Ancient Maya Prophecy and Calendrics: Reality and Fantasy

By Dr. David A. Freidel and Marcos Adrián Villaseñor

dfreidel@artsci.wustl.edu mvillase@hunter.cuny.edu

 

Introduction

 

The Pre-Columbian peoples of Central America and Southeastern Mexico who established and sustained the ancient Maya civilization between 750 BC and 1520 AD were devoted star-gazers and day-keepers. Although their calendars had the practical value of scheduling major social and religious events and, in the case of the Classic Maya civilization especially, they allowed the chronicling of history, the main motivation for astronomical observation was that they believed in astrology. Astrology is, in essence, the idea that the celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, affect the destinies of people. Maya prophecy, while always based in the mystical capacity of some people to commune directly with supernatural beings, was also anchored into predictions based in astrological calculations.

Astrology is a deeply influential idea world-wide, and for obvious reasons: before the light pollution of the modern age the night sky was a universally awesome sight. The patterned movement of the Moon, planets and stars across the night sky inspired stories of the creation and the role of divine beings in the creation everywhere people looked up and wondered. These stories, promulgated by the charismatic and the wise, had the power of a universally observable frame of reference. Insofar as there was knowledge to be discovered, it lay in the interpretation of what everyone could always see and ultimately confirm. And of course star-gazing ushered in the modern world of scientific cosmology with the Solar-centric model of Copernicus, Galileo and many other pioneering astronomers. Science, the universal method of discovering and knowing, is still expanding our model of the cosmos and our place in it. In the world of the scientific method, however, astrology with its mystical assertions of cause and effect links between celestial bodies and human destiny is a matter of faith and not of fact.

 

Maya Astronomy and Calendrics

 

The Maya were participants in a larger “world” of civilizations that included the ancestral Mixe-Zoque speakers, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Totonac, and ultimately the famous Nahua speakers who included the Culhua-Mexica, the Imperial Aztec nation. Over ten percent of the contemporary peoples of Mexico, and half the people of Guatemala, speak a language indigenous to this civilized world. When the Maya founded their first cities in the lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula after 1000 BC, star-gazing and was already a time-worn tradition in their world. They raised public buildings that symbolized celestial bodies and that were oriented to the path of the sun, the moon, the Milky Way and the constellations they could observe on the ecliptic path in the night sky. The Pre-Columbian Maya discerned thirteen constellations on the ecliptic path in contrast to the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia who saw twelve and whose astrological legacy came to modern Western civilization.

The number thirteen was, and remains, an exceptionally propitious one and it figures prominently in Maya astrological calculations in the Tzolkin (day counting) 260 day sacred almanac. The 260 day sacred almanac is the most ancient calendar for which we have evidence in Mexico and Central America and was so wide-spread throughout the Mesoamerican world that it is virtually one of the defining cultural traits for it. That calendar cycles through the permutations of twenty named days and thirteen numbers generating 260 unique day-number combinations. The numbered day on which a person is born is so important that it was the name a child went by until given others and always figured in that persons adult destiny. Even the birthday names of gods were important. The number twenty, for the Maya, is an obvious allusion to a major characteristic of all human beings: we have twenty fingers and toes. For those Mesoamericans who participated in the place notation system invented sometime in the first millennium BCE, that it was a base twenty system made perfect sense. Unlike the ancient Mesopotamian astrology we have inherited in the West, the Mesoamericans did not see a direct correspondence between the patterns of particular constellations and the fates of individuals born under their influence. Nevertheless, it is hardly coincidental that the 260 day calendar anchors into 13 numbers as well as twenty named days.

