[Aztlan] FAQ re 2012 & 20 Baktuns vs. 13

Mon Jun 23 22:45:39 CDT 2008

Lloyd and others interested in this topic,

There are many inscriptions which are dated 13.0.0.0.0. They appear at
Coba, Copan, Quirigua, Palenque, on the Vase of the Seven Lords, and
elsewhere. Because of the 8 Cumku haab designation on almost all of
these examples, the reference is to the beginning date of the current
13-baktun cycle - in 3114 BC. There is one 13.0.0.0.0 inscription that
contains the 3 Kankin haab designation, which thus refers to the end of
the current 13-baktun cycle - in 2012 AD. This is well known, has been
transcribed by David Stuart, and was written about by Sven Gronmeyer and
others. A good one-stop reference page for this material (including
quotes and citations from the work of Gillespie, Joyce, Houston, Stuart,
Eberl, Gronmeyer) is my useful article:
http://www.alignment2012.com/bolon-yokte.html 

As for the 20-baktun date at Palenque, this is a future marker used for
political reasons by Pacal. As an indication of what baktun interval was
considered to be THE World Age creation interval, it is much less
compelling than the many, many, 13-baktun cycle-ending Creation Texts
mentioned above. In fact, as an indicator of the World Age period, it is
irrelevant. It's use was politically motivated. I've written about this
and analyzed the argument connected to it:
http://www.alignment2012.com/APP5.htm.

John Hoopes's statements about 2012 are best accessed via our lively
point/counterpoint exchanges, many of which are online on the UT Meso
page and the Aztlan archive. This will provide a fair, pro and con,
perspective  on many of the typical critiques regarding the 13-baktun
cycle and 2012.

The current popular opinion about the dearth of "texts" related to 2012
is  only true if you disallow documents & statements that are not
hieroglyphic texts. Since the earliest Long Count dates appear in the
1st century BC - more or less before the advent of hieroglyphic writing
- it is absurd to expect to find this kind of textual documentation on
what the creators of the Long Count thought about it. Instead, we have
to learn to read the iconographic statements preserved at the site,
Izapa, that Michael Coe has stated were involved in the adoption of the
Long Count system. Another "text" that is overlooked is mythographic in
nature. It tells us about the Maya World Age doctrine and how the Maya
thought about cycle endings. (The 13-baktun cycle is one "World Age" in
Maya eschatology). This is none other than the Popol Vuh / Hero Twin
myth. This eschatological myth discusses World Ages and, properly
understood, is a reference guide to what happens at cycle endings. I
also wrote about these unacknowledged "statements" several years back:
http://www.alignment2012.com/mayan2012statements.html. It's unrealistic
to expect that we can and should find only literal hieroglyphic
statements that will tell us all about the Long Count cycles. Similarly,
our knowledge of Egyptian civilization does not come solely from
deciphered hieroglyphic texts. Iconography, often meaningfully
coordinated with temple alignments to astronomy, help us understand the
ancient Egyptian mind set.  

Another source for understanding intentions built into the Long Count
calendar is the structure of the Long Count itself, meaningful astronomy
connected to both the 3114 BC and 2012 AD dates, and how that astronomy
is utilized in Maya traditions. That's another story and belongs to some
recent breakthroughs regarding precessional knowledge among the ancient
Maya. 

All of this provides contextual evidence for how the originators of the
Long Count thought about World Ages, cycle endings, and 2012. The
Classic Period references that we often rely on, thinking they are all
we have to go on, were recorded six or seven or more centuries after the
Long Count was invented. Izapa, on the other hand, preserves iconography
and astronomical alignments that are very relevant to this discussion,
when they are rationally assessed in the knowledge that the Izapan
ballcourt points to the December solstice sunrise horizon:
http://www.alignment2012.com/ballcourt-schematic-and-description.html 

Note: the content of the above links involve archaeology, astronomy,
iconography, calendrics, Creation mythology, and epigraphy. 

John Major Jenkins
http://Alignment2012.com <http://alignment2012.com/>  

-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org
[mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of ECOLING at aol.com
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 2:08 PM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: [Aztlan] FAQ re 2012 & 20 Baktuns vs. 13

I do not have a collection of inscriptions referring to 13.0.0.0.0,
if there are any in the strong sense described below.
So I cannot directly answer Dave Fiona's question.
But here are some tangentially relevant discussions.

Perhaps someone has posted information before on references to
13.0.0.0.0.
It would not hurt to have a reminder posted every couple of months
during the next few years 
both about what is known and what *does not exist* in the Mayan records.
And to have repeat questions on this referred to that web location
before posting them on Aztlan?

We also need an FAQ somewhere which answers questions regarding 2012.
And have it permanently accessible on a web site.
John Hoopes was interested in providing a factual antidote to the
rampant new-age speculation and inaccurate claims.   Perhaps there is
already what we need?

My current belief is that there are no Mayan documents whatsoever 
which are "about 2012" in the sense that that is their theme or main
topic,
with longer texts giving significant detail, at least none that we can
read.
The first pictun counted as 13.0.0.0.0 (the date in 2012)
may be mentioned rarely (?), but not as a real focus of attention.
Am I wrong here?   See below for what I mean by focus.

