Mayan Calendar and 2012 Phenomenon

The Mayans were an advanced civilization who inhabited the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. The civilization consisted of several indigenous but related tribes and collectively they created a civilization which was on par with that of Ancient Greece in field of scientific advancements made.

The Mayans had a special penchant for time keeping. They understood time as something sacred and believed it their duty to keep track of the days. The Mayans had developed three separate calendars for different purposes:

1. TZOLKIN: It was a 260-day calendar mend to keep track of religious ceremonies and other festivals.

2. HAAB’: It was a 365-day solar calendar and kept track of ordinary days. It was very much like the calendar we use today.

3. LONG COUNT CALENDAR: It is this calendar which is so famous. The Mayans, it is believed, used this calendar to keep track of both the distant past and possibly, the ‘future’.

Because the Mayans considered time as a cyclic phenomenon, all three calendars were created in a way that they reset themselves after a certain period. The first two – Tzolkin and Haab’ – reset every 52 years but the Long Count Calendar reset after (roughly) 5,125 years and what has made this Long Count Calendar so famous is the fact that it is going to reset again on 21 December, 2012.

When the Europeans arrived on the American continent, all but four Mayan books were burnt so it is hard to exactly find out what the Mayans themselves thought of the Long Count Calendar. However, it is has been interpreted, from the what little survives, that the Mayans believed that the Gods had destroyed three races of humans for not keeping track of time – Mayans themselves considered it a sacred duty – and considered themselves the fourth race.

There are some modern researchers too, who claim to have found a relation between what is going to happen in 2012 and the Maya Calendar (Long Count) and:

1. JOHN M. JENKINGS AND THE MAYA

John Jenkins, an American author and independent researcher, has combined this interpretations of what the Maya knew with modern astronomy.

It is an established fact that on 21 December 2012, the Earth, the Sun and the Galactic Center are going to be in a straight line (galactic alignment). Call it a coincidence or what but the Long Count Calendar also ends on the same day.

On the basis of this John Jenkins asserts that the Mayans were aware of this phenomenon and performed several rituals on the day.

2. DANIEL PINCHBECK AND THE MAYA

This author believes that the human society has reached a phase of development and expects the coming of the Golden Age, as described in Quetzalcoat (a Mayan myth), in 2012.

Another author and professor, Jose Arguelles, argues for the abandonment of “artificial” Georgian Calendar (the calendar we use) and employ, instead, more “natural” Maya Calendar to facilitate the coming of Golden Age.

3. I CHING AND THE MAYA

Terence McKenna, and author and metaphysician, studied an ancient Chinese book I Ching (or Yi Jing) and concluded that history would reach a climax in 2012. It would be a time, during which, everything that can happen will happen. It was only later that he heard that the Maya Calendar had was resetting on the same date.

What is the Long Count?

The Long Count is really a mixed base-20/base-18 representation of a number, representing the number of days since the start of the Mayan era. It is thus akin to the Julian Day Number.

The basic unit is the kin (day), which is the last component of the Long Count. Going from right to left the remaining components are:

uinal	(1 uinal = 20 kin = 20 days)
tun	(1 tun = 18 uinal = 360 days = approx. 1 year)
katun	(1 katun = 20 tun = 7,200 days = approx. 20 years)
baktun	(1 baktun = 20 katun = 144,000 days = approx. 394 years)

The kin, tun, and katun are numbered from 0 to 19.

The uinal are numbered from 0 to 17.

The baktun are numbered from 1 to 13.

Although they are not part of the Long Count, the Mayas had names for larger time spans. The following names are sometimes quoted, although they are not ancient Maya terms:

1 pictun = 20 baktun = 2,880,000 days = approx. 7885 years

1 calabtun = 20 pictun = 57,600,000 days = approx. 158,000 years

1 kinchiltun = 20 calabtun = 1,152,000,000 days = approx. 3 million years

1 alautun = 20 kinchiltun = 23,040,000,000 days = approx. 63 million years

The alautun is probably the longest named period in any calendar.

When did the Long Count Start?

Logically, the first date in the Long Count should be 0.0.0.0.0, but as the baktun (the first component) are numbered from 1 to 13 rather than 0 to 12, this first date is actually written 13.0.0.0.0.

The authorities disagree on what 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to in our calendar. I have come across three possible equivalences:

13.0.0.0.0 = 8 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = 13 Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian)

13.0.0.0.0 = 6 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = 11 Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian)

13.0.0.0.0 = 11 Nov 3374 BC (Julian) = 15 Oct 3374 BC (Gregorian)

Assuming one of the first two equivalences, the Long Count will again reach 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 or 23 December AD 2012 - a not too distant future.

