| Show fl TIlE THE WORSHIP OF OP TILE THE MEASURE OF OP TIME illE 1 It is fascinating to pick out the trend of mind of the an ancient Mayas as seen in their inscriptions other nations may I I worship Mammon 1 or think they worship else but the Maya laya worshipped TIME TIl in its various manifestations am and made it a q common actuating religious motive that their whole intellectual life should be devoted to find the periodicity of the great god seen by them as physically manifest in the planet Venus the great and blazing god of day carrying the burning disc of white-hot white obsidian which we unseeing that we ve weare weare are call the sun and lastly the times of reappearance as a thin crescent of the pale spouse of day she who rules the night our Luna They show in the distance numbers of the Supplementary Series the days clays matching even over sometimes brief periods and in others over vast periods of time Not only did they know accurately the time of the moon but likewise the period of Venus to a high degree of ac accuracy Later their keen intellectuality and their highly developed science of numbers was turned to computing the length of the solar year Many lany scientists of note think that possibly the only information on their many stellae is that of with history ed That viewpoint the writer feels With Wirth ith the combined yardsticks of the new moon and the lengthier tape line of the periods of Venus they applied this knowledge to a study of the true sun At first out about four days often encountered in the early inscriptions they refined ed formula after formula until at a later period marvelous acc accuracy ac ac- ac- ac c curacy racy was ras shown Our inheritance of the ages began with causing great confusion then we refined that to but had to correct that today we use Study of the Maya laya inscriptions show that they early discarded discarded discarded dis dis- dis- dis carded for the formula 25 days in years which for brevity's sake we express by the formula 25 then they re refined refined refined re- re fined to the formula expressed 97 and worked many computations computations computations com com- from to a given date near that basis Then came the final correcting refinement 97 minus one day for each 2000 years of the span computed This agrees with our formula very accurately on on the digits and may be in interchanged interchanged interchanged in- in in our working of their records Piedras Negras shows a computation at an early date in which it may be interpreted regularly that on years they got the same digits we ve use for leap year days namely even days then as if this were in error many fall short of that for a comparatively long period and then in a blaze of glory comes Lintel 3 Stela 8 14 3 and 7 with the exact digit One of these is on a computation for years with witha vitha a result accurate This was vas about six years in advance of Copan Copan Copan Co- Co pan who used the term of years in the famous 6 Caban 10 Mol 1 computation of days Several computations hover around years varying from that span according to the accuracy of the computation which is the required number of years to have the solstices interchange In Interchange interchange in- in on the calendar that is the calendar recording June but the sun in December They record a few in which the leap I year days are even in net like Ilke for seven As to the mo moon n They record on Stela 7 days which is 1736 at over a span of years This is a wonderful achievement And it was vas done about or so A. A D. D That has to be appreciated fully One can readily see how they got 1 14 4 as any span of four years would confirm that and if one is good at imagining a line of three experts would give the actual observations on years out 25 days But to get up into terms of years rang- rang into the is beyond me Ine to It must have been by computation And yet we deny them thern fractions or decimals We Ve have meridian circles cross hairs mounted with exquisite skill and for reading they had no such aids How did they do it They were mathematicians of a high order they had position position position tion centuries before we lead had it they had zero They used a vi vi- vi system or twenties twenties- i we ve use tens Their aids in mathematics mathematics mathematics math math- made it fairly easy for them to compute But given all that lack of handicap the achievement was unsurpassed by any nation their contemporaries On Lintel 12 is given the Maya laya date 9 4 4 or in days 2271 periods of Venus is or they are within a day of absolute accuracy on Venus over a aspan aspan aspan span of years That is marvelous It gives them a period period period per per- iod for Venus of ours is The study of arithmetical astronomy can be taken up by any person with merely a high school education yet not one in ten thousand will do so or having attention called to it will not go to the trouble of confirming it by pencil and paper Such neglect is sheer laziness lagged under about three of four days from the best computations of Copan yet on the smaller spans from the sub-base sub of 76 0 O. 00 0 O. 0 th they y were often exactly accurate Pedras was vas remarkable on moon Copan gives the longest span I have so far encountered Not what you do but how you do it is the test of your capacity When Then the Great Scorer marks up your name it is not the points you made but how you played the game |
