Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkest Hour
the mayan calendar is legit. It's kind of scary actually.
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Yeah, I think people were irresponsibly lumping him in with Nostradamus. From what I've read of him he did make many unfounded claims. Some have mentioned in this thread that the Mayans were also charlatans. I've never read that from
any source I've ever seen about the Mayans; about them making unfounded claims.
Their accuracy is astonishing and all they used were a cross-staff device to measure angles between stars and moons and planets, a pole in the ground to measure shadows cast, and a vertical zenith tube, which measure the zenith of planets, moons and stars. I guess when you look through the tube and were able to see these objects they were at their zenith. headscratch.
It makes me wonder how potent those drugs were they were taking. Peyote cactus, shrooms, and tobacco were used to get them in a trance-like state. They thought the sky was a message board of the gods, and by combining drugs and meditation they opened portals and explored the message board of the skies.
I would love to see Kukulkan, a giant 4 sided temple with 91 steps on 4 sides, plus the tiptop shared step to equal 365, totalling the days in a year. They used a ton of numerology in archaeology and in their inscriptions.
Most of the civilized world uses the Gregorian calendar which replaced the Julian Calendar, but the Mayans used about
20 calendars at once! Here are some of the cycles:
Agricultural cycle: 2 calendars-1 is 130 days measuring corn growing cycles, the other 180 days, measuring insect cycles. Some insects were helpful, others harmful, so knowing the cycles was important. It would tell them, depending on what solar year it was, which crops to plant.
Human Gestation cycle: 260 days. The Mayans believed there was a connection between astronomical events and the human body, and this calendar, also related to the Venus cycle, is supposed to describe that connection.
(Traditional)solar cycle:365 day (365.2425 technically, and yes they knew all about that and the 400 year rule-take 1 day off)
Moon cycle:29.5 days from new moon to following new moon
Galactic cycle:26,000 for precession of the equinox, this time measures the cycle that takes place from the Earth's wobbling like a top as it moves around the sun. It doesn't move in a fixed circle, and consequently the constellations and north stars we see are constantly changing. After 25.6-25.8k years, it resets itself to that original point on its axis, and in another 25.6-25.8k years will do the same again.
Prophetic calendars: some of their calendars are strictly prophetic in nature, the knowledge born from the trances, and can't be proven with science.
Long Count Calendar: 5,126 years, or 13 baktuns. This is the one that gives the dates like 0.0.0.0.0, but the first day of a new baktun is actually 13.0.0.0.0.
Tzolk'in Calendar: Same as the human gestation cycle, this is the most sacred Mayan calendar. This is the calendar that all the others relate back to. It's like the center gear that drives all the others. It tracks what they believe was the divinatory year, a 260 day span. Linking the center of the galaxy to the center of each person, and linking planetary and terrestrial cycles to the human body through the 13 major joints and the 20 fingers and toes. If you don't understand this, take it on good faith that it meant something damn important to the Mayans.
