Maya Astronomy and Calendar & Chichen Itza and the Serpent Equinox
The Maya calendar has been the subject of much interest in popular culture recently as some followers believe that it predicts the end of the world. Fortunately for us, the day has come….and gone…and the world is still here. The Maya calendar was wonderfully complicated and accurate and most likely only understood by the priests. As the calendar was used to predict important natural phenomena like the solstices and equinoxes, the ability to read or understand the calendar would have helped maintain the elevated status of the priests. The Maya used three calendars: the Tzolkin, the Haab, and the Long Count. The Tzolkin (the divine or sacred round) was calculated on a 20 day-13 month cycle which equaled 260 days. The Haab (or civil year) was calculated on an 18 month-20 day cycle + 1 month (which was only 5 days long) which added up to 365 days. Used simultaneously, they coincided every 52 years (kind of like what a century is to us nowadays). As this was considered a pretty big deal, there were celebrations and lots of human sacrifices. The Long Count calendar uses the largest span of the time in its cycle. It started on August 13th, 3114 BCE and it restarted its new cycle on December 21, 2012 (this is where the end of the world theories come in).
The Mayan priests in-depth understanding of the sun, moon, and other planetary movements helped them to design sacred structures that were precisely aligned to correspond with the Spring or Winter Equinoxes and other recurring solar phenomena. On these special days, the sun’s rays would perform a miraculous illusion that would prove the existence of the divine world and the priest’s connection to it. Take for example Chichen Itza and the Serpent Equinox which descends upon it every during the Spring Equinox (I spoke of this important temple and the serpent phenomena in an earlier post). The play of light and shadow gave the illusion of the great snake god slowly slithering his way down the temple until his followers would be given a thrilling view of his fierce, open-mouthed face and undulating body looking as if it’s ready to slither off somewhere. Where would it be going you may ask?
The city of Chichen Itza and its temple complex were built nearby two major Cenotes otherwise known as, sinkholes. Cenotes were considered sacred to the Mayans because they were thought to be entry-ports between the spirit and earthly world. Therefore, many human sacrifices were held at these sacred Cenotes. The most important Cenote, The Well of Sacrifice, was directly in front of the Chichen Itza pyramid and the Serpent Equinox. The Ancient Mayan’s believed that the water in the Cenote was also sacred and the final destination for the visiting Serpent god. Dredging and excavation at the larger Cenote have unearthed more than 200 human sacrifices and an assortment of other goods such as gold, pottery, weapons, textiles, and other domestic items. Interestingly, the other Cenote off the Chichen Itza temple showed no evidence of a sacrifice of any kind and seemed to have been used as a supply for freshwater.
