Members of the Mayan ethnics from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala launched the website “Living the Mayan time, sun, corn and Calendar”, which aims to provide teachers and high school students with content in Maya Astronomy and Mathematics.
“It is an effort that brought the work of more than 130 people, of which 95 percent belong to the Maya indigenous from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala, who worked to create a web page that highlights the ancestral knowledge of this civilization in areas such as astronomy and the calendar. This Mayan culture site will provide interactive tools in Maya Math lessons for children and high school teachers,” declared Isabel Hawkins.
Maria Avila Vera, from Peto, Yucatan and the educational specialist from the National Museum of the American Indian, Vilma Ortiz Sanchez addressed some of the topics that can be consulted in the website.
The Maya of Mesoamerica are renowned for their precise calendars and their knowledge of astronomy.
Through systematic observations conducted over thousands of years, Mayan skywatchers developed complex and accurate calendars that continue to mark agricultural and ceremonial cycles today. Explore the Maya Calendar system and its intricate cycles. Hear the voices of contemporary Maya people as they weave their past and present together, and share with us their living traditions of Maya time.
Cultural icons, like the feathered serpent, link the Maya to their ancient past. As a symbol of strength and renewal, the feathered serpent connects the land and the sky, and brings the energy of the Sun to the Earth for planting.
Resetting the Maya calendar cycle in 2012
Much of the information available about the Maya calendar and the year 2012 is filled with misconceptions and speculations about doomsday prophecies. Common themes, such as catastrophic climate change, cosmic explosions, or lethal solar flares, focus on end-of-the-world scenarios and astronomical misinformation. The majority of these predictions are made by non-experts and people who are not Maya.
They do not reflect the perspectives or knowledge of the Maya people, and lack a scientific foundation.
“Maya time is cyclical, and the end of the Long Count calendar in December 2012 is just that, the end of a cycle,” said José Huchim Herrera, Yucatec Maya, Archaeologist and Architect.
Learn more about these predictions, and whether they have a scientific basis, or are occurrences unique to the year 2012. Hear the voices of the Maya people as they express their thoughts on 2012.
The site is available in English and Spanish.
The new Maya web site has as its main objective to help and provide teachers at high school level an easy reference on these subjects to relay this knowledge to new generations.
