Lost Civilization Maya 3 of 62

literature a record of their lives

as the maya looked on it was as if every

copy of their bible

and constitution had gone up in flames

throughout the spanish conquest

thousands more texts were burned

of the prolific output of maya scribes

only four books escaped the fires to

reach the present day

but four did remain and from this scant

evidence would come

remarkable insights into ancient maya

culture

at first only their sophisticated

mathematical system was decoded

maya math was tied closely to a complex

system of astronomy

their detailed observations of the night

sky

were recorded with astonishing accuracy

in the 1950s the great maya

archaeologist eric thompson would

conclude

these were a people dedicated to

studying the heavens

and the meaning of time

a thousand years before the first

computer

they recorded celestial events one half

billion years in the past

but why such fantastically complex

astronomical calculations

thompson thought he knew maya's society

was practically utopian he concluded

a peaceful people who worshipped time

a world run by tranquil priests and time

keepers

a place of sacred observatories devoted

to the tracking of the stars

in the maya thompson saw an idealized

world of sacred beliefs and higher

learning

his vision was as appealing as it was

flawed

certainly the proof seemed all around

him

the maya built pyramids that were giant

stone calendars and sundials

el castillo the great pyramid of chichen

itza

has 365 steps and platforms to mark the

days of the year

their alignment and design is so precise

that once each year they cast a unique

shadow that records the spring

equinox

like the star charts of an astrologer

their codices

mapped the positions of the stars and

planets for centuries to come

the maya calendar was unlike any other

these great gears illustrate their

concept of time

the hieroglyphs on the larger wheel mark

the 365 days of the solar year

those on the two smaller gears represent

the 260 days of the priests

sacred calendar together

this maya time machine identifies the

astrological significance of every

single day

using this calendar maya priests

predicted the precise time and place of

solar eclipses for the average maya

it must have seemed as if their leaders

controlled the awesome

power of the heavens

the accuracy of maya astronomy still

astounds

the cycles of the moon were mapped so

precisely

that today 1500 years later

their calculations are off by only 33

seconds

even the moment of maya creation some 5

000 years ago is a fixed point in the

sacred calendar

forbiddingly so too is the end of this

world

according to the maya calendar

this cycle of creation will cease to

exist

at precisely for aha

three ken ken

sunday december 23rd

2012.

today many maya continue to await this

day with dread

in the highlands of guatemala the few

remaining maya shamans

and the last calendar priests still

calculate the passage of time based on

the ancient formulas

it has not slipped one day in 25

centuries

maya texts revealed the hidden world of

their mathematics and astronomy

but other much more startling

revelations were to come

justin kerr is a photographer who found

a way to take pictures of maya vases as

they rotate in front of his camera

effectively unrolling the continuous

image painted on the base

when i put the vase down on the

turntable

and watch it turning in front of the

camera

i hope it talks to me sometimes it

doesn't sometimes the message is so

obscure that it's very very hard to get

to

but sometimes it reveals itself

and those revelations have created an

entirely new understanding of the

ancient

maya kur's photographs

reveal a people obsessed with the

fearful and bloody gods of the

underworld

the hellish place the maya called

sibalba