The Maya, greatest regarded lately for your doomsday they under no circumstances foretold, might have accurately predicted astronomical phenomena centuries in advance, scientists have discovered.
A brand new guide, "Astronomy during the Maya Codices" (American Philosophical Society, 2011), which was awarded the Osterbrock Guide Prize for historical astronomy right here on the American Astronomical Society conference on Monday, information a series of amazing observations created by pre-16th century Maya astronomers.
Anthropologist husband-wife crew Harvey and Victoria Bricker have devoted their lives to comprehending the pre-Columbian Maya and the way they understood the planet all around them. The Brickers performed the majority of their perform by translating complicated hieroglyphics to check out what Maya scribes felt was most significant to record on parchment.
By decoding early Mayan hieroglyphics from 4 unique codices housed in Madrid, Paris, Mexico and Dresden, the Brickers tracked how the evening sky would have looked on the Mayans once they had been alive.
"We're coping with actual information," Harvey Bricker stated. "They're not only squiggles."
The Brickers translated the dates cited while in the Maya calendar to correspond with our calendar and after that utilized modern day information of planetary orbits and cycles to line up the Maya's information with ours. It had been remarkably correct.
The truth is, the Brickers located the astronomical calendar dated on the 11th or 12th century accurately predicted a solar eclipse to inside per day in 1991, centuries following the Maya civilization had ended. The 1991 eclipse occurred on July 11.The group also located the Maya had a fair quantity of superstitions surrounding observable heavenly bodies from the evening sky. About the friendly side, they'd the sun along with the moon ?a a god and goddess, respectively ?a whose cycles have been simple to map, predict and continue to keep track of. Within the not-so-friendly camp have been Venus and Mars. The motions of these two planets ordinarily signaled doom and destruction according to their spot inside the sky, the Brickers observed.
The manuscripts warned that if Venus shines on kids, old women and men or wholesome youthful guys at specified factors in its orbit, then harm would come to them.
Since the Maya needed to create certain these possibly risky moments did not interfere together with the lives of their individuals, Harvey Bricker stated, they kept particularly thorough records of in which Venus and also other planets appeared from the evening sky on specific days.
Mars ?a an animalistic god ?a signified gloomy days to come for everyone. "There was considered to get a romantic relationship, and never a satisfied a single, concerning phenomena related with Mars and agriculture," Harvey Bricker explained.
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