During the Classic period of lowland Maya civilization, roughly 200 AD to 900 AD, scribes painted and carved glyphic texts that included references to the Long Count, a reckoning of days from a Creation Day which experts can correlate with our own calendar as August 11, 3114 BC. In their system, the short way to write Creation Day is 13.0.0.0.0. 4 Ajaw 8 Kumku and this date marks the completion of 13 bundles of 7200 days. But this is just the short way to write date. The full way to write it would show the successive bundles of days 20 place markers above this number 13. Creation Day marks the end of one unimaginably long cosmic era and the beginning of the present, equally unimaginably long era. We know this because a Classic period stela or carved stone monument at the site of Coba in Quintana Roo Mexico does not just write out Creation Day to 13^th Baktun, but goes on to list zeros in twenty places above that number 13. For the real cosmic era to reach completion and return to 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumku, each of those zeros would, in succession, have to turn over to 13. That number is roughly 10 to the 64^th power years. All of which is to say that the end of the 13^th Baktun coming up in 2012, on 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 3 Kankin, is just a small tick in the cosmic clock as far as the Classic Maya were concerned. We can confirm that by noting that the 2012 event is simply not mentioned by the Maya in their written texts, while Creation Day figures prominently and pervasively in the texts.

 

Christian Eschatology, the New Age and 2012

 

This reality, however, has not prevented modern day astrologers and self-taught enthusiasts in Maya religion from writing and speaking at great length about the imminent arrival of December 21^st 2012 and its implications. The book stores around the world are filling up with new publications interpreting the completion of the 13^th Baktun and what will happen. Why are people buying these books? In the West, at least, one good reason is that Christianity, the major religious tradition, teaches that the world will come to an end. This belief, milleniarism, is found in other religious traditions as well, but it is especially robust in contemporary evangelical Christianity. So if the Maya predicted the end of the world, it would be, so to speak, independent verification of the Christian view. In the 19^th century, some unscrupulous men created a petrified giant and buried him in upper state New York. The Cardiff Giant, when “discovered” made those men a great deal of money because people who had read Genesis and other scripture were predisposed to believe that giants once walked the earth. And they would pay good money to see the giant for themselves. The end of the world has been a perennially popular theme for sincere religious prophets and charlatans out to make money. So it is unsurprising that the ancient Maya have been elevated to the world stage as 2012 approaches.

What did the ancient Maya really think about prophecy? They believed in astrology, and powerful political and religious leaders regularly depicted themselves in communion with divine beings, both gods and ancestors. Their Classic period texts are quite brief and laconic compared to the scriptures we have from other religious traditions. But the way that they regularly anchor important historical events into the Long Count and the other calendars they kept implies that they were situating those historical events into cosmic patterns, making sense of them in light of the known past and the prospective future. While such reckoning was done in the context of the will of the gods, it was a kind of historical analysis we can also see in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia, and China among the areas that have early writing systems and literary traditions.

Eye-witness accounts at the time of the Spanish arrival in Maya country show that Maya shaman-priests would predict future events, ordinarily disasters, associated with calendar rituals such as the turning of the k’atun or twenty year cycle. These were recorded in the lowlands in the Colonial period in books called the prophecies of the jaguar priest or Chilam Balam. These books are interesting for the way they relate Maya concerns with famine, disease, war and other disasters, and they confirm that the ancient Maya did indeed prophecy for whole communities and polities, not just for individuals. That said, we do not have clear examples of such prediction and prophecy from the Classic period texts. They remain implied by the focus on situating events in calendar cycles.

In the run-up to 2012, we have an opportunity to reflect on the powerful and beautiful qualities of Maya religious thought and sacred stories, and upon the centrality of balance, reciprocity, to the relationships between people and the divine. The Popol Vuh, a highland Maya Colonial period version of ancient Maya beliefs, the current, successful human beings were created following divination by the gods. Those people, the ancestors of modern Maya, were made of maize. They were successful because they could not only discern the gods as was true of earlier human beings, but they nurtured and sustained them. For the Classic Maya centuries earlier, maize was the deity that provided flesh for people. This was likely true for the authors of the Popol Vuh, although they lived in a Christian world in which they could not declare that reality. Maize is still the staple of Maya people, and they must care for it and for the world around it in order to ensure that they can live and their children can live after them. This simple covenant between people and the divine is knowable by everyone, and it contains an enduring truth about humanity and the world. If humans will sustain and nurture the world, and revere it as they should, then they can live and prosper. If they do not, it does not take a prophet to predict disaster.

