In Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos, Prudence M. Rice proposed a new model of Maya political organization in which geopolitical seats of power rotated according to a 256-year calendar cycle known as the May. This fundamental connection between timekeeping and Maya political organization sparked Rice's interest in the origins of the two major calendars used by the ancient lowland Maya, one 260 days long, and the other having 365 days. In Maya Calendar Origins, she presents a provocative new thesis about the origins and development of the calendrical system. Integrating data from anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, ethnohistory, myth, and linguistics, Rice argues that the Maya calendars developed about a millennium earlier than commonly thought, around 1200 BC, as an outgrowth of observations of the natural phenomena that scheduled the movements of late Archaic hunter-gatherer-collectors throughout what became Mesoamerica. She asserts that an understanding of the cycles of weather and celestial movements became the basis of power for early rulers, who could thereby claim "control" over supernatural cosmic forces. Rice shows how time became materialized—transformed into status objects such as monuments that encoded calendrical or temporal concerns—as well as politicized, becoming the foundation for societal order, political legitimization, and wealth. Rice's research also sheds new light on the origins of the Popol Vuh, which, Rice believes, encodes the history of the development of the Mesoamerican calendars. She also explores the connections between the Maya and early Olmec and Izapan cultures in the Isthmian region, who shared with the Maya the cosmovision and ideology incorporated into the calendrical systems.

In Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos, Prudence M. Rice proposed a new model of Maya political organization in which geopolitical seats of power rotated according to a 256-year calendar cycle known as the May. This fundamental connection between timekeeping and Maya political organization sparked Rice's interest in the origins of the two major calendars used by the ancient lowland Maya, one 260 days long, and the other having 365 days. In Maya Calendar Origins, she presents a provocative new thesis about the origins and development of the calendrical system. Integrating data from anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, ethnohistory, myth, and linguistics, Rice argues that the Maya calendars developed about a millennium earlier than commonly thought, around 1200 BC, as an outgrowth of observations of the natural phenomena that scheduled the movements of late Archaic hunter-gatherer-collectors throughout what became Mesoamerica. She asserts that an understanding of the cycles of weather and celestial movements became the basis of power for early rulers, who could thereby claim "control" over supernatural cosmic forces. Rice shows how time became materialized—transformed into status objects such as monuments that encoded calendrical or temporal concerns—as well as politicized, becoming the foundation for societal order, political legitimization, and wealth. Rice's research also sheds new light on the origins of the Popol Vuh, which, Rice believes, encodes the history of the development of the Mesoamerican calendars. She also explores the connections between the Maya and early Olmec and Izapan cultures in the Isthmian region, who shared with the Maya the cosmovision and ideology incorporated into the calendrical systems.

Reveals the Mayan calendar to be a spiritual device that describes the evolution of human consciousness from ancient times into the future • Shows the connection between cosmic evolution and actual human history • Provides a new science of time that explains why time not only seems to be speeding up in the modern world but is actually getting faster • Explains how the end of the Mayan calendar is not the end of the world, but a path toward enlightenment The prophetic Mayan calendar is not keyed to the movement of planetary bodies. Instead, it functions as a metaphysical map of the evolution of consciousness and records how spiritual time flows--providing a new science of time. The calendar is associated with nine creation cycles, which represent nine levels of consciousness or Underworlds on the Mayan cosmic pyramid. Through empirical research Calleman shows how this pyramidal structure of the development of consciousness can explain things as disparate as the common origin of world religions and the modern complaint that time seems to be moving faster. Time, in fact, is speeding up as we transition from the materialist Planetary Underworld of time that governs us today to a new and higher frequency of consciousness--the Galactic Underworld--in preparation for the final Universal level of conscious enlightenment. Calleman reveals how the Mayan calendar is a spiritual device that enables a greater understanding of the nature of conscious evolution throughout human history and the concrete steps we can take to align ourselves with this growth toward enlightenment.

Take a look at the science behind the Mayan calendar, prophecies and mythology. The Maya believed multiple cycles governed civilization. They created various calendars to track these cycles. Their short count calendar tracked a 256-year cycle believed to control epidemics, famines, warfare and more. Scientists have found a 250-year solar cycle that also appears to affect epidemics, famines, warfare and more. Their long count calendar tracked a 5000-year cycle related to natural disasters and cosmic catastrophes. Scientists have also discovered that the Earth is subjected to periodic bombardment by comets and asteroids that plunges the world into long periods of darkness and cold. Mayan mythology appears to record such events and in some instances even the exact dates on which these catastrophes occurred in the past. By comparing these dates with ice core records, sedimentary records, and climate records, this book reveals the truth about civilization's darkest days. And what may lie ahead in the future.

