Thursday, January 5, 2017

When The Mayan Calendar Was Conceived

Fig. 1 Evolution of January
Today, I want to explain some of the different figures that I have talked about and used concerning the duration of the axial precession of the Earth.

I mean figures such as 26,000 yrs25,960 years, and 25,771 years (see e.g. A Savvy Ecocosmological Earth Calendar2; On The Origin and Future of Nomads).

Fig. 2 Evolution of July
It dawned on me that the axial precession is changing, albeit very slowly, like the Earth's daily rotation rate is changing.

My suspicion is that when the Mayan Calendar was developed they used knowledge "from somewhere" indicating that the axial precession rate was 26,000 years "way back then".

Currently, some scientists say that the axial precession rate is now 25,771 years, which is a decrease of 229 years (26,000 - 25,771 = 229).

Fig. 3 January - July temps over time (deg. C)
That is less than a 1% change (0.88% to be more precise).

For comparison, the Earth's rotation rate has changed about 4 hrs. in the past few thousands of years (Mitrovica 2015), which is a larger change of about 17% (4 hrs. ÷ 24 hrs. = 16.7%).

The Mayan Calendar suggests that it is based on the axial precession, because it is based on a 26,000 year cycle as the axial precession once was, and still is very, very close to what it was:
1 Day = Kin (keen)

20 Kin = 1 Uinal (a.k.a. Winal)

360 Kin or 18 Uinals = 1 Tun (toon)

20 Tuns = 1 K’atun (k’a toon)

20 K`atuns or 400 Tuns = 1 Baktun (backtoon)

13 Baktuns or 5,200 Tuns = 1 Great Cycle

5 Great Cycles = 26,000 Tuns (~26,000 yr. axial precession)
(A Savvy Ecocosmological Earth Calendar). My guess, based on Heyerdahl et. al, (Heyerdahl, History) is that the Incas, Mayans, etc. had "inherited" the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, etc. astronomical understanding ... but who knows where those non-Mayans got it.
Fig. 4 August - December temps over time (deg. C)

The calendar's implication (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 3) is that natural climate change is mild enough to give flora, fauna, and human civilization sufficient time to adapt.

Another useful take away is that it evinces a true cycle that returns back to the older temperatures as the cycle completes its circuit and restarts anew (Fig. 3, Fig. 4).

Not so with Oil-Qaeda induced climate change, which is a one way street (Humble Oil-Qaeda, Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).



3 comments:

  1. Thanks Dredd! Great class today. The world seems to get smaller by the day. Mark Twain said of the house he grew up in upon a visit later in his life, that it would be no larger than a birdhouse in few years.

    Our ancestors were a curious bunch and what adventures they had. The calendars and celestial observations of those who came before us reflect a wonder and respect and appreciation of our natural world that is largely absent today as most are content to 'live' inside a 'shopping mall' and could not care less as the 'external' world is destroyed so the mall can remain open.

    Canada in 1060. Vikings? Bog iron and smelting? When powered by wind 'oars only, that's a long way from 'home'.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/

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    Replies
    1. Mark,

      I added Fig. 4 to complete the sequence for the remaining months (August - December).

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  2. Have you read Eden in the east? Makes a good case through malerial resistance, flood and origin myths and language spread around 16000bc south-east Asian continent sundaland flooding from the end of the last ice age. If you're interested in these mysteries things like Yam and human phylogenetics are good indicators the full picture is not there but you get hints things like nautifians burial is the same as southeast Asia today also the hammer paper thinks E-D split was south-east Asian to ethopia 40000bc~ coalescence is for 15000bc you know errors the mean its poisson so this stuff is shooting from the hip because we don't have enough paleogenetics
    But the earliest layers at sites like harrapa show Sundadonty and alot of the earliest agricultural sites in China are O haplogroup which is south east Asian origin and a cousin of P south east asia and European R which probably migrated West around 20000bc splitting from Q.
    Most of this is probably wrong but its something to think about. I'd like to see your take on human migration occupation paleoclimate and ecology.
    You can also pick through a lot of cross-dissciplinary stuff and tease some things out but I think it's kinda rorschach and sparse.

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