by John Major Jenkins ¾ May 23rd, 1994 Originally published in the Dec-Jan '95 issue of Mountain Astrologer. Why did the ancient Mayan or pre-Maya choose December 21st, 2012 A.D., as the end of their Long Count calendar? This article will cover some recent research. Scholars have known for decades that the 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan "Long Count" system of timekeeping was set to end precisely on a winter solstice, and that this system was put in place some 2300 years ago. This amazing fact - that ancient Mesoameri- can skywatchers were able to pinpoint a winter solstice far off into the future - has not been dealt with by Mayanists. And why did they choose the year 2012? One immediately gets the impression that there is a very strange mystery to be confronted here. I will be building upon a clue to this mystery reported by epigrapher Linda Schele in Maya Cosmos (1994). This article is the natural culmination of the research relating to the Mayan Long Count and the precession of the equinoxes that I explored in my recent book Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (Borderlands Science and Research Foundation, 1994). The Mayan Long Count Just some basics to get us started. The Maya were adept skywatchers. Their Classic Period is thought to have lasted from 200 A.D. to 900 A.D., but recent archeological findings are pushing back the dawn of Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica. Large ruin sites indicating high culture with distinctly Mayan antecedents are being found in the jungles of Guatemala dating back to before the common era. And even before this, the Olmec civilization flourished and developed the sacred count of 260 days known as the tzolkin. The early Maya adopted two different time keeping systems, the "Short Count" and the Long Count. The Short Count derives from combining the tzolkin cycle with the solar year and the Venus cycle of 584 days. In this way, "short" periods of 13, 52 and 104 years are generated. Unfortunately, we won't have occasion to dwell on the properties of the so-called Short Count system here. The Long Count system is somewhat more abstract, yet is also related to certain astronomical cycles. It is based upon nested cycles of days multiplied at each level by that key Mayan number, twenty: Number of Days / Term 1 / Kin (day) 20 / Uinal 360 / Tun 7200 / Katun 144000 / Baktun Notice that the only exception to multiplying by twenty is at the tun level, where the uinal period is instead multiplied by 18 to make the 360-day tun. The Maya employed this counting system to track an unbroken sequence of days from the time it was inaugurated. The Mayan scholar Munro Edmonson believes that the Long Count was put in place around 355 B.C. This may be so, but the oldest Long Count date as yet found corresponds to 32 B.C. We find Long Count dates in the archeological record beginning with the baktun place value and separated by dots. For example: 6.19.19.0.0 equals 6 baktuns, 19 katuns, 19 tuns, 0 uinals and 0 days. Each baktun has 144000 days, each katun has 7200 days, and so on. If we add up all the values we find that 6.19.19.0.0 indicates a total of 1007640 days have elapsed since the Zero Date of 0.0.0.0.0. The much discussed 13-baktun cycle is completed 1872000 days (13 baktuns) after 0.0.0.0.0. This period of time is the so called Mayan "Great Cycle" of the Long Count and equals 5125.36 years. But how are we to relate this to a time frame we can understand? How does this Long Count relate to our Gregorian calendar? This problem of correlating Mayan time with "western" time has occupied Mayan scholars since the beginning. The standard question to answer became: what does 0.0.0.0.0 (the Long Count "beginning" point) equal in the Gregorian calendar? When this question is answered, archeological inscriptions can be put into their proper historical context and the end date of the 13-baktun cycle can be calculated. After years of considering data from varied fields such as astronomy, ethnography, archeology and iconography, J. Eric S. Thompson determined that 0.0.0.0.0 correponded to the Julian date 584283, which equals August 11th, 3114 B.C. in our Gregorian calendar. This means that the end date of 13.0.0.0.0, some 5125 years later, is December 21st, 2012 A.D.1 The relationship between the Long Count and Short Count has always been internally consistent (both were tracked alongside each other in an unbroken sequence since their conception). Now it is very interesting to note that an aspect of the "Short Count", namely, the sacred tzolkin count of 260 days, is still being followed in the highlands of Guatemala. As the Mayan scholar Munro Edmonson shows in The Book of the Year, this last surviving flicker of a calendar tradition some 3000 years old supports the Thompson correlation of 584283. Edmonson also states that the Long Count was begun by the Maya or pre-Maya around 355 B.C., but there is reason to believe that the Long Count system was being perfected for at least 200 years prior to that date. The point of interest for these early astronomers seems to have been the projected end date in 2012 A.D., rather than the beginning date in 3114 B.C. Having determined the end date in 2012..........to read the rest see the link http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html
That was a lot of reading, to get absolutely nothing. Did all that mean that 2012 is a galactic solstice? Where earth and the galactic equator are aligned? That the Mayans could predict solar and lunar eclipses is not in doubt. Why the start and end times were chosen, well thats open to debate. To get to the 'old chicken & the egg' analogy, which came first? the Mayan Long Count or their end-posts of time? I have an other theory; that the twin to the dinosaur-killer astreroid that hit the Yucatan 65 million years ago, passed by and the Mayans did some calculating and figured that it would smash into the earth in 2012. OK, I'm just joking but there had to be something that the ancient Mayans did to figure out all that time and then align it with galactc events? I hope there are more glyphs translated so that we can know more about the Maya and their worldview.
I'm not a big believer in doomsday scenarios, but I also hope to see more Mayan texts translated. I'd like to know if they had contact with European, African or Asian explorers and merchants.
We have an indian tribe in Norway too which i believe you call "Sammi" These are actually related to the native indians of the USA. Wouldn't be surprised if we're all related somehow Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ .Religion is for those who fear hell, Spirituality is for those who have been there.
Except for the Vikings, there's no real evidence that any other culture had an inpact on any native American tribe. No stories, no place names, no family names, no words or languages, no foods, no writing, no art, no animals, no technology, no resistance to diseases, no genetics. Any tribe exposed to advanced cultures, usually takes up aspects of it. Look at New Guinea and Polynesia. If you follow stories of the Jews, in southern Africa they were able to prove that the Lembi are Jewish descendents via priestly genes, they followed the Aaronic-line of males. And the genes matched Jews from Israel and the Disporia. No genetic matches yet. The Lembi also had stories, Kosher laws and customs. Yet they were as black as any African, in other words they look native! Any one coming over with iron, steel or ship-building technology would have made a huge inpact on stone age people. Except for precious metals and some tin, there's no evidence that any tribe was other that stone age. Anybody with metal swords may have become kings under any warrior cultures, like the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas to name a few. Their should be words in common, for those tribes that came in contact with Europeans or Asians. When white, black or yellow people first showed up they should have been called mythological names that could be traced to their homelands. They should have elephants, horses, etc. in their art. They should have common writing, except for the Mayan glyphs and Aztec picture drawing there is no evidence that that any American tribe used writing. There has to be some tangible evidence. Look at the Mexican people, a mixture of Spanish & Indian. Mexican Spanish, it has Aztec & other Indian words in it. Mexican food, Spanish & native foods mixed together. Mexican art & architechure, a mix of European & Indian styles. Why? There was definite contact. Anyway, there is usually proof left, the Vikings left long houses, bones and stories. All the others didn't leave a thing. Why? probably because it was wishfull thinking or speculation.
