mayan calendarIf you are affected by claims about the end of the world in December 2012 predicted by Maya, you can relax. The oldest calendars of the lost pre-Columbian civilization that came to light by American archaeologists do not “conceive” something like this. Instead, they predict that the world will continue its course untroubled for many thousands of years.

Apart from these omens, the calendars also reveal that the Mayans knew astronomy at least half a century earlier than we thought and that their science was not secret, reserved only for the few, but accessible for many and widespread in their society.

A team of U.S. archaeologists has discovered calendars carved on walls during the excavation of a house in a Mayan archaeological site in Guatemala.

The relieves, which date back to the 9th century, depict scenes and symbols used by Maya to calculate the movements of celestial bodies and compose their calendars.

As described by scientists in the related article published in the journal Science, the symbols comprise at least five different calendars:

  • a lunar calendar lasting 29.5 days,
  • a ritual calendar lasting 260 days,
  • a solar calendar lasting 365 days,
  • a calendar of 584 days based on the motion of Venus,
  • a calendar of 780 days based on the motion of Mars.

The house belonged to a prominent person, but not a member of the royal generation, which, according to experts means that astronomical knowledge was not the privilege of few, but circulated freely in the society of the Mayan civilization.

Faced with so many discussions in recent years about the total destruction of Earth at the end of the year, William Saturno, archaeologist at the University of Boston, felt the need to put things in place by revealing what exactly the symbols on the walls of the excavated house predict.

Contrary to popular prejudices, there is no provision in these calendars that the end of the world will come at the end of 2012. Instead, the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would continue and that in 7000 years the situation would be exactly like it was then,” he said.

This also echoes Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy at the Colgate University of New York who participated in the study. The astronomer said that calculations in the calendars cover more than 6000 years or more than five millennia from 2012.

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Anna LeMind

Anna LeMind
