Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined by staff wider Jane McGrath. Hey,
Speaker 1: they're Candice, Jane. Did you take time the other day
Speaker 1: to watch all of the inauguration ceremonies and television footage?
Speaker 1: You know what? I was so busy eating a chance,
Speaker 1: but I've been watching on YouTube and I'll like that, Okay,
Speaker 1: So you followed up on all all the stories of fashion,
Speaker 1: the speeches, the bloopers, etcetera. So of course it was
Speaker 1: really fun in the House Stuff Works office because a
Speaker 1: couple of us dropped our work and we went into
Speaker 1: the common room and we watched the ceremony on TV,
Speaker 1: and it was it was really special, and not just
Speaker 1: because the Obama girls looked adorable and they're brightly colored clothes. Um,
Speaker 1: and because Ricorn pronounced their names so fancifully. I have
Speaker 1: I have to quote him Malia and Sasha. We really
Speaker 1: couldn't get enough. We've been saying it around the office
Speaker 1: ever since then. But it was is really great to
Speaker 1: be in a room with intelligent people watching such a
Speaker 1: historic event. And I was thinking how utterly, incredibly, tragically
Speaker 1: sad that it is the last inauguration we will ever
Speaker 1: see because the world will end in oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: a little bit on edge. I don't necessarily ascribe to
Speaker 1: that belief. I was just trying to get everybody worked
Speaker 1: up excited for our podcast today, which is about the
Speaker 1: Mind Calendar. And if you are at all familiar with
Speaker 1: the Mind Calendar, you may know that there's a prophecy
Speaker 1: that the world will end on December twenty one. That's true,
Speaker 1: and some people are a little on edge about this idea,
Speaker 1: although it doesn't have that much uh history in terms
Speaker 1: of the Mind Calendar, in terms of what the mind
Speaker 1: is actually believed, which is interesting, right. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the fuss can be attributed to doomsday speakers,
Speaker 1: and we actually got those are always popular, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: because they're fun to hear about and they're fun to
Speaker 1: think about. The end of the world is always to
Speaker 1: the world. We actually got a listener email about the
Speaker 1: Mayan Calendar, and I'm not quite sure if our friend
Speaker 1: Molina is a a doomsday believer or if she just
Speaker 1: wanted to hear more of the story behind it, but
Speaker 1: she write to us hi I'd like to know what
Speaker 1: the Mayans really say about this twelve end of days.
Speaker 1: I have heard many interpretations, most of which I think
Speaker 1: are geared at selling books Smart Girl and Doomsday Gear.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know how accurate were their predictions and
Speaker 1: why this calendar was so important to them. So, Molina,
Speaker 1: here's the answer, and we will start by cracking the
Speaker 1: code behind the Mayan calendar. And to understand this week,
Speaker 1: we have to get a little context about the Mayan
Speaker 1: civilization in general. I guess just to let you know,
Speaker 1: the Mayans, the whole empire was incredibly sophisticated. Uh. They
Speaker 1: existed around parts of what is now Guatemala, Belize, Honduras,
Speaker 1: El Salvador, and parts of southern Mexico as well, and
Speaker 1: they were a very sophisticated culture. They actually started ready.
Speaker 1: They were one of the first meso Americans, the people
Speaker 1: in that sent role American area to start writing at all,
Speaker 1: in the pre Classic period, which went up to from
Speaker 1: between about two thousand BC and three D. And you
Speaker 1: can actually divide the Mayan civilization into three distinct periods.
Speaker 1: The format ever, pre Classic, which changes mentioned then the
Speaker 1: Classic followed in that reign from about three hundred until
Speaker 1: nine hundred and the post Classic from nine hundred to
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred, and around that time we see the Mayan
Speaker 1: civilization sort of reaching out a bitter end when the
Speaker 1: Spanish Inquisition comes in and starts phasing the culture out.
Speaker 1: This true, and scholars are a bit baffled by what
Speaker 1: happened at the end of the Classic period is interesting.