The date 13.0.0.0.0 may have been the Mayas’ idea of the date of the creation of the world.

What is the Tzolkin?

The Tzolkin date is a combination of two "week" lengths.

While our calendar uses a single week of seven days, the Mayan calendar used two different lengths of week:

• a numbered week of 13 days, in which the days were numbered from 1 to 13
• a named week of 20 days, in which the names of the days were:

0. Ahau	1. Imix	2. Ik	3. Akbal	4. Kan
5. Chicchan	6. Cimi	7. Manik	8. Lamat	9. Muluc
10. Oc	11. Chuen	12. Eb	13. Ben	14. Ix
15. Men	16. Cib	17. Caban	18. Etznab	19. Caunac

The diagram at left shows the day symbols, in the same order as the table above.

As the named week is 20 days and the smallest Long Count digit is 20 days, there is synchrony between the two; if, for example, the last digit of today’s Long Count is 0, today must be Ahau; if it is 6, it must be Cimi. Since the numbered and the named week were both "weeks," each of their name/number change daily; therefore, the day after 3 Cimi is not 4 Cimi, but 4 Manik, and the day after that, 5 Lamat. The next time Cimi rolls around, 20 days later, it will be 10 Cimi instead of 3 Cimi. The next 3 Cimi will not occur until 260 (or 13 x 20) days have passed. This 260-day cycle also had good-luck or bad-luck associations connected with each day, and for this reason, it became known as the "divinatory year."

The "years" of the Tzolkin calendar are not counted.

When did the Tzolkin Start?

Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to 4 Ahau. The authorities agree on this.

What is the Haab?

The Haab was the civil calendar of the Mayas. It consisted of 18 "months" of 20 days each, followed by 5 extra days, known asUayeb. This gives a year length of 365 days.

The names of the month were:

1. Pop	7. Yaxkin	13. Mac
2. Uo	8. Mol	14. Kankin
3. Zip	9. Chen	15. Muan
4. Zotz	10. Yax	16. Pax
5. Tzec	11. Zac	17. Kayab
6. Xul	12. Ceh	18. Cumku

In contrast to the Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names changed every 20 days instead of daily; so the day after 4 Zotz would be 5 Zotz, followed by 6 Zotz ... up to 19 Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.

The days of the month were numbered from 0 to 19. This use of a 0th day of the month in a civil calendar is unique to the Maya system; it is believed that the Mayas discovered the number zero, and the uses to which it could be put, centuries before it was discovered in Europe or Asia.

The Uayeb days acquired a very derogatory reputation for bad luck; known as "days without names" or "days without souls," and were observed as days of prayer and mourning. Fires were extinguished and the population refrained from eating hot food. Anyone born on those days was "doomed to a miserable life."

The years of the Haab calendar are not counted.

The length of the Tzolkin year was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that can be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Round. If a day is, for example, "4 Ahau 8 Cumku," the next day falling on "4 Ahau 8 Cumku" would be 18,980 days or about 52 years later. Among the Aztec, the end of a Calendar Round was a time of public panic as it was thought the world might be coming to an end. When the Pleaides crossed the horizon on 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, they knew the world had been granted another 52-year extension.

When did the Haab Start?

Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 corresponds to 8 Cumku. The authorities agree on this.

Did the Mayas Think a Year Was 365 Days?

Although there were only 365 days in the Haab year, the Mayas were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days, and in fact, many of the month-names are associated with the seasons; Yaxkin, for example, means "new or strong sun" and, at the beginning of the Long Count, 1 Yaxkin was the day after the winter solstice, when the sun starts to shine for a longer period of time and higher in the sky. When the Long Count was put into motion, it was started at 7.13.0.0.0, and 0 Yaxkin corresponded with Midwinter Day, as it did at 13.0.0.0.0 back in 3114 B.C.E. The available evidence indicates that the Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 or 1,101,600 days.

We can therefore derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 by the result, which gives us an answer of 365.242036 days, which is slightly more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.

(This apparent accuracy could, however, be a simple coincidence. The Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 days. These numbers are only accurate to 2-3 digits. Suppose the 7.13.0.0.0 days had corresponded to 2.001 cycles rather than 2 cycles of the 365-day year, would the Mayas have noticed?)

In ancient times, the Mayans had a tradition of a 360-day year. But by the 4th century B.C.E. they took a different approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different calendars at the same time. In one of them, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month. The five-day period was considered to be unlucky.

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