Meanwhile, the charlatans present formidable sounding arguments why the ancient Maya hold the secret to the future through predictions about 2012. One of the most prolific and enterprising is John Major Jenkins. We think it is worthwhile examining his case in some detail. 

 

The Galactic Alignment vs. Modern Astronomy

 

The Galactic Alignment. The well-known New Age apologist John Major Jenkins has made a name for himself by promoting a distorted notion of astronomy that he calls the “Galactic Alignment”, which he says occurs once every Precession of the Equinoxes cycle or Great Year of 26,000 years and will next happen on December 21, 2012.

In astronomy the term “alignment” is used to describe a linear arrangement of celestial bodies within a gravitational system along different celestial longitudes. For example, within the solar system we often witness alignments in which two or more planets appear to form a straight line with the sun. In astronomical parlance the term alignment cannot be meaningfully applied to solar-galactic conjunctions (along the same celestial longitude) or solar-galactic transits (see “transit” in Glossary) —to do so is misleading. In reality no significant astronomical event will occur on December 21, 2012.

What Jenkins promotes as a “Galactic Alignment” is in reality three separate events occurring over a span of more than two hundred years. In order to fit these three events into his galactic alignment Jenkins makes three distinct claims.

First Claim. According to Jenkins, the galactic alignment is the “alignment of the solstice’s meridian with the galactic equator” (Jenkins 2002:250). —Note that the Galactic equator is a somewhat arbitrary line[1] created by modern astronomy for which there is no evidence of its use by the Classic Maya—. Since the conjunction of the solsticial sun with the Galactic equator took place in 1998 (Meeus 1997) (fig. 1) and not on December 21, 2012, Jenkins attempts to fit fact to theory by inventing a 36-year period of time centered on 1998 (1980-2016) that he calls “the 2012 era”. He writes “Because the sun is one-half of a degree wide, it will take the December solstice sun 36 years to precess through the Galactic equator.” (Jenkins 2009). And the Maya’s love for astronomical precision be damned.

 

Figure 1

 

 Jenkins also writes, in reference to the 1998 solsticial sun-galactic equator conjunction, that the “Galactic Alignment occurs only once every 26,000 years” (Jenkins 2009). This is not true, since the galactic equator divides the celestial sphere in two and therefore intersects the sun’s ecliptic at two separate nodes (fig. 2). In other words the conjunction of the solsticial sun with the galactic equator actually happens twice (approximately every 13,000 years) in a precession cycle of slightly less than 26,000 years. In addition he states: “This Galactic Alignment …was what the ancient Maya were pointing to with the 2012 end-date of their Long Count calendar” (Jenkins 2009). This is an unfounded statement based on nothing more than Jenkins own assumptions.

Figure 2

 

Second Claim. According to Jenkins his galactic alignment is also an “alignment of the December solstice sun with the Dark Rift” —and it occurs— “once every 26,000 years” (Jenkins 2002:18). This is another misleading statement. This time what Jenkins calls alignment is really a transit that spans 155-years. The solstice sun began transiting the Dark Rift of the Milky Way in 1955 and will finish this transit in the year 2100 (Tonkin 2006) (figs. 3, 4). In other words what Jenkins claims happens once every 26,000 years in reality happens every year for a period of 155 years during each precession cycle.

 

Figure 3

 

 

Figure 4.

 

Third Claim. Jenkins’ third claim is that on December 21, 2012, the December solsticial sun will “align” with the galactic center (Jenkins 2002:14). This conjunction will actually occur on the December solstice of 2225. In order to fit this conjunction into his 2012 scheme, he writes: “So we might want to be open enough to entertain a 260-year transformation window that would embrace the ‘two’ alignments” (Jenkins 2002: 253). In other words, according to Jenkins, his 2012 “Galactic Alignment” is magically both: an event occurring once in 26,000 years (next on December 21, 2012), and at the same time a 260 year period of “transformation.”