Speaker 1: They were incredibly sophisticated, but there was a time about
Speaker 1: nine hundred a d. Where they reached a sharp decline
Speaker 1: in their civilization. They left cities and temples abandoned. It
Speaker 1: was very odd, and scholars disagree about what caused this,
Speaker 1: whether it was exhausting the food supply or the rewards
Speaker 1: among people's And you're write, Candice, the Spanish arrived and
Speaker 1: about the four hundreds, like fourteen hund words, and that
Speaker 1: sort of ended the period of the mind Empire in general.
Speaker 1: And we know a lot about mine history because these
Speaker 1: were people who left written records. They had a system
Speaker 1: of hieroglyphics that they used for recording myths and history
Speaker 1: and other governmental decrees things like this. They actually had
Speaker 1: sort of like a primitive type of book and paper
Speaker 1: that were bound together as well as style, which were
Speaker 1: large freestanding stone monuments almost like an obelisk relay that
Speaker 1: they would carve things into. And in addition to hieroglyphics,
Speaker 1: they also had logo graphics and a phonetic syllabic sort
Speaker 1: of alphabets. They in many ways, or at least three
Speaker 1: ways really of recording their history. That's really a lot
Speaker 1: of their writings had to do with time in general.
Speaker 1: They were very focused, maybe preoccupied with the idea of time,
Speaker 1: and that's where we get the idea um that they
Speaker 1: were how they came up with all the different calendars
Speaker 1: that they did right, and calendars were important because they
Speaker 1: wanted to mark the passing of time, because they looked
Speaker 1: to heavenly bodies in the sky to interpret the you're on,
Speaker 1: the moods and whims of their gods, and many of
Speaker 1: their actions, whether it was you know, a ceremony for
Speaker 1: for planting, or for the economy, or for accounting procedures
Speaker 1: were based on God's behavior and almost like today how
Speaker 1: some people ascribe to astrology to determine how a person's
Speaker 1: personality may be influenced by their birth date. The Mayans
Speaker 1: use their calendar for similar purposes. That's right. In numbers
Speaker 1: themselves held a particular importance. Particular ones like the number thirteen,
Speaker 1: for instance, held sort of religious connotations with the represented
Speaker 1: levels of heaven where sacred lords ruled the earth, and
Speaker 1: so the number thirteen is pretty important. And that applies
Speaker 1: over to the first calendar, which is called the zol
Speaker 1: Key and I believe it's pronounced calendar, and we should
Speaker 1: mention too there are all manner of pronunciations as far
Speaker 1: as we could tell in our research for the different
Speaker 1: increments of time and names of the Mayan calendar. So um,
Speaker 1: we're susarming that there are some scholarly variations on pronunciation,
Speaker 1: but we are going to get with the most popular
Speaker 1: and to kick it off, like Jane said, the Zolkan
Speaker 1: calendar also called the Sacred Round calendar. Let's let's break
Speaker 1: this down. And this is going to get a little
Speaker 1: bit painstaking, So if you're near a computer, it might
Speaker 1: actually be helpful if you could go to the House
Speaker 1: staff Works website and pull up the calendar. I'm so
Speaker 1: easy of the article on how the MyD calendar works.
Speaker 1: That's right, Um, it would be easier to visualize if
Speaker 1: you we have a nice animation on the site that
Speaker 1: will let you go through this Zolken calendar. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the basics. The Zolkan calendar is divided into two hundred
Speaker 1: sixty days, and this number is kind of significant of itself.
