Postcard from Mexico - The Mayan Calendar (and the end of the world!)

Chris and Lina's Postcard from Mexico

The Mayan Calendar
(and the end of the world)

Mexican ball game hoop - Click for hi-res image

A hoop used in the famous ball game. The aim was to get a rubber ball (and not a human head) through the hoop using various parts of the body except the hands, Bizarrely, it seems like the winners (or maybe just their captain) was beheaded.

The Maya were a very advanced race who excelled in the fields of mathematics and astronomy. Their calendar was, at the time, the most accurate one in the world surpassed only by the current Gregorian calendar in the 16th century. This was a by-product of their obsession with very long periods of time which they tracked using highly accurate observation of the stars and the planets. In their day-to-day life, the Maya ran two different calendar systems in parallel. One was the Tzolkin (or Sacred Year) which had 13 months of 20 days each, making this "year" only 260 days long. The other was the Haab which had 18 months of 20 days each followed by 5 unlucky days where everyone stayed home and avoided doing anything. This made the Haab a total of 365 days which is similar to the solar year. The Maya specified their dates using a combination of both of these calendar systems which, because of their different lengths, meant that any date combination didn’t repeat until 52 years had elapsed. At the end of this 52 year period there were a further 13 unlucky days (which were their equivalent of our leap years). These 52 year periods were very important to the Maya (and most of the other tribes too). They were paranoid about the sun failing to rise every morning but never more so than at the end of these 52 year periods.

Now here’s an important date for your diary: according to the Maya, the current world will end on 22nd December, 2012 (which is a Saturday if you want to plan around it). Their records describe 4 previous ages which each ended with various world-wide catastrophes with only a few survivors to rebuild civilisation each time (interestingly, one of these ages ended with a flood which is reminiscent of the biblical tale of Noah). The current age is supposed to have started on 13th August, 3114BC and it is supposed to end with devastating earthquakes. They are supposed to have predicted their own decline so you never know…

Carved stone head of serpent - Click for hi-res image

A carved stone serpent's head from a Teotihuacán pyramid.

The Mayan Prophecies book cover - Click to read more about it or even buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Following this tour, I read a book called "The Mayan Prophecies" by Adrian G. Gilbert & Maurice M. Cotterell (who co-authored: "The Orion Mystery" which the intriguing BBC documentary: "The Great Pyramid - Gateway to the Stars" was based on). Amongst other things, this book investigates the Maya’s imminent prediction using a new theory that the Maya’s calendar was based on sunspot cycles and the sun’s complicated magnetic field. This book contains some pretty dubious claims but it also contains some interesting and plausible theories. Apparently the Sun’s magnetic field changes with a period of 260 days - the Mayan Sacred Year! This influences the Earth’s magnetic field and it has been known to periodically invert so that a compass would point south. When this happens, the Earth may be knocked off its axis resulting in the prophesised global earthquakes. The book suggests that, based on the known 25,627 year "wobble" in the Earth’s rotation, a magnetic pole inversion is due to happen imminently. Now I’ve probably not done this book justice by summarising its 368 pages in just one paragraph but, aside from all of these theories, it surprisingly turned out to be an excellent historical guide to the various Mexican civilisations.

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