Mayan daykeeper Hunbatz Men reveals the multi-calendar system of the Maya that guided the lives of his ancestors and how it can guide us today • The first book to reveal the secrets of the Mayan Pleiades calendar: the Tzek’eb • Explains how the Maya used their astronomical knowledge to guide their lives on Earth The Mayan Calendar has taken on special prominence with the imminent arrival of 2012, a date that many claim is the end of that calendar. However, as Mayan elder and daykeeper Hunbatz Men shows, the cosmological understanding of his ancestors was so sophisticated that they had not one, but many calendars, each based on the cycles of different systems in the cosmos. In this book he reveals for the first time the Tzek’eb, or Pleiades, Calendar of 26,000 years, which charts the revolution of our solar system around Alcyone, the central star of the Pleiades system. He also discusses the K’uuk’ulcan Calendar of the 4 seasons of the solar year and the wheel of the K’altunes Calendar, which is composed of 13 cycles of 20 years each that form a calendar of 260 years. In traditional Mayan culture the computation of time was not determined by simple economic or social motives. The calendars served the higher purpose of synchronizing the lives of human beings and their societies to the great cosmic pulsation, to the rhythm of the annual seasons, and to the other cycles that dictate changes upon Earth. Mayan understanding of the cosmic cycles was so exact that this knowledge could be used to influence all stages of life--from planning when to conceive (parents could choose not only the sex of their child but its vocation and future destiny) to plotting out the course of the entire society. Pyramids played a crucial role in applying this wisdom because, as Hunbatz Men shows, they were able to produce and transform energy in accordance with the cosmic cycles charted by the calendars. This book reveals for the first time the wisdom of the multi-calendar Mayan system and how it can help guide our modern world.

By 1,800 years ago, speakers of proto-Ch’olan, the ancestor of three present-day Maya languages, had developed a calendar of eighteen twenty-day months plus a set of five days for a total of 365 days. This original Maya calendar, used extensively during the Classic period (200–900 CE), recorded in hieroglyphic inscriptions the dates of dynastic and cosmological importance. Over time, and especially after the Mayas’ contact with Europeans, the month names that had originated with these inscriptions developed into fourteen distinct traditions, each connected to a different ethnic group. Today, the glyphs encompass 250 standard forms, variants, and alternates, with about 570 meanings among all the cognates, synonyms, and homonyms. In The Maya Calendar, Weldon Lamb collects, defines, and correlates the month names in every recorded Maya calendrical tradition from the first hieroglyphic inscriptions to the present—an undertaking critical to unlocking and understanding the iconography and cosmology of the ancient Maya world. Mining data from astronomy, ethnography, linguistics, and epigraphy, and working from early and modern dictionaries of the Maya languages, Lamb pieces together accurate definitions of the month names in order to compare them across time and tradition. His exhaustive process reveals unsuspected parallels. Three-fourths of the month names, he shows, still derive from those of the original hieroglyphic inscriptions. Lamb also traces the relationship between month names as cognates, synonyms, or homonyms, and then reconstructs each name’s history of development, connecting the Maya month names in several calendars to ancient texts and archaeological finds. In this landmark study, Lamb’s investigations afford new insight into the agricultural, astronomical, ritual, and even political motivations behind names and dates in the Maya calendar. A history of descent and diffusion, of unexpected connectedness and longevity, The Maya Calendar offers readers a deep understanding of a foundational aspect of Maya culture.

Mayan History Making sense of our universe...It's an age-old practice that transcends cultures and generations. From our vantage point, the larger than life Maya civilization grappled with the urge in a grand scale. Join us as we take a voyage to understand the ways of the Maya. Inside you will read about... - Who Made Contact? Early Explorers and their Impact - How the Maya Wanted to Be Represented - History Written by the Victors - Different Periods of Maya History - Larger Than Life - New Findings We'll learn what they held as sacred, how the sacred manifested itself in their lives, and about efforts to accurately portray them, despite romanticized versions. This eBook provides a deeper look at their pre-Columbian battling dynasties and their highly-structured approach to religion, science and society, as we explore their glories and misfortunes.

The simple question "How did the Maya come up with a calendar that had only 260 days?" led Vincent Malmström to discover an unexpected "hearth" of Mesoamerican culture. In this boldly revisionist book, he sets forth his challenging, new view of the origin and diffusion of Mesoamerican calendrical systems—the intellectual achievement that gave rise to Mesoamerican civilization and culture. Malmström posits that the 260-day calendar marked the interval between passages of the sun at its zenith over Izapa, an ancient ceremonial center in the Soconusco region of Mexico's Pacific coastal plain. He goes on to show how the calendar developed by the Zoque people of the region in the fourteenth century B.C. gradually diffused through Mesoamerica into the so-called "Olmec metropolitan area" of the Gulf coast and beyond to the Maya in the east and to the plateau of Mexico in the west. These findings challenge our previous understanding of the origin and diffusion of Mesoamerican civilization. Sure to provoke lively debate in many quarters, this book will be important reading for all students of ancient Mesoamerica—anthropologists, archaeologists, archaeoastronomers, geographers, and the growing public fascinated by all things Maya.

Did the Maya really predict that the world would end in December of 2012? If not, how and why has 2012 millenarianism gained such popular appeal? In this deeply knowledgeable book, two leading historians of the Maya answer these questions in a succinct, readable, and accessible style. Matthew Restall and Amara Solari introduce, explain, and ultimately demystify the 2012 phenomenon. They begin by briefly examining the evidence for the prediction of the world's end in ancient Maya texts and images, analyzing precisely what Maya priests did and did not prophesize. The authors then convincingly show how 2012 millenarianism has roots far in time and place from Maya cultural traditions, but in those of medieval and Early Modern Western Europe. Revelatory any myth-busting, while remaining firmly grounded in historical fact, this fascinating book will be essential reading as the countdown to December 21, 2012, begins.