Document: The Maya Astronomical Computer

Students will get many advantages from directly observing the moon each night or day for a month. After the initial introduction, it’s a homework assignment. Select a day to start this task about a month before teaching the unit. Select a day when the Moon is seen through the day (examine the newspaper or watch the moon your self). (SECURITY OBSERVE: Caution students by no means to look instantly on the Sun.) Students make a T-chart listing the differences between ancient civilizations and fashionable civilization, together with differences in how we do astronomy. Students use science and social studies books to assist them. Attainable solutions

Mayan astronomer-priests used shadow-casting gadgets and exhaustively thorough records of the position of the stars and solar to trace patterns in the sky. In the historical Mayan cities, ceremonial pyramids have been aligned with the compass level directions. One very well-known constructing of this sort might be discovered within the city of Chichen Itza, where on the equinoxes, the daylight slowly illuminates the stairs to the top of the pyramid and the stone snake head at the base, creating the phantasm of a snake slithering right down to earth. Why were Moon phases vital to the Mayans? Extension: Have students draw a rabbit on the moon as the Meso-Individuals did.

Venus was thought-about to be linked with the main deity Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was mentioned to be an important god when creating mankind. Venus was also known as “Great Star”. The priest-astronomers decided that it took 584 days for Venus to orbit around the Sun, which was near the precise interval of 583.ninety two days. It is superb how the Mayans managed to search out out about different planets regardless of the huge distance between Earth and Venus. It’s an important discovery. We’re solely getting a glimpse of it” within the printed paper, mentioned John B. Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy in College Park, Md.

In his book The Dwelling Maya: Historic Knowledge within the Era of 2012 , Robert Sitler, PhD, traces the history of the 2012 phenomenon back to 1951, explaining how the 2012 prophesies took root, and the way they grew over the following 6 a long time to capture well-liked creativeness—inspiring every part from 2012 merchandise to multimillion greenback Hollywood blockbusters. This week in our 2012 Countdown we check out his nicely-researched historical past. Be sure to read throughout, or at the very least scroll to the bottom for our weekly ebook giveaway! You may also try our earlier countdown posts right here and right here

The present fascination and confusion surrounding December 21, 2012 comes from a series of speculative and pseudo-scientific books in the 1970′s and 1980′s. Creator John Main Jenkins packaged these mystical and probably hallucinogen-fueled speculations into his ebook Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 , which among different things stated the winter solstice will eclipse the center of the galaxy on December 21, 2012 and the Solar will align with the galacticThese alignments, together with the alignment of the planets of our solar system, will cause the daybreak of a brand new age of hope and positive transformation for humanity.

Mystery Of The Maya

Students are then assigned to file the position of the Moon and its form every day or night for a month. The drawing ought to all the time embrace their fixed point and the Moon’s relationship to it. Notice: The times of the Moon’s rising and setting are printed in the newspaper, together with the phase that the Moon is in. You might want to inform students the place to get this info or you could not want them to know till they’ve performed some observations on their own. Alternately, you may put up the occasions for the scholars with out the accompanying image.

Greek astronomers have been a completely different animal. In historic Greece, astronomers were often known as people who “described the heavens” while physicists have been those who actually handled the exhausting facts and tried to figure issues out. On the time that astronomy was very fashionable to check, the spirit of astronomy was truly thought-about a branch of arithmetic, not astronomy, as a result of it offers with numbers and measurements and not simply phrases. The Greeks thought of the planets to be embodiments of their gods.

The knowledge discovered suggests that the Mayans might have used calculations based mostly on which god would be the patron of the Moon on which day. The tables point out specific intervals of days, starting from 935 to six,703 years. All of these are multiples of the 52-yr cyclic Mayan calendar and will presumably characterize recurring occasions related to the cycles of Venus, the Moon, Mars and possibly Mercury as effectively. Listed here are the info: The Maya long depend calendar will go from 12.19.19.17.19 to 13.zero.0.0.0 as we go from December 20 to December 21, 2012. So December 20 is New Baktun Eve and December 21 is New Baktun Day.

The Maya calendar was linked to astronomy. The Maya principally used two calendars: the Calendar Spherical and the Lengthy Rely. The Maya Lengthy Count calendar was divided into different items of time that used the Haab, or solar yr (twelve months) as a base. The Calendar Round consisted of two separate calendars: the first was the 365-day photo voltaic yr, the second was the 260 day Tzolkin cycle. These cycles align every fifty two years. Henry Sanchez was driving house from his three children’ back-to-faculty night at a close-by college when he approached the intersection of Claremont and Glenview.

We’re getting a tantalizing glimpse of how these work and the codices are associated,” says John Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy in School Park, Maryland. “However we actually can’t make sure why they had been writing these inscriptions.” The Mayans developed astronomy to the point where they might predicteclipses tons of of years sooner or later. Their legends say they obtainedtheir astronomical knowledge from the Olmecs. Little is understood concerning the Olmecs,though traces of their culture have been discovered relationship to about 2000 B.C.E.A Mayan stone calendar is proven at left.