Welcome To The Mayan Countdown

I think most people are aware that the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out this year, after all the hype in the last few years over the whole affair.  Possibly one fact that people are not aware of is it has been counting down for over 5,100 years!  In fact, it runs out on the winter solstice of December 21, and damned it that isn't a Friday!!  We have BIG plans!!  So, I thought that with each Friday this year, I'd present a few facts about this and the Mayan people in general (I do go down the native tangent on this blog from time to time).  

Again, I wanted to start this last week with the New Year celebration, but ATT's DISMAL DSL "service" wouldn't provide me with the Internet service that paid for, so I'm having to scramble to fit extra stuff in here.  First of all the Mayans actually have two really well known calendars:  a calendar round (pictured above) that is very much like any cyclical calendar around the world, like our January to December or Chinese New Year (celebrated this year on Jan. 23).  Then there is the long count calendar that is the famous counting down to Baktun 13 (Dec. 21, 2012).  What is not generally known is that the Maya have even longer counts in calendars, one that actually goes millions of years into the future and really predicts the burning of the earth by the sun--something that science has proven will take place, and it turns out  the Maya have the time frame about right.  Really, all that Baktun 13 is, is a date on the long count to "re-math" or map the next Baktun, or section of the long count. So, all this hype about 2012, is...well HYPE.  But we can still have some fun with it!  

This is the working T'zolkin (Mayan Round Calender)

And not to rattle anyone's chain, but the Mayans are not the only New World indigenous people to have a calendar run out in 2012.  It doesn't get talked about much at all outside of Native circles, but the Tsalagi (Cherokee) calender also comes to an ending point this year as well.  And, of course, the Hopi have some vague musings on the subject of some sort of transition from "one world to the other" in 2012.  Nahua's (people of Mexica or Aztec decent), on the other hand, really don't have anything to say on the subject at all; their two calenders are humming along just fine!  [And I know that there are some that claim Aztecs claim this year will be a passing into a new age, but this really happened every year in a religious ceremony of the New Fire aka the Aztec new year).  Below are a few images from actual Maya calendar workings....because this next picture IS NOT A MAYAN CALENDAR.

This is the AZTEC calender.  Try telling that to people on the web.  Go Goggle it and see!

MAYA IMAGES:

20 Day names from the T'zolkin

Artful modern reproduction of the round calendar

This is a modern reproduction of the Mayan calendar which hangs in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian

Mayan numbers up to 19, note that they had zero

Actual calendar round interaction

Interaction of the Calendar Round with the Long Count

This Friday Maya date is:  12 Kabab 5 Muan on the callendar round

And:  12.19.19.0.17 on the long count.  We are 342 days from Baktun 13


BTY:  This is the first of 3 Friday's the 13th in 2012.  The last year to have this was 2009, but they didn't line up these do....each one of these F13 occur exactly 13 weeks apart.   Now that is unusual...welcome to weirdness.