[Aztlan] Mayan chronology not cyclical

[ECOLING at aol.com]

In preparing a poster paper for the Tulane symposium this weekend,
I benefited greatly from the work of Mark van Stone (on the FAMSI web site).
In particular, his discussion helped me realize that neither the Central 
Mexican 
nor the Mayan so-called "world ages" are cyclical.
There is no necessary expectation that yet another world age follows the 
present one.

Rather, as I would now word it, both the successive creations 
of the Popol Vuh and those in the Central Mexican _Leyenda de los Soles_ 
are measures of linear progress towards the present world and true humans 
(of the substance of corn, etc.).

***

More generally, the stereotyping of Mesoamerica as an exotic other,
having cyclical calendars and cyclical sense of time,
different from our own linear sense of time,
is enormously exaggerated or even in large part outright false.

There are some cyclical components, such as the
"count of K'atuns" in the Chilam Balams
(11 Ajaw K'atun, 9 Ajaw K'atun, and so forth
7, 5, 3, 1, 12 Ajaw, 10 Ajaw, 8, 6, 4, 2, 13 Ajaw K'atun)
This is indeed cyclical, repeating after 13 K'atuns, approximately 256 years.
But it is an abbreviation, and the supposed cyclicity comes merely
from the limitations of the number of distinct names for K'atuns.

We do have something in English which correponds, as
"in the 60's", "in the 70's", etc. which can be used in any century.
But our century names are not cyclical.   We speak of the 16th Century,
or of science fiction set in the 24th Century.

It is only the leap day which makes our calendric cycles less useful,
We could account for an every-four-years leap day with a cycle
of 28 years, 7 x 1461 (1461 = 4 x 365 + 1)
which commensurates the four-year cycle with the seven-day week.
(Since our calendar has no leap day in years divisible by 100,
but does in years divisible by 400, we would have to reset our
cycle in 3 out of every 4 even centuries, to keep it on track.
As shown by the Dresden Venus Table, the Maya were perfectly
capable of resetting some of their recurring cycles as needed.)

Long Counts (Mayan continuous for days,
ours continuous for years) are the greater framework,
and these are in no way cyclical.

Even the Central Mexican 52-year cycle is less cyclical than one
might suppose.   The Central Mexican year counts were of course linear,
and graphically represented in linear fashion, with the sequence
of year names following after each other.
The maximum number of distinct year *names* was 52, 
but years with the same name were not the same years, 
even if the year names had symbolic values 
and could evoke comparisons and parallels.

So the famous interlocking gears could be applied to us too,
and that we do not do so means we are distorting the Maya
by attributing cyclic time thinking to them.   They knew perfectly
well that time is linear.   Their histories make this completely clear.
The fact that we have inherited a cyclic stereotype in no way makes
it valid and true. 

*

Much of the research now ongoing by several scholars has been
stimulated by new-age millenarian claims about 2012.
Yet the new questions being asked are spilling over into other fields.

Careful research shows that there is no 13-Baktun cycle at all,
that the number "13" in "13.0.0.0.0" or in dates with lots of
additional "13"s initially is not treated as a number 
to be used in calculations.   Rather it is a symbolic usage.   
To do calculations on symbolic expressions of this kind,
replace each of the "13"s of this kind with "0".

There is no new world age completing or ending in 2012, 
nor was there even a new world age in 3114 BCE.
The "Era date" is simply the zero day of the Mayan Long Count of days,
analogous to our own Long Count of years.

*

A real difference does exist for dates before these Era Dates.
We count backwards, so 5 BCE preceded 3 BCE.
The Maya counted forwards even before their Era Date.
This leads to the difficulties they had in finding a single 
unique way to notate dates before their Era Date.

The Maya also did not practice subtraction.
Rather, in their "ring numbers", they took a given time interval,
and stated that a portion of it was completed already before the
Era Date.   They had other ways of satisfying needed functions
like subtraction without using exactly the tool of subtraction.
(And even this claimed difference can be greatly exaggerated.)

My web pages on these subjects have been somewhat revised,
and the two cover pages for a poster paper, summarizing
results of this research, are now included there as the first item
linked to from this URL:

www.TraditionalHighCultures.com/MayaMath&WorldAges.html

Comments, corrections, additional arguments will be greatly
appreciated.

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



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