6. Mayan Civilization and Astrology

The Lunar Series Calendar was the original contribution of Maya’s to the world as conformed early in the 3rd century AD. The Mayan proclivity of using whole numbers leads to the lunar calculation of 29 or 30 days, while modern science calculates the synodic period of the moon as 29.53059 days. When they chose a formula of six lunation with an average day count worked out to 177 days, or 6 x 29.5 days. More accurate multiples of the lunar months were sometimes used for long range calculations. Traditionally, the word Mayan has referred to the language, and Maya was the noun and adjective used to describe the people and civilization. The Mayans used a long-term calendar, to confirm that they could distinguish moon between the different cycles. This Long Calendar started from the 13th August 3114 BCE, in Gregorian terms, and was simply a count from day zero. They divided this into segments, rather than having upright count, of 20, 60, 7200, 144 000, and 1 872 000 days. The latter period, of 5125.25 years, is called a Great Cycle, and the Mayan believed that the end of one of these great cycles announced the end of an age and catastrophe. The Mayans did not have any complex instruments for charting the positions of celestial objects, so their observations were with the naked eye. They have used rudimentary instruments, such as crossed sticks to chart position, but they lacked the relative motion of through Armillary spheres or sextants of other civilizations.