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Lost Civilization Maya 3 of 62

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literature a record of their lives

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as the maya looked on it was as if every

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copy of their bible

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and constitution had gone up in flames

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throughout the spanish conquest

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thousands more texts were burned

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of the prolific output of maya scribes

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only four books escaped the fires to

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reach the present day

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but four did remain and from this scant

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evidence would come

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remarkable insights into ancient maya

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culture

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at first only their sophisticated

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mathematical system was decoded

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maya math was tied closely to a complex

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system of astronomy

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their detailed observations of the night

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sky

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were recorded with astonishing accuracy

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in the 1950s the great maya

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archaeologist eric thompson would

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conclude

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these were a people dedicated to

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studying the heavens

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and the meaning of time

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a thousand years before the first

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computer

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they recorded celestial events one half

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billion years in the past

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but why such fantastically complex

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astronomical calculations

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thompson thought he knew maya's society

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was practically utopian he concluded

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a peaceful people who worshipped time

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a world run by tranquil priests and time

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keepers

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a place of sacred observatories devoted

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to the tracking of the stars

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in the maya thompson saw an idealized

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world of sacred beliefs and higher

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learning

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his vision was as appealing as it was

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flawed

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certainly the proof seemed all around

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him

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the maya built pyramids that were giant

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stone calendars and sundials

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el castillo the great pyramid of chichen

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itza

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has 365 steps and platforms to mark the

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days of the year

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their alignment and design is so precise

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that once each year they cast a unique

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shadow that records the spring

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equinox

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like the star charts of an astrologer

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their codices

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mapped the positions of the stars and

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planets for centuries to come

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the maya calendar was unlike any other

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these great gears illustrate their

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concept of time

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the hieroglyphs on the larger wheel mark

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the 365 days of the solar year

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those on the two smaller gears represent

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the 260 days of the priests

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sacred calendar together

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this maya time machine identifies the

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astrological significance of every

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single day

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using this calendar maya priests

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predicted the precise time and place of

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solar eclipses for the average maya

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it must have seemed as if their leaders

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controlled the awesome

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power of the heavens

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the accuracy of maya astronomy still

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astounds

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the cycles of the moon were mapped so

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precisely

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that today 1500 years later

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their calculations are off by only 33

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seconds

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even the moment of maya creation some 5

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000 years ago is a fixed point in the

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sacred calendar

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forbiddingly so too is the end of this

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world

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according to the maya calendar

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this cycle of creation will cease to

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exist

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at precisely for aha

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three ken ken

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sunday december 23rd

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2012.

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today many maya continue to await this

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day with dread

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in the highlands of guatemala the few

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remaining maya shamans

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and the last calendar priests still

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calculate the passage of time based on

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the ancient formulas

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it has not slipped one day in 25

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centuries

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maya texts revealed the hidden world of

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their mathematics and astronomy

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but other much more startling

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revelations were to come

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justin kerr is a photographer who found

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a way to take pictures of maya vases as

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they rotate in front of his camera

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effectively unrolling the continuous

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image painted on the base

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when i put the vase down on the

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turntable

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and watch it turning in front of the

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camera

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i hope it talks to me sometimes it

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doesn't sometimes the message is so

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obscure that it's very very hard to get

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to

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but sometimes it reveals itself

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and those revelations have created an

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entirely new understanding of the

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ancient

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maya kur's photographs

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reveal a people obsessed with the

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fearful and bloody gods of the

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underworld

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the hellish place the maya called

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sibalba

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