Scientists finally figured out how the Mayan calendar works
Miscellaneous / / April 21, 2023
The 819-day cycle of the Mayan calendar has baffled scientists for decades. Decoding began back in the 1940s, but so far no one could explain what this calendar is tied to. But anthropologists John Linden and Victoria Bricker from Tulane University (USA) believe that they have finally solved this riddle.
IN article, published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, they explain that the solution required thinking more broadly. The calendar seemed illogical to other researchers, because in fact it is calculated not for 819 days, but for 45 years.
If the calendar is extended to 20 cycles of 819 days, a connection is found with the cycle of the planets visible from the Earth. But it’s worth starting with the device of the calendar itself.
The Mayan calendar is actually a complex system of smaller calendars. It has four blocks of 819 days each, and each block has its own color. Previously it was believed that the colors correspond to the cardinal points: red - east, white - north, black - west, yellow - south. The failure of the theory was called only in the 80s.
Instead, yellow and white are associated with zenith and nadir respectively. This is consistent with astronomical observations: the Sun rises in the east, moves to its highest point (zenith), sets in the west, and then moves towards the nadir.
It is also known that the Maya accurately calculated synodic periods visible planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In the case of Mercury, there were no questions: its synodic period is 117 days - exactly 1/7 of a cycle of 819 days. With other planets, this did not work out - until the theory of 20 consecutive cycles.
If we take 20 periods of 819 days as a basis, then for the three nearest planets everything adds up to whole numbers:
- Mercury - 140 periods of 117 days;
- Venus - 28 periods of 585 days;
- Mars - 21 periods of 780 days;
Jupiter and Saturn also have a connection, albeit not with the full version of the calendar. 39 synodic periods of Jupiter of 399 days fit perfectly into 19 cycles, and 13 periods of Saturn by 378 days into 6 cycles.
The authors consider the connection with another Mayan calendar, the 260-day calendar, to be even more convincing. tzolkin. 16380 is the lowest common denominator for 260 and 819, which is exactly what you get when you multiply 819 by 20 for a 45-year cycle.
As a result, it turns out that the 819-day calendar is a complex system created taking into account planetary cycles, which also made it possible to quickly convert the date and time with another sacred calendar tzolkin.
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