Maya Calendar

The Maya calendar is a system of distinct calendars and almanacs used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and by some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala.
These calendars can be synchronized and interlocked in many ways, their combinations giving rise to further, more extensive cycles. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BCE. It shares many aspects with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec, and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec and Aztec calendars. Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements of it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Aztecs, the Maya calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.
By the Maya mythological tradition, as documented in Colonial Yucatec accounts and reconstructed from Late Classic and Postclassic inscriptions, the deity Itzamna is frequently credited with bringing the knowledge of the calendar system to the ancestral Maya, along with writing in general and other foundational aspects of Maya culture

Maya Calendar
The Maya developed a sophisticated calendar. The ritual calendar that developed in Mesoamerica used a count of 260 days. This calendar gave each day a name, much like our days of the week. There were 20 day names, each represented by a unique symbol. The days were numbered from 1 to 13. Since there are 20 day names, after the count of thirteen was reached, the next day was numbered 1 again. The 260-day or sacred count calendar was in use throughout Mesoamerica for centuries, probably before the beginning of writing.

The Maya also tracked a vague solar year in which they counted 365 days per year. Because they could not use fractions, the "quarter" day left over every year caused their calendar to drift with regard to the actual solar year. The 365-day year contained months were also given names. numbers 0-19 before they changed, so that the count goes Zero Pohp to 19 Pohp, then continues with Zero Wo.

NASA wants you to know that the world won't end in 2012

NASA wants you to know that the world won't end in 2012
Apparently, NASA scientists are concerned that people might think that Roland Emmerich's new disaster movie "2012" is a documentary. So they put together a Q&A to reassure the nervous masses.
So it's finally arrived. Roland Emmerich's end-of-the-world epic is in cinemas from today and everyone can now see what armageddon will look like from the comfort of a lovely warm cinema. But are we all really going to perish on December 21, 2012? Erm, apparently not.
A few days ago, the US space agency NASA stepped forward in a rare campaign to dispel widespread doomsday rumours in an effort to combat the thousands of paranoid emails they've received.
And now, in attempt to bring closure to the whole affair, Discovery.com have done their part in calming down the human race by collecting the 10 most popular doomsday scenarios and then systematically debunking each one with facts... HARD FACTS.
if you still have any lingering doubts for the future, we advise you to read them. Here are a couple of examples:
The Earth's magnetic field will reverse.
Don't hold you breath. The last field reversal happened nearly 800,000 years ago. Fred Flintstone and our other ancestor cavemen survived. Geological evidence shows that the field has reversed its orientation tens of thousands of times over Earth history. Yet there is no definitive evidence that a magnetic field reversal has ever caused any mass extinction due to increased cosmic ray influx.
A grand alignment of Jupiter and Saturn will gravitationally perturb Earth.
For the past several decades there have been doomsday claims that the combined gravity from grand planetary alignments will cause geologic and meteorological upheavals on Earth.
None are scheduled for 2012.
In 1962 an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical naked-eye planets drove astrologers crazy. The conjunction happened on Feb. 4-5 and was accompanied by a solar eclipse! The most infamous grand conjunction was in 1982 and popularized in a book called "The Jupiter Effect," which predicted earthquakes and massive tides. Life went on as usual both years. The moon has a vastly greater gravitational influence on Earth than Jupiter. It's called location, location, location! At a whopping distance of 400 million miles from Earth, Jupiter's tug is pretty wimpy.
The black hole in the galactic center will affect us.
The Milky Way's black hole has no influence on the galactic disk. The black hole is three million solar masses. The Milky Way is several trillion solar masses when we add the tug of dark matter. Any gravitational influence of the black hole over the galaxy would be like the tail wagging the dog. The Milky Way's collision with the Andromeda galaxy will dump gas into the black hole and it will blaze as a quasar. But that's several billion years away.
An asteroid will smash into Earth.
A threatening near-Earth asteroid that's gotten the most press is the 900-foot wide Apophis. But its chances of collision have been downgraded to 1 in 250,000 at its next close approach in 2029. In theory, an uncharted asteroid or comet could come out of the blue tomorrow. But if we don't know about it today, the Mayans certainly didn't know about it 1,200 years ago. Earth-killer impacts are tens of millions of years apart. So there's no reason to be a doomsday clock-watcher.
The rogue planet Nibiru will swing by Earth.
There isn't such a planet any more than the planet Naboo from the Star Wars trilogy is real. Purported Internet pictures of the interloper are photographic lens flares or hoaxes. Don't believe every dot you see photographed in the sky.
What you need to know (NASA comments in quotes):
Why 2012?
"The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012."
Should we be worried about mysterious planets going rogue?
"If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye."
Is what Woody Harrelson (appropriately cast as an apocalypse-predicting radio DJ) says about planetary alignments science or gibberish?
"There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible."
About this doomsday calendar business ...
"The Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar."
What about meteors and asteroids?
"... Nothing is predicted to hit in 2012."
The earth's crust won't do a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
"A bait-and-shift to fool people."
So what you're saying is ...
"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012 ... scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."
There you have it. No calamities expected in 2012. What could possibly go wrong in an election year? .......Back

