Part 1: The myths about the Mayan Calendar

Now it’s 2012, on the 21st of December the world should end. But all this is a made-up story. What happen to believe the Mayans, I will tell you in this Linus-Times. The Mayans had many calendars. For example, one of the smallest Calendar is the agricultural calendar with 260 days. Then there is the calendar about life, the calendar about sacrifice and other calendars. The calendar with the longest time is the priest calendar. This whole calendar began counting at the day of creation of the Mayans. It is a religious day, so the researcher think that there were Mayans before this date. But exactly on the 11th of August 3113 BC, the Mayan calendar began to count. They mesh like gears into each other and this calendars do that exactly 5125 years and 134 days until the 21st of December 2012.

At the pyramid Chichén Itzá in the Kingdom of the Mayan you can see how twice a year the sun casts a shadow left of the steps.. According to the belief of the Mayans this Shadow is the holy Serpent Kukulkan.

Kukulkan also plays a role on 21st December 2012, she should rise up to earth and change the world, so a new dynasty can start. Kukulkan will choose one or more people to be extinguished according to the beliefs of the Mayans. Then new peoples and animals will return to earth.

Here you can see a picture from 2009 as the shadow from Kukulkan climbing down of the pyramid Chichén Itzá.

Part 2: The Mayan calendar

The Mayan calendar is split into many separate calendars and days:
k’in – 1 day winal – 20 days tzolk’in – A combination of 20 k'in and 13 hours of the day that move every day, so for example, on one day the morning can be at 6.00 clock and on the next day at 19.00 clock in CET. You can imagine the calendar has many gears, of different size. Until haab and tzolk’in by the starting point 18.980 days go by it, that is 52 years. haab – 360 days (18 winal month) + the last 5 days named wayeb, there are calamity days from the Mayans, this days came at the end of the year. k’atun – 7.200 days (20time haab) bak’tun – 144.000 days (20time k’atun) If now come to tzolk’in and haab interplay to k’atun and bak’tun, it is exactly 5125 today years and 143 today days, until the calendar was back to the point of 11 August 3114 BC. And so it goes on without end. Now to the k’in, 20 of them are in one winal. I list them here, with hieroglyphics of the Maya.

According to legend, on the infamous 11th August 3114 BC the three evil gods celestial crocodile, god of the underworld and Ix Chel have made a huge flood. It supposedly destroyed everything and made room for new things. And now, on 21.12.2012 the serpent Kukulkan haunt us. But it is, according to the faith of the Maya, a good snake that has always brought happiness to the Mayans. So there is still hope.

Sources

The next Linus – Times in April.

The final question:

How long is pictum?

1. 20 baktun
2. 24 baktun
3. 120 baktun