[Aztlan] No Apocalypse Maya in 2012
Robert Sitler
rsitler at stetson.edu
Sun Jan 13 14:50:54 CST 2008
Marcos & John,
I lean VERY strongly in favor of the Dec. 21 date since it is 4 Ahaw for Maya daykeepers, the completion of the 13th pik in a larger cycle that also began on 4 Ahaw. Even my minor experience with daykeepers in Guatemala makes the possibility of a collective shift of two days on the 260 day count seem extremely unlikely.
Just my 2 cents.
best wishes,
bob
________________
Robert K. Sitler
Latin American Studies Program Director
Dept. of Modern Languages & Literatures
Stetson University
DeLand, Florida 32723
(386) 822-7281
http://www.stetson.edu/~rsitler/
---
Support Maya civic projects at:
http://www.stetson.edu/~rsitler/TodosSantos/
See Maya perspectives on 2012 at:
http://www.stetson.edu/~rsitler/13PIK
-----Original Message-----
From: Marcos Villaseñor [mailto:villas at anawak.com]
Sent: Sat 1/12/2008 5:17 PM
To: John Major Jenkins
Cc: 'AZTLAN'
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] No Apocalypse Maya in 2012
Dear Listeros:
21 December 2012 is not the only candidate, the strongest candidate
is 23 December 2012, particularly since it puts the beginning of the
LC on 13 August 3114 BCE, and 13 august is the date of the zenithal
southern passage of the sun at Izapa; 13 August is the sunset
alignment of the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacán; 13 August is the sunset
alignment of Cinco Pisos at Edzna; 13 August is the sunset alignment
of the axis between Temple I and Temple IV at Tikal. Other
correlation of importance is the Bohm correlation, which puts the end
of the LC on December 2117. The fact is that nobody knows for certain
yet when the current LC ends.
Mr. Jenkins makes the erroneous assumption that the 21 December
2012 is significant to the Maya(n) people due to the astronomical
(mis)alignment that he talks about. Alignment is not an astronomical
word that is ever used to describe a conjunction (except for Mr.
Jenkins who uses it freely). In any case his assumption has a fatal
flaw, it assumes that the precession calculation contained in the LC
is accurate. This is not so. Let me explain:
By multiplying the Long Count's 5,125.36 years by 5, we can see
that the Olmec (the creators of the LC) calculation for the Great
Year or Precession of the Equinoxes is 25,627 tropic years and its
value of precession is 50.57 arcseconds a year, which is .19
arcseconds more than the modern value of precession of 50.38
arcseconds a year or 25,724 years for the Great Year. Due to this
difference (equal to 19 years, in one Long Count or less than half a
pinky nail) we can safely assume that the galactic conjunction that
the Olmec were aiming for at the end of the Long Count in 2012, will
occur 19 years after 2012. In 2031!!!
Put in other terms, say you have a known distance from A to B (1/5
of the celestial dome) lets say it is 100 miles and you want to
estimate how long you will take to get from A to B. In order to do
this you plug in the speed at which you believe you are traveling,
lets say 100 m/h, so you estimate it will take you 1 hour. But later
you realize that you are actually traveling at 98 m/h, this means
that at the end of the hour you will still need to travel 2 miles or
1.2 minutes.
So if Mr. Jenkins is correct in his assumption that the LC is a
"Galactic Alignment" cipher, then he needs to revisit his entire
argument, because that "alignment" won't happen until 2031.
Interestingly on 21 December 2031, the solsticial sun will actually
be at the precise center of its transit through the Cygnus Rift of
the Milky Way. And on 23 December 2031 the Sun will be exiting the
Dark Rift of the Milky Way; a virtual birth of a new sun.
NOTE: 60 arc/seconds make 1 arc/minute and 60 arc/minutes are 1
degree, which is about the width of your pinky nail set against the
celestial dome, the stars will take 71 years to transit your pinky
nail on the same yearly date.
Marcos Villaseñor
On Jan 11, 2008, at 10:34 AM, John Major Jenkins wrote:
> Dear Dr. Vollemaere,
>
> Your correlation (making 13.0.0.0.0 December 12, 1546) contains one
> insurmountable flaw. It does not correspond to a 4 Ahau day in the
> tzolkin. From the various creation monuments, we know that the era
> ending Long Count date of 13.0.0.0.0 must correspond to a 4 Ahau
> day in
> the tzolkin calendar. This is an internally consistent relationship
> between those two calendars, irregardless of the correlation we
> propose.
