CODE OF THE MAYAN CALENDAR FINALLY CRACKED?

Can you tell me what date it is today?

Piece of cake, you just look at your

smartphone and voila you immediately

know the day month and year ,but was it

always this easy to tell the date did

the ancient people even have the concept

of a year that lasts 365 days yes and no

Mayan calendars had Cycles

that's close to what we call a year but

the Mayan cycle was much longer 8 19

days

and this is where the Mystery Begins 8

19 days compared to what when does this

calendar begin and when does it end

scientists were asking themselves this

question for decades

they discovered and deciphered the Mayan

calendar during the 1940s recently two

American scientists John Linden and

Victoria Bricker came forward with a

solution so what did they do differently

from their predecessors

the duo deciphered The Code by

broadening their thinking they expanded

the calendar from 8 19 days to full 45

years that's 20 times longer than the

original cycle and a pattern started to

emerge

this was a major breakthrough because

the Maya told time in a complicated way

you can forget about the easy to read

Arabic numerals we have today these

ancient people used glyphs

these are tiny images that represent

characters something like the icons on

your desktop or Universal symbols

when you see a little dot with three

curved lines above it you know there is

a wi-fi network available the Mayan

calendar used glyphs that represented

animals or natural phenomena for example

there were symbols for Jaguar and an

eagle

each glyph Marked One Day

each cycle is repeated four times eight

in 19 X4 let's call these four Cycles

blocks the Mayas colored each block

differently scientists thought these

colors corresponded to the four cardinal

directions red was East White North West

was black and finally yellow marked

South but then the 1980s came yeah this

was a weird decade the calculations were

all wrong researchers determined that

the colors were associated with the

position of the sun in the sky it turned

out that the color yellow represented

the highest point of the sun which is

called a Zenith

white was the lowest point called the

nadir

it seems that the calendar showed just

how good the ancient Mayas were at

astronomy this is most evident to

Chichen Itza this principle Mayan city

is located on the Yucatan Peninsula

Mexico there stands an impressive step

pyramid it is dedicated to The Feathered

Serpent deity and its alignment is

perfect something marvelous happens here

twice a year during the equinoxes March

and September these are the times when

the sun shines directly over the equator

on these two dates the day and night

lasts the same

at the site of the pyramid sunlight

first illuminates the sculpture of the

serpent head at the base of the

structure then it makes its way up the

91 steps this creates the illusion that

a snake is Slithering down the pyramid

even today people gather to witness the

site and it must have been more

impressive when the Mayas completed the

structure 1050 1300 CE

do you know what a cenotic period is

neither do I

but Mayan astronomers did a sonatic

period is the time that passes before a

stellar body does a full lap

for example this is the period between

two full moons when you look from Earth

this period lasts roughly 30 days

and the Mayas were looking at the skies

non-stop they carefully noted the

synodic periods of all planets from

Venus to Saturn these ancient

astronomers kept records of nearly all

celestial bodies but what does this have

to do with their calendar

the American researchers calculations

revealed the link let's take the planet

closest to the Sun as an example Mercury

its synodic period is 117 days multiply

that by 7 and you get which number

exactly 8 to 19 when 17 X7 equals sign

819 coincidence definitely not because

sonatic periods of other planets also

neatly match the magical figure 819

but this is not visible from a single

Mayan cycle scientists had to expand it

several times to discover the pattern

there is a reason why no one could

decipher the code for so long they were

focused on a single planet

the trick was to add the Mayan

calculation for all the planets

researchers just needed to see the

bigger picture

this brings us to the year 2012. can you

remember that some people thought that

the world would end on December 21st

that turned out to be a bust we are

alive and well now

but what started this false rumor the

Mayan calendar of course you see these

ancient people based their calendar on

long periods of all the planets that

included a lot of complicated math and a

lot of multiplying

this 2012 was simply the time when their

cycle ended it is known as The Long

Count this period is the same as our

year for the Mayas 2012 was something

like the 31st of December for us just an

end of a cycle in which they measured

time so there was no need to panic those

New Year's Eve parties might be a bit

wild but the world doesn't end on

January 1st

the Mayas stretched more than their

calendar

rubber was the name of the game yes

you've heard it correctly these ancient

people were making different grades of

rubber 3000 years before one famous

American did Charles Goodyear

they would extract natural latex from

the rubber tree

this is a milky substance that can be

turned into Rubber and they weren't the

only ones

scientists found evidence that their

neighbors the Aztecs and the olmecs did

the same

but what did they do with rubber they

didn't need car tires definitely

but it's cool to have a nice pair of

sandals for the beach

the Spanish wrote about Rubber Sole

Footwear that natives wore sadly

scientists still haven't found them that

would be a big step for archeology

so the Maya were playful with rubber

literally researchers guessed that they

produced balls from latex these were

bouncy and ranged in size from a

softball to a soccer ball a typical

Mayan ball game pits involved two Hoops

you must be thinking basketball but not

quite

the Hoops were set on walls 23 feet high

compare that to the NBA standard of 10

feet

and the hoop was the other way around

there is also a sweet side to the story

of the Mayas these ancient people

enjoyed chocolate in fact the modern

word chocolate probably comes from their

language sokolatal this meant Bitter

Water okay you get the bitter part but

why water the Mayas didn't produce

chocolate in the form we know it today

they didn't make bars of chocolate they

drank it smashed cocoa beans made for

excellent drinks the Mayas perfected the

mixture over time and even added spices

anyone up for a fiery chocolate drink

with stew peppers and cornmeal who knows

maybe this beverage actually tasted well

cocoa beans were sacred and used as a

currency researchers believe all social

classes got to enjoy it free chocolate

for all sounds nice even today

but where did the Mayas get clean water

for their cocoa drinks from the oldest

known filtration system in the Western

Hemisphere it was based on zeolite these

are minerals that contain aluminum and

silicone compounds and guess what modern

air and water purifiers still use this

material Mayan Tech wins yet again

back in Europe Roger Bacon developed a

sand filtration system in 1627 some 1

800 years after the Mayas

but what about regions without rivers

lakes or Springs Mayan Engineers had it

all figured out rainwater they would

carve out large reservoirs in the

Limestone Bedrock then they would coat

these underground caves with a layer of

a watertight material the final step was

to make small channels that collected

water from the hills above scientists

estimated that just one of these

reservoirs could hold on average 10 000

gallons of rainwater enough to fill 55

modern hot tubs.