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Mayan calendars essay
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Many people have created calendars to reflect time within their cultures. It allocates the year into days, months, and years. It also allocates the time into hours, minutes, and seconds. There are many different types of calendars people follow based on the cultures or beliefs you have. The Mayans kept time in different ways that we know use till today thanks to them. Its astonishing how calendars have been useful to people all over the world.
The Aztec Calendar stone has become one Mexico’s national symbols. After decades of Latin American Art being degraded, underappreciated, forgotten, and abused, it has become one of Mexico’s most national treasures. After years of research from the Codex Mendoza, the Calendar, and documents by the Spanish conquistadors, it has gradually become clear as to how the Aztecs truly lived and how art played such a huge role in their society. It has not only given researchers insight to the Aztec culture and religion and has also given influence to modern and the mainstream media today such as fashion and graphic design.
Throughout the day we are constantly checking the time, preparing for the upcoming months, and keeping track of the year. Clocks tell us the time we use as a measurement. It’s how we keep track of those important months and events, such as holidays and birthdays. Although there are many investigations and research being done on the nature of time, many unresolved issues remain.
The ancient Mayans were a very well developed society with a very accurate calendar, skilled architects, artisans, extensive traders and hunters. They are known to have developed medicine and astronomy as well. All of this was developed while the Europeans were still in the Dark Ages.
The Maya elite developed a complicated calendar system. There are two main cycles in their calendar; one was made up of 260 days and the other 365. Each day is named from both the 260 and 365-day calendars. Because of this each full day name could only repeat every 18,980 days or once every 52 years.
Archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians use the term Mesoamerica to describe the known world of the Aztecs in 1519 (The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya 9). It encompassed lands as far north as the old Aztec frontier and continued down to the Mayan territory in Guatemala. All of the indigenous people that made up the Mesoamerican culture were not very unified, but they did share an immense interest in what each tribe was inventing. They also agreed upon religious beliefs and practices, and through this common interest was how the indigenous people unified the use of the Mesoamerican calendar. The calendrics served as an essential means by which Mesoamericans organized and conceived of their world (The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya 32). They used the calendar for many religious rituals as well as picking the date upon which the rituals would fall. In order for us to understand these uses, we have to know exactly what the calendar consists of.
In ancient time people had different ways in telling time such as an hourglass and a water clock. Now a days people have clocks, watches, and an iPhone to help people tell time. Some people can tell time differently, some either use the sky or when they last recently looked at the time. All people use the ability to guess time differently. The brain can help us tell time and what type of day it is. Time was important we can look at the sky, our brain cells can tell time, and how ancient times created the navigation of time.
In the Central America, most notably the Yucatan Peninsula, are the Maya, a group of people whose polytheistic religion and advanced civilization once flourished (Houston, 43). The Maya reached their peak during the Classic Period from around CE 250 to the ninth century CE when the civilization fell and dispersed (Sharer, 1). Although much has been lost, the gods and goddesses and the religious practices of the Classic Maya give insight into their lives and reveal what was important to this society.
In a Long Count calendar date there are five numbers which are separated by four periods (for example, 13.0.0.0.0). 13.0.0.0.0 is thought to have been the Mayan’s theory as to the world’s creation date. The Mayans used hieroglyphs, such as those in the image,
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This quote from Arthur C. Clarke nicely represents the admiration that studying the Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations can inspire. In the current age of technology it is very hard to imagine these ancient civilizations accomplishing their many deeds without any modern tools or computers. The Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations of Central and South America made major advancements in engineering, math, astronomy, writing agriculture, and trading.
The Mayans daily life was very interesting. They did farming, decorating, and woving daily, but farming was their main priority. Their main area was in and around the Yucatan peninsula. Almost everyone lived with their families. To farm they used stone tools or their own bare hands. They had a “ball game” which is now known as basketball. While they weren’t playing their “ball game” they danced for entertainment. The clothes they wore depended on where they lived. Most of their clothes were made by woveing. Both men and women had tattoos. They kept dog, ducks, etc. As pets. They hunted rabbits, deer, and turkey. Most of their food and drinks were made by grounding corn. Hunting was the main priority before farming was. The agricultural farming
As time passes along through the centuries, how did people make calendars that fit their culture? Many used the solar system to try and get their calendars as precise as possible, yet it never seemed to work. Throughout time, specialists would try to research and study the passing time in order to try and figure out their hours, days, and years that would fit their culture the best. Yet the question still sits, how have different peoples created calendars to reflect time within their cultures.
The Maya civilization is a very important culture that has left a great impact on our world today. They are known for their written language, art, mathematical system and astronomical system. The Maya territory includes Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico. In these areas the Maya thrived in their religious practices, politics, and their use of the territory.
As long ago as 20,000 years ago ice-age hunters from Europe would take sticks and bones and scratch lines and mark holes in them, supposedly counting the days between phased of the moon. 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians that had occupied present-day Iraq divided the year into 30-day months, the also divided the day into 12 periods (equivalent to 2 of our hours), and divided those into 30 parts (equivalent to 4 of our minutes).
History of time: Records of time keeping are found 25,000 years ago, but of course, they weren't as accurate as now a days. Man used nature to indicate time e.g. Full Moons. It is widely suggested today that time was kept in a "Calendar"' way. This means that they divided the time into big units and could only tell the time in specific occasions. e.g. a normal person, 20,000 years ago couldn't tell his partner the time at any given period. He had to wait that the moon would go full, or the sun will dawn, or by looking at the stars, etc. They almost couldn't describe when in the future, a thing is to happen. They would say something like "In 2 full moons and a high sun we'll go hunting". He couldn't tell exactly in how many hours or minutes things will happen because as I said before Nature was his time keeper + The term "Seconds", "'Minutes, "Hours", etc, didn't exist back then.
Timekeeping has been an integral part of life ever since humans stepped foot on the earth. Once humans realized the difference between night and day, moon phases were used to determine months, changing seasons and record years. Soon humans realized the connection of time with the sun’s position and started using shadows to keep time thus creating the sundial, used foremost by the Egyptians and Greeks. As life become more complex, so did the need to keep time accurately. Initially, the mechanical clock was invented in 1000 AD. We then graduated to using celestial time and finally the atomic clocks were invented in 1967. These atomic clocks are so efficient that they make other methods of timekeeping seem redundant. Thus we have come a long way in timekeeping and I strongly believe that continuing to use the earth’s rotation around the sun as a method of timekeeping would mean ignoring the advances made in timekeeping over the course of history and moving further back into the past.