We went into NY City today to the Museum. There was an amazing exhibit: Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art. There were amazing pieces of art dating back almost 1500+ years.
What struck me as truly amazing, was the fact that the Mayans date the birth of the earth to August 11, 3114, BCE. That year is an interesting landmark. The Jewish calendar shows this year to be 5783. Taking the Mayan calculate year of creation and adding the Gregorian calendar year 2023, one arrives at the year 5137. The Gregorian calendar was first adopted in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain in 1582, and is now universally accepted. The change to the Gregorian calendar was because the previous calendar was thought to be inaccurate. Thus the mere 546 years difference brings you to the question, how could two so diverse ethnic groups date the birth of the earth so similarly?
As a scientist, I "know" the earth is many millions of years old, and the Universe, billions. So why the mismatch, when 2 distinctly different societies are so similar in their calculations?
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The long-count calendar of the Maya civilization combined the cycles of the solar calendar Haab), the sacred calendar (Tzolk'in), and the calendar round, expressing five cycles simultaneously. This is a similar concept to our Gregorian dating of days, months, years, centuries, and millennia. The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years in every 400, but it turns out that the Aztec calculation of an average 365.2420 days per year is actually closer to the real value of 365.2422 days than the old Julian value of 365.2500 days or even our current Gregorian value of 365.2425 days.
And there we mentioned the Aztec somehow. Why? Because they were the dominate civilisation following on the collapse of the Maya. From the late 8th through the end of the 9th century, a combination of things happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by 900, Mayan civilization in that region had collapsed. The Classic Mayan period was from 200 to 900 AD, while the Post-Classic period lasted from 900 AD until the Spanish Conquest. The Classic period is considered by many to be the height of Maya civilization, while the Post-Classic period is a later resurgence of Maya culture.
