2012 Secrets Unlocked

The People of the Sun

The Maya evidently thought quite a bit about the Sun as they watched it trace out a path along the ecliptic. They followed it year round, presumably following its path along the horizon as well. At Chichen Itza, during sunset a sun serpent rises up the side of the stairway of the pyramid called El Castillo on the day of Spring and Autumn Equinox. It tells us that the Maya noted not only the extremes of the Sun at the Solstices, but also the Equinoxes when the Sun appeared to rise due East or due West. In addition to the Zenial Passages mentioned earlier, ecliptic observations must have been a major portion of Maya solar observing.

The Maya also had a lunar component to their calendric inscriptions. After giving the pertinent information on the date according to the Maya calendar, the typical Maya inscriptions contain a lunar reckoning. The lunar count was counted as 29 or 30 days, alternating. The lunar synodic period is close to 29.5 days, so by alternating their count between these two numbers the moon was carefully meshed into the calendric sequence as well. Their lunar knowledge was impressive, for they also made eclipse predictions, and an almanac for predicting them is contained in the Dresden Codex.

The Maya portrayed the Ecliptic in their artwork as a Double-Headed Serpent. The ecliptic is the path of the sun in the sky which is marked by the constellations of fixed stars. Here the moon and the planets can be found because they are bound, like the Earth, to the sun. The constellations on the ecliptic are also called the zodiac. We don't know exactly how fixed constellations on the ecliptic were seen by the Maya, but we have some idea of the order in some parts of the sky.

Certain Mayan symbols seen in the stars correlate strangely with traditions from other cultures around the world... We know there is a scorpion, which we equate with our own constellation of Scorpius. The Pleiades were seen as the tail of a great rattlesnake and is called, "Tz'ab".

The Maya Kings timed their holy ceremonies in tune with the stars and the Milky Way. They celebrated k'atun endings every twenty years. At the end of the 20-year k'atun period, Maya kings typically had pyramids built to honor the event.

By incorporating the holy symbols assosciated with their religion and their knowledge of the universe, the Maya linked themselves to the heavens, the gods and the miracle of life itself. But when k'atun endings occured in conjunction with certain other planetary omens, the Maya went to war to obtain captives for use in ritual sacrifice, ensuring that the stars and planets would continue to move in an orderly fashion, and that the sun would again rise, bringing warmth, new crops and renewed life.