Saturday, June 3, 2023

ARCHAEOLOGY: The Maya 819 Day Calendar Deciphered?

Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; ......Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,.....And
lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them...
Deuteronomy 4:15,16,19
 
"The 819 day calendar is a combination of two other calendars: the tzolk’in calendar, which is a 260 day cycle based on the movement of the moon, and the haab calendar, which is a 365 day solar cycle. 
 
The tzolk’in calendar is used for divination and religious purposes,
while the
haab calendar is used for agriculture and civil purposes.
 
One of the unique features of the 819 day calendar is its connection to Venus, which was a significant celestial body for the Maya
Venus appears as both the morning star and the evening star, and its
cycles were closely observed and recorded by the
Maya astronomers. The Maya believed that Venus had a direct influence on human affairs and used it to predict important events such as wars and the rise and fall of rulers.
The Venus cycle lasts approximately 584 days, and it was believed that every 104 Venus cycles (approximately 60,100 days), Venus would return to the same position in the sky. This was known as the “Great Venus Round” and was considered a very significant event. The 819 day calendar was used to track Venus and predict when the Great Venus Round would occur. 

Scholars long suspected the ancient Maya 819-day calendar followed astronomical events, specifically how long it takes a planet to appear in the same place in the night sky as seen from Earth, known as the synodic periods of planets.
 
Another important aspect of the 819 day calendar is its connection to the concept of “trecenas,” which are 13 day periods within the tzolk’in calendar. The 819 day calendar is composed of 63 trecenas, which are believed to represent different aspects of the natural world and the gods who presided over them. 
Each trecena has a specific symbol and is associated with a different deity or energy.....the first trecena is represented by the crocodile and is associated with the god of creation and the beginning of life. The fourth trecena is represented by the jaguar and is associated with war and sacrifice. The ninth trecena is represented by the snake and is
associated with transformation and healing. 
The Maya believed that the trecenas had a direct influence on the events of the world and used them for divination and prediction.....They used this knowledge to create calendars that could be used for both practical and spiritual purposes. Like sacrificing virgins, Spanish sailors and children.. And eating them.
 
But according to the new study, the cycles in the calendar cover a
much larger timeframe than scholars previously thought.
Although prior research has sought to show planetary connections for the 819-day count, its four-part, color-directional scheme is too short to fit well with the synodic periods of the visible planets,” said Tulane University alumnus John Linden and Professor Victoria Bricker.
By increasing the calendar length to 20 periods of 819-days, a pattern emerges in which the synodic periods of all the visible planets commensurate with station points in the larger 819-day calendar.”
 
Previously, scholars thought the calendar referred to four cycles of
819, but that time span didn’t sync neatly with the synodic periods of all the planets that can be seen with the naked eye: Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Linden and Professor Bricker discovered it takes 20 cycles of 819 days, which is about 45 years, to align with the synodic periods of all visible planets.
Within 20 cycles, each planet goes through some number of synodic periods a whole number of times: Mercury every cycle, Venus every 5 cycles, Saturn every 6 cycles, Jupiter every 19 cycles, and Mars every 20 cycles.
Each synodic period is less than 819 days, but only Mercury has one that happens a whole number of times within a single cycle.
 
Combining the cycles allows for prediction of the placement of the planets, which is also connected to important dates and celebrations.
Rather than limit their focus to any one planet, the Maya astronomers who created the 819-day count envisioned it as a larger calendar system that could be used for predictions of all the visible planet’s synodic periods,” the scientists said.”
JamesMarinero@Futurism/SciNews