History of Maya Spacetime
How to Seek a Prediction
Visit a priest/calendar expert
Equipment
Mayan calendar
Personnel
Priest trained in interpreting meaning of dates
Description
The Maya Civilization of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras developed as early as 2000 BCE, but the major kingdoms rose and fell between 300 BCE and 1250 CE, though even the Classic Maya (c.250-900 CE) cities were never part of a unified empire like the 15th century Aztecs
Maya kingdoms instead formed alliances and regional city-states that competed and cooperated with each other over the course of nearly three millennia
In Maya belief, supernatural beings had the power to intervene in human affairs on Earth, only certain humans were able to interact directly with the upper and lower spirit worlds and forces, and these individuals were either royalty who served as intermediaries between gods and humans or specially trained priests and other ritual specialists with the appropriate knowledge, tools, and ancestry
One way the Maya attempted to understand the will of gods was through astronomy
Astronomer-priests recorded their observations of the movements of celestial bodies and other sky events and their calendar dates over extended periods of time in bark paper or deerskin books called “codices” that were passed down over centuries
Over time, these evolved from observation of data to theory in the form of astronomical tables designed to allow priests to predict future similar events
The priests would then link the occurrence of an astronomical event with a terrestrial event (e.g. an eclipse occurring around the time of a king’s death) and use these connections to help predict what the gods had in store for them when the next astronomical event of that type occurred again
The Mayan systems’ reliance on celestial phenomena is reminiscent of the purely astrological predictive systems popular today, in that the deterministic motion of celestial bodies is linked into an otherwise human interpreter oriented predictive system