Mayan Latest News

‘World will not end in 2012?, insists Mayan elder
A Mayan elder has insisted that the year 2012 will not bring the end of the world, despite claims that a Mayan calendar shows that time will “run out” on December 21 of that year.
A significant time period for the Mayans does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years. But, according to a report in the Telegraph, most archaeologists, astronomers and Mayans say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumours and TV specials on the 2012 conspiracy theory.
According to Apolinario Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas. But, hysteria surrounding 2012 does have some grains of archaeological basis. One of them is Monument Six. Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost did not survive. The site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation. However, erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible. Guillermo Bernal, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, believes the eroded message is: “He will descend from the sky”. But, Bernal also notes that there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 - including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
The Mayan civilization, based in modern day Mexico and Central America, reached its height from 300 AD to 900 AD and had a talent for astronomy Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 BC, marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec 21, 2012. “It’s a special anniversary of creation,” said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they’re just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six,” he added .......Back

mayaan 2012

2012 is what ??? i do

End of the World - December 21, 2012. Seven Reasons: Scientific experts from around the world are genuinely predicting that five years from now, all life on Earth could well finish. Some are saying it'll be humans that set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it'll be God himself who presses the stop button... 1. Mayan Calendar The first mob to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things: Building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and Sacrificing Virgins.
Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it's likely they've got the end of the world right as well.
2. Sun Storms Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery: our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the Earth with so much radiation energy, it's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012
3. The Atom Smasher Scientists in Europe have been building the world's largest particle accelerator. Basically its a 27km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the Universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it's properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They're predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.
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4. The Bible says... If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn't bad enough,religious folks are getting in on the act aswell. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good an Evil, has been set down for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.
5. Super Volcano Yellowstone National Park in the United States is famous for its thermal springs and Old Faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple - it's sitting on top of the world's biggest volcano, and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we're many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the Earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.
6. The Physicists This one's case of bog-simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berekely Uni have been crunching the numbers. and they've determined that the Earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they're claiming their calculations prove, that we're all going to die, very soon - while also saying their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 percent- and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.
7. Slip-Slop-Slap-BANG! We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that sheilds us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.
The Maya Calendar was the center of Maya life and their greatest cultural achievement. The Maya Calendar's ancestral knowledge guided the Maya's existence from the moment of their birth and there was little that escaped its influence. The Maya Calendar made by the Maya World Studies Center in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico follows a centuries old tradition.
This Maya Calendar website is developing with the intent of providing a complete view of Maya culture; being that the Maya world was centered on the calendar, this name is more than appropriate for the Maya World Studies Center website. Click on the photo above or on the text link below to enter and enjoy, make sure you bookmark this site. Remember to return soon for new information is constantly added.
The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Mayan history starts in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., Mayan history rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize.Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. Mayan history shows that they were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples.
Many people believe that the ancestors of the Maya crossed the Bering Strait at least 20,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Evidence of settled habitation in Mexico is found in the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC - corn cultivation, basic pottery and stone tools.
The first true civilization was established with the rise of the Olmecs in the Pre-Classic period 1500 BC -300 AD. The Olmecs settled on the Gulf Coast, and little is known about them.