The Maya Calendar
by Marci RanzerThe Mayan civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica were a people dedicated to studying the heavens and the meaning of time. The Mayan’s recorded celestial events one half billion years in the past by using extremely complex calculations of astronomy.
Mayan society was practically utopian; a peaceful people who worshipped time, a world run by tranquil priests and timekeepers, a place of sacred observatories devoted to the tracking of the stars and astronomy. Mayans lived in an idealized world of sacred beliefs and higher learning.
The alignment and design of the Mayan calendar predictions and calendar itself was so precise that once each year they cast a unique shadow that recorded the Spring Equinox. Like the star charts of an astrologer, Mayans mapped the positions of the stars and planets for centuries to come.
The Maya calendar was unlike any other. The calendar included great gears or wheels that illustrated their concept of time and astronomy. Mayans included hieroglyphs on the larger wheels which marked the 365 days of the solar year. The hieroglyphs on the two smaller wheels represented the 260 days of the priests’ sacred calendar. This was basically a Mayan astronomy system which identified the astrological significance of every single day. Using the Mayan calendar, Maya priests predicted the precise time and place of solar eclipses. For the average Maya it must have seemed as if their leaders controlled the awesome power of the heavens.
It is believed by some that the cycle of creation will cease to exist at precisely 4 Ahau, 3 Kankin, according to the Maya calendar. 2012 is the equivalent year on today’s calendar. December of the year 2012 is not exactly the Mayan prediction of the end of the world; however it is thought that a significant event will occur during that specific month and year.
The accuracy of Mayan astronomy still astounds people today. The cycles of the moon were mapped so precisely that today, 1,500 years later, Maya calendar predictions and calculations are off by only 33 seconds. Even the moment of Maya creation some 5,000 years ago, is a fixed point in the sacred calendar.
