They also had highly realistic art and a form of mathematics far beyond that of ancient Europe. The Aztecs properly called the Mexica , on the other hand, ran a Romanesque, centrally organized empire with a powerful origin story for their all-powerful central city. Like the Romans or the Jews before, they wandered through the wilderness, eventually reaching a giant lake in the mountains where they built Tenochtitlan—the largest city in the world at the time, now called Mexico City.
That was A. The differences between the cultures can be seen in their art, politics and especially the way they perceived time. Mexica mythology was full of wrath, death and enough cataclysmic destruction for a Hollywood movie. Their art evolved from highland people like the Toltecs through a tradition of sculpture. The Mexica regularly discussed the end of the world and sacrificed people to prevent it.
Pieces like the Stone of the Sun or the Tlaltecuhtli monolith, discovered in , were highly representational and filled with intimidating monsters. Tlaltecuhtli, the largest Mexica icon ever discovered, has claws, blood spurting from her mouth and skulls for knees. People were blocky with generic faces, almost like communist or nazi propaganda. The Maya, in contrast, had a more fluid style of art founded by painters. They depicted people more or less how they looked, often with subtle emotions rather than blank stares.
Scientists recently announced the discovery of a mural found in the home of a royal scribe in the long-forgotten Maya city of Xultun —a city now reduced to little more than mounds of rubble and vegetation in northern Guatemala. The mural depicts an actual king, rather than a god, and accurately renders his court. The mural also showcases the unique Maya Calendar, which was wholly distinct from the calendar used by the Mexica.
As with the Mexica, Maya dates combine at least two calendars—one covering days and the other days, such that every day had two names, which reset every 52 years. But unlike the Mexica, it also uses a "long count" system that adds a numeral at the end of a cycle to keep a constant count of years, more like the Christian calendar. Is that or ? But with the Maya long count, we know exactly. This "long count" feature is how we are able to extend the Maya calendar all the way to The Mexica calendar, by contrast, simply reset at zero at the end of a cycle.
The Mexica would have no way of conceiving such a specific date so far into the future. Yet it is the Mexica, not the Maya, who trafficked in the apocalypse.
The Classic Maya had almost no tradition of cataclysmic endings though they may have picked it up centuries later from groups like perhaps the Mexica. For them, is just a year when several of their calendars reset, like for modern calendars.
Taube, who is helping interpret the paintings around Xultun, says the hysteria totally misses the point. It's not that Maya were tracking the apocalypse but that they saw significance in every new day.
With multiple calendars, ancient Mesoamericans had a different combination of dates for every day, each combination having a special significance. Almost as if every day was a holiday. It's going to have multiple shadings of possible meaning. In a way, it's a richly rewarding way to go through time.
You are not just ticking off a day in your calendar. Each day is just percolating with all of these different meanings and recollections and hopes. Back at the museum, Magaloni shakes her head over people asking about the prophecy. Museums like this, she says have a much bigger message to tell of the past. Namely, they celebrate and inform the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and try to uncover their culture that was nearly eradicated during the Spanish Conquest.
His post, which has since been deleted, sparked a frenzy on Twitter, with users claiming June 21, , should actually be December 21, — the apparent date of the impending Mayan doomsday. Doomsday fears are sparked by the incorrect assumption that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world to occur on or around December 21, This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and festivities took place on December 21, , to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the Maya civilisation, with main events at Chichen Itza in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala.
Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed for this date to mark the end of the world, with scenarios suggesting the arrival of the next solar maximum, an interaction between Earth and the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy, or Earth's collision with a mythical planet called Nibiru. Mayan scholars stated that no classic Mayan accounts forecast impending doom, and the idea that the Long Count calendar ends in misrepresented Mayan history and culture, instead, they believe it marks the beginning of a new era.
Many have also falsely claimed in their response to these tweets that Ethiopia reflects the correct date according to the Julian calendar.
Ethiopia, a country free of any colonial powers and influences of the Roman Church, was not affected by either of the calendars and retained its original calendar, claiming Jesus was born in 7BC. Like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years without exception and begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar, making today June 1,
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