***

Now on a similar reference to the future, but to 20 Baktuns not to 13.
My reason for including this is not only to remind people that "13"
was not the only number of Baktuns considered to be in a Pictun,
but also to point out that our translations of Mayan texts are often
wrongly period-ending-centered more than the Mayan were.
In many cases their way of saying something happened in 2023
was to say it happened 23 years after 2000,
but that in no way means that they were talking *about* the
year 2000 in the sense of it being a main focus of their text,
a point on their event line.   It was merely a way of indicating a date
that was near it.   Sometimes they do emphasize period endings
more than that, but we do not yet have a versatile toolkit for figuring
out whether that was just play, vs. when it was 
a main event on their event line.

The same point may be valid for any few forward future references
to 13.0.0.0.0 (our 2012).   That is, it may be that not much is said
about that date (or implicitly only that it is an interesting calendar
point
for those who counted the prior era as completing 13 Baktuns).

The first pictun counted as 20 Baktuns not 13 
(and thus not in 2012 but approx. 2800 years later than that)
is a calendar point on Palenque's Temple of the Inscriptions.
The reference is first to a date 1.0.0.0.0.8 just after that.   
Here are the details.

The even Pictun is referred to as a way station *after which*
there is an 80th Calendar Round anniversary of the accession of the
ruler 
Pacal.
So it is not talking about 1.0.0.0.0.0, but about a day shortly after
that.
There is no reason to treat that as especially significant to the Maya 
any more than we treated the year 1000 as especially significant to us
because it brought with it the need for four digits rather than three in

counting years.   Yes, some people made a big hoopla about it at the
time,
and a bit less so in 2000 (we are more informed now), but that is
a numerological epiphenomenon, not something essential to our culture.

The pattern of dates on the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque
is an analog to something like this in our year count.
The point here is the double gap, of decades before 700
and of centuries before 1000 (800 and 900 missing).   
For the Maya example which follows,
it is K'atuns not referred to from 9.14 to 9.19, 
and baktuns not referred to from 11.0.0.0.0 to 19.0.0.0.0.

Here in our years:

610 (with some specific dates within a couple of such decades)
620
630
700 even century
(skip next centuries until carry over to the next decimal place)
1000

In the case of the Temple of the Inscriptions, the sequence was this
(quickly summarizing from _A Palenque Triad_ (second edition 1999,
Maya Workshop Foundation, Austin, Texas):

End of East Tablet
...
(9.9.2.4.8)   5 Lamat 1 Mol 
      (implied by: 17 Tuuns 13 Winals 12 K'in until the next even date)
9.10.0.0.0   1 Ajaw 8 K'ayab

Central Tablet
9.11.0.0.0    12 Ajaw 8 K'eh   
9.12.0.0.0    10 Ajaw 8 Yaxk'in
(period endings celebrated by Pakal in his lifetime.   
These *are* on the event line, significant points he passed.)

West Tablet
(9.12.0.0.0 implicit via calendar info 10 Ajaw 8 Yaxk'in)
(9.13.0.0.0 implicit via calendar info 8 Ajaw 8 Wo)
(skip the next 6 K'atuns, 20-year periods)
(10.0.0.0.0 implicit via calendar info 7 Ajaw 18 Sip)
Explicit
1.0.0.0.0.0    10 Ajaw 13 Yaxk'in
(This calculates out to the given calendar round only if there
are 20 Baktuns in the Pictun, not if there are 13.)

Returning to Pacal's accession at 9.9.2.4.8, the text then indicates
that it is 2.4.8 after the then-recent 9.9.0.0.0    3 Ajaw 3 Zotz',
and that it is a gigantic distance of nearly 3200 x 5200 years
(7.18.2.9.2.12.1) since a date 1 Manik 10 Tzec,
and then that it is a distance
10.11.10.5.8 (about 4200 years)
until a coming 1.0.0.0.0.8   5 Lamat 1 Mol, 
8 days after what will then be a recent period ending of 1.0.0.0.0.0.

This text is thus *not about* the period ending 1.0.0.0.0.0.
It is used like any other period ending as a lock point for chronology.
Rather, it is about an 80th Calendar Round anniversary just after that.
Notice how similar the Calendar Round dates are for these two:
9.12.0.0.0    10 Ajaw 8 Yaxk'in
1.0.0.0.0.0   10 Ajaw 13 Yaxk'in
This may have played a role in their choosing to mention the
80th CR anniversary.   It may also be that there are symbolic
values in the Calendar Round names, 10 = "finished" /lajun/
and 13 adding to that a prefix which in some places marks
a completed past, with /Yaxk'in/ as "first / new sun".
But this is a very speculative field, not many people even trying
to work with it.   We will probably get more out of the damaged
text mentioned next.

There is additional text at this point, both not understood and
severely damaged in some parts, and an apparent reference to
12 (Baktuns? or K'atuns?)   Whether something is said about
the date 1.0.0.0.0.0 is unknown to me at this moment.
I may have understood more of that part of the text in the past,
but if so I do not recall it now.   Anyone else?   I don't mean
naming individual glyphs, which many of us can do.   
I mean understanding the *meaning* here, and why they chose
to say whatever they said.

More generally, my point is how difficult it will be to claim
that anything significant is said about a future 13.0.0.0.0,
unless we have a longer text clearly about that and which
we can read and understand.   That is a lot to ask.

Best wishes
Lloyd

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington DC 20003
ecoling at aol.com
202-547-7683

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