The Mexica calendar, by contrast, simply reset at zero at the end of a cycle. The Mexica would have no way of conceiving such a specific date so far into the future. Yet it is the Mexica, not the Maya, who trafficked in the apocalypse. The Classic Maya had almost no tradition of cataclysmic endings though they may have picked it up centuries later from groups like perhaps the Mexica.
For them, is just a year when several of their calendars reset, like for modern calendars. Taube, who is helping interpret the paintings around Xultun, says the hysteria totally misses the point. It's not that Maya were tracking the apocalypse but that they saw significance in every new day. With multiple calendars, ancient Mesoamericans had a different combination of dates for every day, each combination having a special significance.
Almost as if every day was a holiday. It's going to have multiple shadings of possible meaning. In a way, it's a richly rewarding way to go through time. You are not just ticking off a day in your calendar. Each day is just percolating with all of these different meanings and recollections and hopes. Back at the museum, Magaloni shakes her head over people asking about the prophecy. Museums like this, she says have a much bigger message to tell of the past. Namely, they celebrate and inform the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and try to uncover their culture that was nearly eradicated during the Spanish Conquest.
It's not about the world ending; it's about cycles of time. They [the Maya] are really in love with those calculations and they are discovering the universe through their calculations.
Erik Vance is a science writer and relatively new father. His first book, Suggestible You National Geographic, , is about how belief affects the brain. Credit: Nick Higgins. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. More From Forbes. Nov 10, , pm EST. Nov 9, , pm EST. Nov 9, , am EST. Edit Story. Jun 15, , pm EDT. I cover science and innovation and products and policies they create. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
This would be written as, for example: 9. This gives us a total of 1,, days approximately 3, solar years since the beginning of the last Creation, at the Maya calendar round position of 10 Chuen, 4 Kumku. This would be equivalent to a date sometime in our year A. One of the most important roles of the calendar was not to fix dates accurately in time, however, but to correlate the actions of Maya rulers to historic and mythological events.
The acts of gods performed in the days of myth were reenacted by Maya rulers, often on the anniversary of the original event - a date which was carefully calculated by Maya priests. The calendar was also used to mark the time of past and future happenings. Some Maya monuments, for example, record the dates of events 90 million years ago, while others predict events that will take place 3, years into the future. The calendar also predicted the future, as our astrological zodiac does.
For example, the Maya believed that a person's birthday or day-sign determined their fate through life. The newborn child was thus connected with a particular god, and remained under that god's influence.
Some gods were more auspicious than others, and a child born under a well-wishing god was considered lucky. A child born under a less kind deity had to ensure throughout his or her life that the god was propitiated - especially during vulnerable periods like the unlucky uayeb of the solar year.
Many scholars have wondered why the Maya calendar was so complex. In part, it was because Maya priests made all decisions about dates for sacred events and the agricultural cycle. There was thus no need for the average person to understand the calendar, and it could be as elaborate as the priests wanted. The ancient Maya cycle still survives in southern Mexico and the Maya highlands, under the care of calendar priests who still keep the day count for divination and other shamanistic activities.
These priests juggled cycles of time and calculated when several of these cycles would coincide. Back to Exhibitions.
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