Mayan Calendar End of the World got you down? Learn these basic Mayan Facts first!

12 Mayan Facts to learn before debating the Mayan Calendar 2012 Doomsday Prophecy.

Before you try to decide if the Mayan Calendar End of the world prophecy is true or not, it makes sense to learn a little about the Mayan Civilization. The questions that are worth answering are: Who were the Maya? What was their civilization like? Did they have any advanced capabilities for their time period?  Was the Mayan Calendar created by an advanced civilization? Here is a list of relevant facts about the Mayan Calendar, the Mayan Civilization, their science, their religion, etc.

The Mayans built a celestial observatory: The Mayan Observatory was built in the city at Chichén Itzá called El Caracol. The observatory featured windows that pointed in the Cardinal and in the sub-cardinal directions. Mayan scholars believe that this was so that the Mayans could track the movement of the Sun, the moon, Venus, the Pleides and other events. The fact is that we don’t know all the functions of the complex structure. But it is clear that they were not just watching the stars and that the Mayan Calendar was accurately developed by an advanced, scientifically based civilization!.

The Mayan Empire: The Mayan Empire is a misnomer in that the Maya really were more a related group of city states that shared many features of their civilization. They shared trade and they also fought each other from time to time but they never conquered each other.The Maya did not have one shared king or leader.  At any given point in time the Maya civilization might have powerful kings at different major cities.

Writing:Most people know that the Maya used hieroglyphs on stela and walls of buildings and temples beginning around 200 BC. What most people don’t know is that they also wrote on Bark cloth paper. These hand painted “Codexs” illustrate towns and Mayan legends, and detail everything from politics to sacred information. The Spanish, in their infinite wisdom burned hundreds of them in the early 1500’s and only 3 remain.

Population:At the peak of the Mayan civilization it has been estimated that there were over 1,000,000 Mayans. It is also estimated that each of their largest cities had over 100,000 people with many more in the surrounding country side. Remember this was at a period in time, from 500 – 900 AD, where these were fantastic numbers. Heck, that’s bigger than any City in New Hampshire (USA) right now.

Environment:As we have mentioned on this site before, in some areas that the Maya lived in they were beset by earthquakes and other natural disasters. There were 2 basic Maya environments. There was the Lowland region which was from 0 to 2500 feet above sea level and which was tropical with rainy and dry seasons, not much in the way of running water. Then there was the Maya Highland region which was from 2500 feet up and included volcanically active mountains. It was warm there with forests, etc. If you looked past the Volcanoes, earthquakes and jaguars, not a bad place to live!

Gods of the Maya:The Maya believed in many gods and even combinations of gods. For example, based upon what is known from the Mayan codices and from Hieroglyphs, There was Cimi god of death, Chac, the Maya god of rain and lightning, Itzamna the creator or scribe or learned one. There was also the maize God, the God of trade, and also the goddess of fertility known by the names of Kauil, Ixchel or Ix Chel.

The Mayan Calendar system was very complex and there were many calendar components of different lengths. You can read a full description on our web site. But to cut to the chase, it is the end of the Mayan Long Calendar that has everyone concerned. The Mayan Long Calendar is 5,125 years long. It is composed of 13 Baktuns, each Baktun being 394 years. The Mayan long calendar stretches from the “beginning of time” (to the Mayans – approx 13 Aug 3114 BC –historians disagree on the exact day) to….drum roll… December 21, 2012. It is important to note that the Mayans view this not as the end but a new beginning.  But many people interpret this to mean the end of the world. Fin del mundo.  There are a lot of angles to the reasons for this that I won’t get into here. This is just a primer on the Maya. Time to move on. Go to The2012Discovery.com to read lots of interesting tidbits on this one!

The Length of the Mayan Civilization:The Maya Civilization lasted for thousands of years. That alone should indicate its success and it should give people an insight into how advanced they were able to become over that period of time. Most of what we know of the Maya, from their architecture to their hieroglyphics occurred during the last 3 phases of their society. And most of this is from interpreting the remaining 3 Maya Codices and the Hieroglyphs that has been found. In other words, we are guessing. A lot (OK, let’s take 2000 years of a civilization and extract all we know about it from 3 painted bark clothe manuscripts and from remaining hieroglyphs. Not exactly enough data points to be real accurate).

The older of the three phases was the Late Formative section (from 400BC to 250 AD)the first massive Maya palaces were constructed, their first writings and recorded history appeared, roadways were developed, organized trade, water resource management, etc.

The Mayan reached their peak In their Classic phase (from AD 250 thru their zenith around AD 900) the Maya civilization was beyond what most people understand. To start with they had very large complex cities and governments that featured political alliances, royal lineages that were tracked and documented. They were mathematically adept. For example the Mayan Calendar is a base 20 system). They understood astronomy and tracked the movements and were able to predict the positions of many heavenly bodies and constellations. They practiced intensive agriculture and resource management.  

The Post Classic period saw the decline of the Maya Civilizationfrom 900 thru 1500 AD. Some large sites were abandoned. Historians are not sure why. Earthquakes, famine, disease and war were all likely culprits. Notice that the Spanish DID NOT come into play until the 1500’s and by

Mayan language: The Maya were spread across a vast area and not one unified nation (more kind of like a Europe) and they spoke nearly 30 closely related languages and dialect. These of course included Mayan and also Huastec

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