2012 Mayan Calendar and Other Mayan Facts from the Nasa Marshal Flight Center on Solar Physics

Here are some cool slides that I found at the Nasa Marshal Flight Center, in a slide show called "The Sun in Time". You can see the slide show in its entirety at: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/suntime/slshow1.stm

For those trying to separate 2012  Mayan Calendar Hype from Fiction, these facts speak pretty strongly about the advanced Mayan Culture and sciences.

The Sun in Time

The Maya/Aztec calendar, which is extremely accurate, began on August 13, 3114 B.C.E¹ or 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk'u in the Mayan language.  The Maya concept of time was of circles within circles which only appeared to be linear.  The calendar stone shows that we are in the fifth creation, with the four previously destroyed ones surrounding the central figure.  The end of the fifth creation of the Maya calendar is on December 23, 2012 of the Current Era (C.E.²). 

Pictured here, is the logo for the Sun in Time program. The foreground consists of the famous Aztec calendar, while the background is an image of the solar corona taken from the ISAS/NASA Yohkoh spacecraft. The Aztec calendar incorporates a mythological and calendrical system derived from earlier Mesoamerican cultures, including the Maya.  The calendar was developed by observing the Sun's motions in the sky over a long period of time.

click on image for a larger version (278 kB jpeg image)

 

Between 700 and 1000 C.E., the Toltec/Maya city at Chichén Itzá flourished.  Located on the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico, Chichén Itzá was home to many ceremonial structures.

One very famous structure is today known as el Castillo (or the temple of Kukulcán).   The "castle" which is seventy-five feet high, is composed of nine platforms with a central stairway on each of the four sides and a top platform.  Since each succeeding platform is narrower than the lower one, the pyramid seems to be much taller.  On the top platform, we find a temple with a doorway facing each of the stairs, but the main door faces north.  From this doorway, the priests could see the plaza below and could observe processions to the Sacred Cenote (a fresh water sinkhole), which was used for human sacrifice. Although not an observatory in the sense of the Stone- and Wood- henges, the architecture of el Castillo commemorates three astronomical events: the length of the year, the solstices, and the equinoxes.  The length of the year is represented by the number of steps on the pyramid; there are 91 steps on each of the four sides, totalling 364, with the top platform counting as 1, yielding 365.  An axis through the northeast and southwest corners of the pyramid points to the rising sun on the summer solstice and the setting sun on the winter solstice (this alignment is probable but not substantiated).  Finally, on the day of the equinoxes, the Sun creates a shadow on the side of the steps resembling  an undulating snake (the snake head is bottom right in the image).

click on image for a larger version (33 kB jpeg image) Photo is courtesy of Tom Sever.

click on image for a larger version (18 kB jpeg image) Photo is courtesy of Tom Sever.

El Caracol at Chichén Itzá is another example of Maya ingenuity and resembles a modern day observatory.  Windows, located at various heights and positions, were very probably used to sight the Sun…as well as the planet Venus.  Indeed, four alignments in the building point to eight year extremes of the planet Venus.  The purposeful construction of this structure resulted from observations of the sky over many, many years.  Just as scientists today build upon work done in prior years, so did the Mayan astronomers of Chichén Itzá.

To learn about solar folklore, visit this site:
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/folklore.html

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Some 600 years after the heyday of the Mayan people at Chichén Itzá, Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist,  pointed a telescope toward the Sun. [NEVER, NEVER DO THIS YOURSELF.  WITHOUT THE USE OF SPECIALIZED FILTERS, VIEWING THE SUN THROUGH A TELESCOPE CAN PERMANENTLY DAMAGE YOUR EYES!!]  Around the time period  1609-1611 C.E., Galileo discovered spots on the surface of the Sun. 

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