 days. At the end of the time span of 187,200 days, the calendar dating system will once again read 13.0.0.0.0.

According to Mayan belief, this date will be the anniversary of the creation of the world, and a cycle of creation and destruction will have been completed. The parallel Gregorian calendar date is December 21, 2012, which also represents the winter solstice. However, unlike the popular beliefs of the end of the world surrounding the 2012 phenomenon, the Mayans never had an explicit prophecy regarding what would happen when the calendar ended.

Those who find significance in the end of the current long-count cycle hold numerous theories and predictions regarding the date December 21, 2012. Speculations today include the end of the world, extraordinary cosmic events,world peace, and more.

 Others have interpreted the end of the long-count cycle of the Mayan calendar through the lens of their own religious belief system. Still others have made speculations regarding astronomical occurrences including a rare alignment of all the planets which will be the cause of numerous, destructive, outcomes, though astronomers have confirmed that the alignment of such planets on December 21, 2012 will not happen.