Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

the number 10 as with our own, so they counted from zero to 19, rather than zero to 10, before moving to the next order. The Haab calendar consisted of 18 months of 20 days, followed by a further "unlucky" five day month called Uayeb, making a total of 365 days to match up with the solar year. The Tzolkin and the Haab calendars were combined to form a coordinated 52-year cycle known as the Calendar Round. At the beginning of these Calendar Rounds, there were ritual celebrations that included the extinguishing of old fires and the lighting of new, and the consecration of new temples.

The Long Count calendar, allegedly more accurate than the Julian calendar of 16th century Europe, seems to have been created around the first century B.C., and was used to record dates over long periods of time. In essence, the Long Count totals the number of days since August 3114 B.C., a date when the Mayan Fourth Creation or present Great Cycle was supposed to have begun. This was in effect the Mayan year zero, akin to our date of January 1, A.D. 1. So 3114 B.C., the start date of this time cycle, is written 0-0-0-0-0, and 13 cycles of 394 years will have passed by the time the next cycle begins, which is in year A.D. 2012 (13-0-0-0-0). The Long Count basically consisted of a tun of 360 days, 20 tuns constituting a katun (7,200 days), 20 katuns forming a baktun (144,000 days), and 13 baktuns making a Great Cycle (1,872,000 days, or around 5,130 years). At the conclusion of this Great Cycle, the Maya believed that the world as we know it will cease to exist.

The incredible complexity of the Mayan calendrical systems can perhaps be explained in part by a need for power and influence. Decisions about dates for sacred events and the agricultural cycle were in the hands of Mayan priests, who decided by consulting the calendars when the time was right to perform certain tasks. Their abilities to decipher meaning from the calendars in terms of (for example) when to sow and reap, or which were favorable days for marriage or war, meant that they were able to exercise an immense amount of control over the population. As the average citizen was not required to comprehend this complex calendar, the priests basically had a free reign to make the system as intricate as it suited them.

The winter solstice of A.D. 2012 in the Mayan Long Count signifies the

end of the 13th baktun cycle that began in 3114 B.C. The conclusion of the Mayan calendar on this date has alarmed many people, who believe that this signifies the violent destruction of the world. But did the Maya actually predict such a cataclysm with their calendar? One of the most important beliefs of the Maya was the idea of a cyclical universe, where the Earth goes through recurring creations and destructions. In the Popol Vuh (Book of Council), the sacred book of the Maya, probably written in the late 16th century A.D. but dating back much earlier, descriptions of successive creations and destructive floods are prominent. There are also descriptions of the 3114 B.C. creation on various Mayan monuments, such as the monolith known as Stela C at the city of Quirigua, Guatemala. Such texts describe creation, including the organization of the gods, for example, and not destruction, and also relate mythical events much further back in time than 3114 B.C. The Mayan Calendar also determines dates far into the future, such as a royal anniversary which will occur in October of A.D. 4772. This is hardly something they would have done if the world was supposed to have already ended by then. What the Mayan calendar indicates for the winter solstice of 2012 should be interpreted as the conclusion of an old and the beginning of a new cycle, rather than the end of the world. The ancient Mayan calendar cycle still survives today in southern Mexico and the Guatemalan highlands, where it is looked after by calendar priests, or day keepers, who still maintain the 260-day sacred count for divination and other ritual activities.

the An1iky1hera Mechanism: An Ancient Computer?

© Rien van de Weygaert, Kapteyn Institute, Groningen, the Netherlands. http: / /www.astro.rug.nl/-weygaert/antikytheramechanism.html.

The Antikytheran Mechanism is on display in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Detail showing central gearhouse.

On Easter of 1900, Elias Stadiatos and a party of Greek sponge fishermen were fishing off the coast of the tiny, rocky island of Antikythera, between the southern Greek mainland and Crete. Surfacing after one of his descents, Stadiatos began babbling about a "heap of dead naked women" on the sea bed. Further investigation by the fishermen revealed the 164 foot long wreck of a sunken Roman cargo ship, about 140 feet down. The buried objects from the ship included first century B.C.

marble and bronze statues (the dead, naked women), coins, gold jewelry, pottery, and what appeared to be lumps of corroded bronze, which broke into pieces shortly after being brought to the surface.

The finds from the wreck were subsequently examined, recorded, and sent off to the National Museum in Athens for display or storage. On May 17, 1902, Greek archaeologist Spyridon Stais was looking through the odd lumps from the shipwreck, covered in marine growth from 2,000 years beneath the sea, when he noticed that one piece had a gear wheel embedded in it and what looked like an inscription in Greek. There had been a wooden case associated with the object but this, as well as the wooden planks from the ship itself, had subsequently dried out and crumbled. Further examination and meticulous cleaning of the corroded broonze lumps revealed additional pieces belonging to the mysterious object, and soon an elaborate geared mechanism made of bronze, and measuring about 33 by 17 by 9 centimeters, was revealed. Stais believed the mechanism to be an ancient astronomical clock, but the prevailing opinion at the time was that the