The Ancient Maya : The Sacred Calendar of the Maya : Mayan Prophecy

The Ancient Maya

We know so little about the ancient Maya. Only tiny amounts of their writings and wisdom have survived. Time, erosion and direct destruction have erased most of their words. Indeed, what we know in general is limited to stone carvings and four surviving Maya Codices (books made from bark).

In one of the saddest episodes in Mesoamerica, thousands of the Maya sacred codices were burned by the Spanish priests and Conquistadors. One Bishop Diego de Landa, wrote, ‘These people used certain letters with which they wrote in their books about ancient subjects. We found many books written with these letters and since they held nothing that was not falsehood and the work of the evil one, we burned them all'.

Today after countless effort and some success at decoding the meaning of what is left we marvel at their advanced knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, their ancient calendar, their prophecy stories and their advanced writing system which like ours is based on phonetics.

The Sacred Calendar of the Maya and their view of the universe

It is not known how the Maya, a Stone Age indigenous society acquired such exactness in measuring time. Their accuracy is so precise that the Mayan calender is 1/10,000 of a day more accurate than even the Gregorian calendar we currently use.

It is also unknown how the Maya discovered celestial alignments and incorporated them into their pre Columbian pyramids. Indeed, many of their most important buildings were devoted to the calculation and passage of time.

The Maya believed in a cyclical nature of both time and celestial movements. Everything occurs more than once and continues to cycle in endless repetitive patterns. Maya priests were therefore able to provide prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the number relations of their ancient calendar and significant related past dates such as a birth or a death. If the interpretations of the priests spelled bad times to come, offerings and sacrifices would be performed with the intention of satisfying the gods.

Mayan Prophecy and Accounts of 2012

Incredibly the ancient Maya were able to predict an astrological alignment that only occurs every 26,000 years. According to the surviving Dresden Codex, the Great Cycle of the Mayan Long Count Calendar (the fifth sun) ends on the winter solstice of December 21, 2012. This date happens to coincide with our Sun's intersection point with what modern astronomers call the Great Rift. This Great Rift is a band of dark dust clouds located around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy from our vantage point on Earth. The ancient Maya were well aware of this Great Rift, they knew it as Xibalba-be or "Black Road". According to the Maya, this "Black Road" was the entrance to the underworld, a place of evil and misfortune. Even more interesting, present day astronomers believe this Great Rift is located around a massive Black Hole Star located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Unlike the sensationalized cataclismic events the modern media implied the Maya predicted for December 21, 2012, the Maya actually predicted that the date would mark the beginning of a new era which would be unrelated to the current one. The Maya did not mention the cause or what would trigger this change, only that a new cosmic awareness and spiritual transition towards the new civilization would begin on that date.

Our collection includes Maya pottery, Maya masks, Maya art and other items that offer a glimpse of this ancient civilization.