Speaker 1: Scholars kind of disagree. It might signify the length of pregnancy,
Speaker 1: but more than likely it probably signifies the time of
Speaker 1: a corn crop exactly. So from here, two hundred sixty
Speaker 1: days are comprised of twenty different day names and thirteen
Speaker 1: different numbers. So imagine two circles, and around the outer
Speaker 1: larger circle we have the twenty day names listed and
Speaker 1: each one is represented by a glyph. Then on the
Speaker 1: inside circle it interlocks with thirteen different numbers. So is
Speaker 1: the inner circle turns a number matches up with a
Speaker 1: glyph of a day name. And if you're good at math,
Speaker 1: or you have a calculator nearby, you may figured out
Speaker 1: the two sixty days is derived from the fact that
Speaker 1: twenty day names times thirteen numbers equals to sixty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. And so we go through the cycles of
Speaker 1: the days and the numbers together. And as you know,
Speaker 1: thirteen is less than twenty, so once it got through
Speaker 1: the thirteen numbers, it would go back to the first number,
Speaker 1: but continue on in the cycle of for thet or
Speaker 1: the fourteenth day name exactly. So it just continues rotating
Speaker 1: until you reach two dred sixty. And each combination of
Speaker 1: number and day name has a significant meaning. And the
Speaker 1: holy men and the agriculturalists of the mind civilization would
Speaker 1: use these numbers to predict auspicious times for ceremonies and
Speaker 1: crop planting. Like we said earlier, but there was a
Speaker 1: problem with the talking I'm sorry now the talking, well,
Speaker 1: some people say talking, we're saying Zolking Zolking calendar, and
Speaker 1: that was that it didn't measure a full solar year
Speaker 1: like the Gregorian calendar would do. That's right. They were
Speaker 1: smart enough obviously to figure out that there were seasons
Speaker 1: and two hundred sixty days was not a solar year basically.
Speaker 1: And we should also mention that the Zolking calendar had
Speaker 1: segments of twenty days which they called when als um
Speaker 1: u I n A L. And so these segments of
Speaker 1: twenty days were particularly important, and they carried over into
Speaker 1: their other calendars as well, and this led to the
Speaker 1: hop calendar. And this is a calendar that was based
Speaker 1: on the cycle of the sun. And we know als
Speaker 1: were sort of the formative unit of the hop calendar.
Speaker 1: So as Jane said, a ween as a twenty day period,
Speaker 1: there were eighteen of these twenty day periods, which equalled
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty days. Now, as we know, again three
Speaker 1: hundred sixty days just not a full solar cycle, make
Speaker 1: so they were true, But three hundred and sixties a
Speaker 1: pretty even number, and I like it. Yeah, So the
Speaker 1: may Ends compensated for those five extra days by making
Speaker 1: them nameless days, and they refer to those as a
Speaker 1: way ab and that was a single month comprised of
Speaker 1: these five days, and they thought it was a very
Speaker 1: dangerous time, that's right. And the way of was kind
Speaker 1: of a compromise between the mathematicians and the astronomers, because
Speaker 1: obviously the astronomers knew like three sixty days is not
Speaker 1: a full solar year, but mathematicians loved the evenness of
Speaker 1: the number three sixty. So that's where they get the
Speaker 1: compromise of the way. And during this time, I was
Speaker 1: customary to pray vigilantly and to celebrate the gods and
Speaker 1: to beseech them for blessings on the civilization and hopes
Speaker 1: that you know, good, good tidings would be restored. Again.
Speaker 1: That's right, because during the way of they believe that
Speaker 1: God's sort of left the whole earth unprotected. So but
Speaker 1: again the same old song. You'll hear this refrain a
Speaker 1: couple of times. It wasn't enough. They wanted a longer calendar.
Speaker 1: And uh, the even though the hob calendar is closest
Speaker 1: to our George And calendar today, Um, they did want
Speaker 1: to record more time in a single calendar for historical reasons,
Speaker 1: to keep posterity. And so they came up with what's
Speaker 1: called the calendar Round. And this had eighteen thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred ninety days and encompassed fifty two years. But here
Speaker 1: comes out refrain again. It still wasn't long enough. Fifty
Speaker 1: two years was not enough, as you said, and so
Speaker 1: they wanted to make it even longer. And this is
Speaker 1: the massive, most massive calendar I've ever heard of. Um,
Speaker 1: it's called the Long Court calendar. We refer to it
Speaker 1: today as that, and it measures time in great cycles,
Speaker 1: and a great cycle spans a little over five thousand,
Speaker 1: one d and twenty five years. Right, So the Long
Speaker 1: Count calendar also has its own individual units that it
Speaker 1: is comprised of. So let's go over those. We've got
Speaker 1: one day which is a keen, twenty days, the Wayne
Speaker 1: All which we've heard before, three hundred sixty days, a tune,
Speaker 1: seven thousand, two hundred days, a cartoon, one hundred forty
Speaker 1: four thousand days back tune. So we have all these
Speaker 1: different individual components going inside the Long Count calendar, and
Speaker 1: we see that it is very useful for measuring epics,
Speaker 1: really for giving historians something to um base their civilization
Speaker 1: on and predict future civilizations going on and and things
Speaker 1: like this. Yeah, it was actually a difficult test to
Speaker 1: be able to find these zero date uh of the
Speaker 1: great cycles. For instance, we're in a Great cycle right now, um,
Speaker 1: and in order to figure out what date today is
Speaker 1: in the Great cycle, we had to figure out what
Speaker 1: the first at the beginning of this Great cycle was
Speaker 1: and that ended up being August thirteenth, three thousand BC.