> We have three tzolkin dates documented at the time of the conquest,
> each
> from widely separate regions of Mesoamerica (Central Mexico, Yucatan,
> and Guatemala). All three are in agreement and all three would make
> your
> date of December 12, 1546 fall on 10 Caban (if your date is in the
> Julian calendar) or 13 Manik (if in the Gregorian calendar) - not 4
> Ahau. Either way, it is 100+ days out of alignment with the above
> mentioned evidence for the tzolkin's placement at the time of the
> conquest. If we count forward into modern times with this documented
> tzolkin correlation, we find that the modern highland Maya, most
> notably
> the Quiché Maya, are still following a tzolkin placement that is
> congruent with this documented relationship. If we count forward to
> 2012, we find that December 21, 2012 falls on 4 Ahau.
>
> This correspondence is extremely important but often overlooked by
> those
> proposing correlations based only on astronomical statistics. It is a
> precise litmus test for any proposed correlation. This survival of the
> tzolkin's correct placement in modern highland Guatemala, being
> congruent with conquest-era data and documented by ethnographers,
> is the
> final test. Only the GMT-2 584283 correlation satisfies the entire
> spectrum of criteria that a proposed correlation must address. For
> example, your correlation is 100+ days out of phase with this tzolkin
> placement. How do you explain this dislocation? Even Lounsbury's much
> cited 584285 argument is 2 days off, and would need to be explained
> by a
> simultaneously orchestrated Pan-Mesoamerica shift of two days in the
> tzolkin placement. This is not only extremely difficult to imagine
> accomplishing, but would violate the sacred sequence of days and would
> therefore be anathema to any self-respecting Mesoamerican day-keeper.
>
> You wrote: "The truth is that only astronomy can solve the Maya
> correlation problem." I disagree; only an interdisciplinary set of
> criteria can validate any proposed correlation. Reducing the number of
> criteria that are meaningful only gives the illusion of correctness.
> Meeting several sets of criteria established by different disciplines,
> including Carbon-14, historical documents, ancient documents, modern
> ethnographic data on the tzolkin, and astronomy, makes the
> verification
> more rigorous, and by this methodology the 584283 is not only the best
> candidate, it's the only candidate: 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau December 21,
> 2012.
>
> John Major Jenkins
> http://Alignment2012.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org
> [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of Antoon Vollemaere
> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 3:07 AM
> To: AZTLAN
> Subject: [Aztlan] No Apocalypse Maya in 2012
>
> No APOCALYPSE Maya in December 2012. Why?
>
> The special aspects of the Maya correlation problem are for example :
> 1) What is the real signification of the date 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU?
> 2) The period BEFORE 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu.
> 3) The period AFTER 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu till the Spanish Conquista.
> 4) The end of the Maya calendar, after 5200 Tun cycles of 360 days.
>
> This message concerns only the first part. The zero point for our
> calendar is theoretically the birth of Jesus Christ. Every important
> ancient ethnical group had its starting point for their calendar. This
> was the case for the Egyptians, Chinese, Jews, Greek, Romans, Muslims,
> etc., as well as for the Maya. In their monument texts and in their
> pictorial manuscripts (codices) the Maya scribes indicated the
> number of
>
> days passed since a base day called 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU. The Maya
> astronomer
> took in account every single day, without losing a day. If we are able
> to place this famous day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu in our Julian calendar system,
> it would be easy to pinpoint all the codices and monuments dates on
> our
> old Julian calendar scale and we will be able to write eventually a
> correct and honorable Mayan history. There are today at least 52
> different Maya calendar correlation propositions! The most striking
> fact
>
> is that there are more than 1,000 years between the first correlation
> (Bowditch 14.01. - 3632) and the last correlation proposition
> (Vaillant
> 2 259.04. - 2593) for the Maya base day 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU. This means
> that
> Maya history can be moved back or forwards, with a maximum of 1000
> years, depending of your choice of correlation number! In other words,
> one can falsify Maya history with many many centuries. And that is
> what
> unfortunately and sadly has happened. Since more than 100 years
> (1905 to
>
> 2007), every date and calendar information of monuments of, for
> example,
>
> Palenque, Copán, Yaxchilan, Chichen-Itza, etc., or codices, is very
> wrongly calculated following the Goodman - Martinez - Thompson (GMT)
> correlations, with one of the following Julian Day Numbers (JDN). JDN
> 584,280 03.09. -3113 GOODMAN (1905), first proposition
> JDN 584,281 04.09. -3113 MARTINEZ (1918)
> JDN 584,283 06.09. -3113 THOMPSON 2 (1950)
> JDN 584,284 07.09. -3113 BEYER (1937)
> JDN 584,285 08.09. -3113 THOMPSON 1 (1935)
> JDN 584,286 09.09. -3113 LOUNSBURY (1978)
> (2008 - 1905 years.) Since long, many courageous students (more
> than 40) have tried to find a better and more correct correlation
> between the Maya calendar system and our European Julian (not
> Gregorian!) calendar. But the GMT correlations are very hard to die
> for
> so many human reasons. Nobody likes to correct their publications.
