Talk:Maya calendar/Archives/2012/May

Mars, Mercury and Jupiter?

"The Maya also possibly tracked other planets’ movements, including those of Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter." Yes, this is possible but as far as I know there is no actual evidence for this. I think that this sentence should be removed because it's speculation. Senor Cuete (talk) 16:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)Senor Cuete

Nobody objected to this proposed edit for two weeks so I went ahead and made it. Senor Cuete (talk) 00:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)Senor Cuete

I think there'd be plenty of credible sources who advocate, in one form or another, that the Maya knew of and tracked all five of the naked-eye planets (Venus being a no-brainer, of course). For eg, various proposals linking Jupiter & Saturn with the 819-day count, Mars (& possibly Mercury) with tables in the Dresden, the accepted identification of the "Mars Beast" glyph, Mercury with the owl iconography, Jupiter with God K, etc. Susan Milbrath's Star Gods of the Maya (1999) is AFAIK the most comprehensive collection and one of the strongest advocates, but there's also Aveni, Ruggles, Bricker, Tate, Justeson, the Tedlocks, Foster, Mathews, Rice and a host of other modern scholars who at one time or another propose planetary identifications in the inscriptions & iconography. So I think there'd be scope to discuss these proposals somewhere, but the question is I guess whether or not this is the right article to do it. What wld be useful to have at some point is an article on Maya astronomy, sadly lacking ATM.--cjllw ʘ TALK 02:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

An article about the correlation question would be good as well so every time someone reads about one of the other 50 or so proposed correlations it wouldn't end up here. I'm too lazy to write it. Senor Cuete (talk) 03:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Senor Cuete

Just a note that I've copied citation for Susan Milbrath's "Star Gods..." from Tzolk'in entry to here as it is mentioned in above discussion and I believe it a reasonable source for this article.Volpane (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

¶ The Mayan calendar is certainly different from the majority of ancient calendar systems - the Egyptian, the Babylonia, the Hebrew, the Chinese, the Druid, etc. - which involved either the solar year or the lunar year or a combination of both, since the Mayans seemed (more or less) indifferent to the solar year, and instead seemed to pin their calendar on astronomical events that did not relate to the earthly cycles. But it should be kept in mind that the Mayans, occupying the lush jungles near the equator, would not have noticed or been concerned about the usual change of seasons that is more conspicuous nearer the poles. Sussmanbern (talk) 04:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

New finds

See http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6082/714

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/science/archaeologists-unearth-ancient-maya-calendar-writing.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=xultun-mayan-calendar

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120510-maya-2012-doomsday-calendar-end-of-world-science/

http://news.discovery.com/history/mayan-calendar-discovery-doomsday-120511.html

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-ancient-maya-calendar.html

http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=55294

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Team-with-Skidmore-archaeologist-makes-major-3549108.php

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0511/Mayan-calendar-discovery-suggests-world-might-not-end-in-2012

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0511/Oldest-Mayan-calendar-found-and-it-goes-way-beyond-Dec.-12-2012-video

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18018343

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ancient-mayan-workshop-for-1435307.html

http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2012/05/ancient-mayan-workshop-for-astronomers.html

http://news.yahoo.com/earliest-mayan-calendar-shows-no-hint-world-end-185153809.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-guatemala-never-before-seen-mayan-artwork-is-discovered/2012/05/10/gIQAPic5FU_gallery.html

Dougweller (talk) 15:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

That's nice but the question is: How do these contribute to the article? Should the article be edited to include every new news article about this subject as it's released? If this was so the article would have been edited to include the fiasco about the Comalcalco brick and then it would have been retracted. Are recent news releases relevant to this subject? Senor Cuete (talk) 15:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)Senor Cuete

This article - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510141953.htm has a good description of what's really there. The links you provided are great examples of the fact that the popular media generally get it wrong and sensationalize stories like this one. For example they say that this is the "Oldest 'Mayan' calendar". Senor Cuete (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)Senor Cuete