Speaker 1: And we didn't just come up with that number. Happened
Speaker 1: stance There was a British anthropologist named Sir Eric Thompson
Speaker 1: who wanted to reconcile these different calendars and in order
Speaker 1: to find out when the current Great cycle began he
Speaker 1: had to match up some different events from the Spanish
Speaker 1: Inquisition that had been recorded on the Dresden Codex, which
Speaker 1: was one of the mind governmental records that was spared
Speaker 1: from the ravages of the Spanish Inquisition, and he took
Speaker 1: that and compared it alongside the long Count calendar as
Speaker 1: well as the Gregorian calendar to come up with a
Speaker 1: definitive date. And like James said, that was auguste UHC.
Speaker 1: So we're in the middle of a great cycle, that's right.
Speaker 1: But if you do the math, we're actually about to
Speaker 1: end that great cycle, and that's where we get the
Speaker 1: date of December twenty one, which will end a cycle.
Speaker 1: But it's important to note that the Mayons believe that
Speaker 1: this is not the first cycle has ever existed. It's
Speaker 1: actually believe the fourth, and so the universe of the
Speaker 1: planet has lived through um already three cycles, the ends
Speaker 1: of three cycles. So the Miyons don't necessarily believe that
Speaker 1: the world war end at the end of this fourth one, no,
Speaker 1: and they actually think that the ending of a cycle
Speaker 1: is a really wonderful time to celebrate and to appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that the planet has made it through another
Speaker 1: great cycle. Yeah, but there is also another reason why
Speaker 1: people think that this might be the end of the
Speaker 1: world because an interesting thing is going to happen on
Speaker 1: December and then is that it is a winter solstice,
Speaker 1: but you know that happens every year, but it's also
Speaker 1: a particular winter solstice where the sun will along with
Speaker 1: the center of our galaxy, and that happens only every
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand years. So if you're like me and
Speaker 1: you're curious about what people say, you can do a
Speaker 1: Google search and pull up all number of different doomsday websites,
Speaker 1: and predictions for December ranged from the culmination of social
Speaker 1: strife and environmental catastrophe and in war uh sort of
Speaker 1: amalgamating into a giant apocalypse. And some people say that
Speaker 1: a comet or asteroid is going to impact the Earth
Speaker 1: and we're all going to die, or that the magnetic
Speaker 1: field on the Earth is going to change and the
Speaker 1: polls will be reversed, or or hey, you could rent
Speaker 1: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto and it's going to get a preview
Speaker 1: of what's going to happen. Yeah, it's interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at the idea that the minds were actually able
Speaker 1: to predict eclipses, which is pretty sophisticated for for what
Speaker 1: they knew, And so maybe you might be inclined to think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: did they know that this this crazy happened? Says what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen on that day too? But most of strow
Speaker 1: numbers actually agree that they could not have known this. Right,
Speaker 1: So all all number of possibilities for December twenty one, twelve,
Speaker 1: And we know that this is a very hard concept
Speaker 1: to reconcile in your mind without seeing the visual aide,
Speaker 1: So we would strongly encourage you to look at the
Speaker 1: article how the Mind Calendar works and also a question
Speaker 1: of the day that we have called will the World
Speaker 1: really End? In twenty twelve? And if we have spooked
Speaker 1: any of you out there, well I I blame Molina,
Speaker 1: but for to for this of you with um and
Speaker 1: satial appetites for historical knowledge. Just to be sure to
Speaker 1: email us your questions at podcast at how staff works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com Hm, HM,