> Nobody seems to like the truth. Nobody is perfect, even mayanists;
> that's very human.
>
> When you use one of the GMT correlations, without an in-depth
> checking -
>
> what almost every Mayanist seems to do, then you end the Maya
> calendar,
> after 13 BAKTUNS, or 5200 TUNS (cycles of 360 days), in december 2012.
> But... that is totally wrong. Why? Because everybody pays no attention
> to the fact that 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU is absolutely NOT the real zero point
> (0.0.0.0.0) of the Maya calendar, but it is a corrected solar position
> for a new count of the Maya days.
> Let me explain why.
>
> 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU was indeed certainly not a real zero day because it was
> the 349th day of a Maya solar year starting with the day 7 EB. The
> question was to know how many days/years there were from the first
> real
> zero day of the Maya calendar till the new corrected day 4 AHAU 8
> CUMHU?
>
> As far as I can know, nobody has made before me an in-depth study
> of the
>
> date signification, of the real meaning of the day 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU. By
> preparing my contribution for the International Congress of
> Americanists
>
> at Rome (in 1972, yes I'm now heading for the cape of 80), I tried to
> reconstruct the period BEFORE 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU. It was an exiting
> research
>
> without a computer, with a simple calculator. After a long busy
> Saturday's work it was for me fantastic to find out that, after
> exactly
> 1000 years of 360 days (2 BAKTUN + 10 KATUN), plus the normal 239
> solar
> correction days, the Maya astronomers reached the famous day 4 AHAU 8
> CUMHU.
>
> In other words, it means that, AFTER 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU, the Mayas needed
> only 10 BAKTUNS + 10 KATUN to reach the end of their amazing
> calendar. I
>
> can tell you already that the end of the Maya calendar fell already on
> 12 December 1546 (following the Vollemaere correlation), amazingly
> enough is this exactly a winter solstice.The Maya calendar is for me
> really a marvellous "Symphony of Time"! What were the consequences of
> this misleading choice of the GMT correlations? First of all, they
> were
> not based on astronomical facts but on incorrect Mayan/European date
> relations. The truth is that only astronomy can solved the Maya
> correlation problem. This is what we already did. We solved the Maya
> correlation problem in 1984 (see our bibliography on website America
> Antiqua III). We have on pages 51 - 58 of Codex Dresdensis a long
> sequence of a start day called 12 LAMAT 1 MUAN, 1400873 days after 4
> AHAU 8 CUMHU, followed by 69 columns of warnings (windows) for a very
> serious possibility of a coming eclipse. If one use, for example the
> Thompson correlation for this table, then we see clearly that his
> correlation is very wrong, because he warned only for 7 of the 14
> solar
> eclipses correctly for a period of 11960 days (about 33 years).
> This is
> only 50 procent. Therefore alone must the GMT correlations be
> rejected.
> But there are so many other astronomical (eclipses) and ethnical
> reasons
>
> (Aztecan Mexican presence in Maya region, etc) for rejection, to
> long to
>
> explain now in one E-mail. Our correlation solution is 100 procent
> correct. You can find details in my 27 special correlation
> publications/
>
> 34 books and monographs, plus almost 200 contributions
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/voll3kat.htm
> and also very briefly on my website AMERICA ANTIQUA III
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/corrlkat.htm
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/indexkat.html
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/forgtgtm.htm
> http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/thtable3.htm
>
> I will gladly answer precise questions, individually or collectively,
> and if necessary point by point. I can enlarge my website at the
> end of
> the month and I'm preparing a series of Correlation .pdf files
> (ready on
>
> short term) and the publication of a compact synthesis of all my
> correlation publications : "Codex Dresdensis 51-58 and TriTritos
> solves
> the Maya correlation problem". Furthermore, I have the intention to
> come
>
> to the USA, to visit my two (American) sons in the first half of 2008,
> and to give PowerPoint conferences, open for a correct scientifical
> debate, about "NO MAYA APOCALYPSE IN 2012 !" in planetariums and
> universities. It is a great and honorful challenge to give a correct
> history to the Mayas, after more than 100 years (a century) of
> wrong GMT
>
> correlations.
>
> Dr. Antoon Leon VOLLEMAERE
> AMERICA ANTIQUA III
> De Noterstraat 21
> B.2800 MECHELEN - Belgium - Europe
> antoon.vollemaere at skynet.be
>
>
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