 

A Simple Solution to Jenkin’s Dilemma

 

 In juggling these three unrelated astronomical events that span more than two centuries, Jenkins invents a meaningless term, distorts astronomical definitions and ascribes to the Maya his own pseudo-astronomy. But in all his writings John Major Jenkins fails to recognizes the discrepancy between the contemporary value of precession (50.38 arc seconds/year) and the Mesoamerican value of precession (50.57 arc seconds/year) and that by simply substituting today’s more accurate value of precession for the Mesoamerican value of precession (based on the probability that the Long Count is one fifth of a Great Year[2]), one ends with the solsticial sun in the middle of the Dark Rift on December 22, 2032 (fig. 5).

 

Figure 5

 

Conclusion

 

 While John Major Jenkin’s reconstruction of Maya myths vis à vis the Milky Way may have strong foundations, his invention and promotion of the astronomically meaningless concept of galactic alignment discredits much of his research. Responding to an email on this topic, Jenkins wrote: "an extremely high degree of accuracy is not a requirement of my alignment theory" (Jenkins, personal communication). If a “high degree of accuracy” is not required for the galactic alignment, he should not insist on saying that his galactic alignment happens only once every 26,000 years (next on December 21, 2012), when he is clearly and knowingly referring not to one but to three distinct events occurring over two centuries. It cannot be both ways.

If John Major Jenkins wants to be taken seriously, he must first dispense with his distorted astronomy and update his astronomical lexicon. Then he may be able to understand that the use of astronomical definitions, rather than the creation of nebulous concepts, illuminates the road to Xibalba.

 

Glossary of terms

• Conjunction: the situation of two celestial bodies having either the same celestial longitude or the same sidereal hour angle

• Galactic center: the rotational center of the Milky Way; galactic longitude 359° 56′ 39.5″, galactic latitude −0° 2′ 46.3″ (the galactic center is invisible to the human eye)

• Galactic equator: an imaginary circle drawn along the central plane of the Milky Way that divides the celestial sphere into two hemispheres; the reference plane for celestial coordinates (the galactic equator lies at 0º longitude of the celestial system of coordinates, inclined at an angle of 62º to the celestial equator)

• Galactic longitude: a coordinate system that gives the angular position of an object around the galactic equator, measured in degrees clockwise along the galactic equator

• Great Rift, sometimes called the Dark Rift: a series of overlapping, non-luminous, molecular dust clouds located between the solar system and the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. To the naked eye they divide the bright band of the Milky Way lengthwise through about one-third of its extent, forming a dark lane, flanked by lanes of multitudinous stars. Starting at the constellation Cygnus, where it is known as the Cygnus Rift or Northern Coalsack, the rift reaches through Aquila into Ophiuchus, where it broaden into Sagittarius, obscuring the center of the galaxy, and finishing in Centaurus.

• Great Year: The complete period of time of a precession of the equinoxes its duration estimate today is 25,724 years.

• Precession of the Equinoxes: the astronomical phenomena of the apparent westward movement of the equinoxes in relationship to the constellations in the ecliptic of the sun.

• Transit: the passage of a celestial body across the face of another celestial body or across any point, area, or line.

• Xibalba: is the name of the Maya underworld. The road to Xibalba as viewed by the K'iche' Maya is the Dark Rift of the Milky Way.

 

References

Glover, Daniel R. Jr. (editor). 2004. Dictionary for Technical Terms for Aerospace Use, Web edition, NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland.

Major Jenkins, John. 2002. Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian and Vedic Traditions. Bear & Company, Rochester, Vermont.

Major Jenkins, John 2009 What is the Galactic Alignment? Electronic document, http://www.alignment2012.com/whatisGA.htm, accessed June 2009.

Meeus, Jean. 1997. Mathematical Astronomy Morsels. Willman-Bell Inc., Richmond, Virginia.

Tonkin, Stephen. 2006. The 2012 Winter Solstice Non-event. Electronic document, http://www.astunit.com/astrocrud/2012.htm, accessed June 2009.

 

Notes