Its Not The End of The World What The Ancient Maya Tell Us About 2012

The Year 2012.
Maya Prophecy?
The End of an Ancient Calendar?
The End of the World as We Know It?
Global Cataclysm?
A Cosmic Change of Consciousness?
The return of Quetzalcoatl?
What is this all about?
So, we’re hearing a lot about what
the ancient Maya prophesied for us,
far in their future…our year 2012.
The din is rising.
What did they actually tell us?
The short answer from the Maya is,
It’s not the end of the world!
Photo by Guillermo Aldana, Arqueología Mexicana VIII:45
Indeed, current debate about 21 December 2012 results from
contemporary confusion from projections, assumptions, and
misunderstanding about the science and beliefs of several ancient
cultures of the Americas.
The Maya were one of many cultures of the Americas who
employed a solar calendar of 365 days. However, while the Maya
calculated and utilized cycles of ~5125 years, other cultures,
including the Aztecs, focused on shorter cycles of only 52 years.
Although the Aztec adopted many aspects of the Maya calendar,
the milestone of 21 December 2012 is significant only in terms of
the long cycles of Maya time. (For an introductory explanation of the
Maya Calendrics, download Part IV – Appendix: Technicalities of the
Calendars.)
The Maya Long Count notation for 21 December 2012 is 13.0.0.0.0
which completes a cycle of 5125.366 years (3114 BC – 2012 CE).
More later about the Maya. Let’s look now at current prophecies
for 21 December 2012.
Some of the events proposed to come together
on the winter solstice, 21 December 2012:
On that morning, the Earth and Sun will align with the “Dark Rift”
near the Galactic Center. This event last happened about 25,800
years ago.
The magnetic poles of the Earth may reverse, leaving us
unprotected from cosmic radiation for a time. The effect of magnetic
fields on human creativity, initiative, mood, etc., is still unknown.
There will be a Venus Transit, an eclipse‐type alignment when
Venus crosses between Earth and the Sun. We witness a pair of
these about once a century: the last few were 1518 & 1526; 1631 &
1639; 1761 & 1769; 1874 & 1882; 2004 & then on 6 June 2012.
NASA predicts an unusually powerful “Solar Maximum” (sunspot
season) for 2012 (though it may peak as early as late 2011). This
happens every 11 years, and disrupts satellite and other
electromagnetic communications.
The usual disasters loom: food shortages, cataclysmic storms due to
global warming, gasoline prices going through the roof, looming
chaos in the Middle East – site of Biblical Armageddon and Eden –
which will disrupt oil production and bring civilization to a grinding
halt (some like to call it Mess‐o’‐potamia).
Maya Prophecies for 21 December 2012
According to ancient records, the Maya Long Count
Calendar will reach 13.0.0.0.0. Due to the cyclic nature of
Maya calendars, this date appears to replicate the same
number as at the beginning of this Creation in August 3114
BC/BCE (which the Maya also wrote as 13.0.0.0.0). The
interval is 5125 years & 133 days, or 5125.366 years.
The return of Quetzalcoatl (one of the great gods of ancient
Mesoamerica), according to Aztec and Maya prophecies.
The “13” in the Maya date 13.0.0.0.0 indicates “13 Bak’tuns.”
A Maya Bak’tun or Pik is 144,000 days, the same number as
the number of devotees taken up in the Rapture, according to
the Book of Revelation. Coincidence?
There have been five Creations according to the Aztec
records. Five times 5125.366 years is 25,626.8 years.
Coincidence?
9 Reasons why the “Maya Prophecies” should
be read very critically:
Maya Prophecies
1. Very fragmentary. What we have is only a handful of passages
from a lost, and much longer, story.
2. Contradictory. Though Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya sources provide us
a number of narratives, different versions disagree. The calendar
dates associated with Maya “end date,” Aztec “end date,” and
“return of Quetzalcoatl” all vary.
For example: the Aztec predict that this Creation will end on a
4‐Movement day in a 2‐Reed year, if it ends at all. The next
possible Aztec end‐date will be in 2027. Maya literature does not
explicitly predict any end at all, and their so‐called “end date” in
2012 is a 4‐Ajaw [4‐Flower in Aztec cycle], not 4‐Movement.
Mixtec Creation stories mention 2‐Deer in year 13‐Rabbit, and
other dates.
3. Manipulated. Tlacaélel, Machiavellian minister to three
Aztec emperors, had no illusions about the propaganda
power of history, and saw to it that history was rewritten
completely to exalt the Mexica and denigrate rivals. He was
neither the first or the last to do this. At his behest, the
Aztecs burned their own libraries as well as their enemies’,
in order to start with a clean slate. They even changed
Quetzalcoatl’s birthday. Likewise, Maya dates and
intervals of time were manipulated for their numerological
and augural significance.
4. Misunderstood. 21st‐century Western world‐view is very
different from that of ancient Mesoamericans. We tend to
project our own ideas and beliefs on others.
• For example: their distinction between truth and myth,
and between various individual gods, were nowhere near
our categorical boundaries. Gods did not have distinct
personalities, they blended into each other, they split into
gangs of 4 or 5. The days, and even the numerals in their
calendars were living, powerful entities. Some Maya
texts (below) appear to have indicated “myth time” with
“unworkable” calendar days.
5. Errors. Maya monuments, particularly dates and distance
numbers contain errors, both of transcription and of
calculation. I count something over 50 numerical mistakes
carved in stone. Apparently the Maya, believed that “a card
laid is a card played” and never, ever, erased and fixed a
mistake.
6. No mention of destruction nor of renewal, nor
improvement, connected to the coming 13.0.0.0.0 Maya
“end date”.
7. Implication that Life and the calendar will continue
without interruption beyond 2012.
8. The Mesoamerican concept of “cyclic time” is not that
cyclic. To both the Maya and the Aztec each Creation was
an improvement on the previous era.
9. Solstices were of very minor importance. Though they record
hundreds of ceremonies, anniversaries, jubilees, dedications,
offerings, astronomical events, etc., inscriptions almost never
mention events on solstices or equinoxes. However, especially
very early, during the Middle Formative, the Maya built “E‐
Groups,” architectural alignments to the Solstices and Equinoxes.
(Archaeoastonomers have long been puzzled by the fact that most
E‐Groups do not align to these risings. Recent investigation
suggests that E‐Groups may have been aligned to the solar Zenith
Passages and Nadirs, events more highly esteemed than Solstices.
The First Zenith Passage coincides with the onset of the rainy
season in much of Mesoamerica.)
What is supposed to happen in 2012?
Some predictions for 2012
Four predictions
“An imminent polar reversal that will wipe our hard drives clean.”
Daniel Pinchbeck
“The rare celestial alignment of our solar system, our sun, and
our planet with the center of our galaxy—an event that will
not happen again for another 26,000 years.”
Gregg Braden
The “dawning of a Wisdom Age … standing on the shoulders of
the Information Age.”
Peter Russell
“The December 21, 2012, date will likely be a “nonevent” similar to
… the widely anticipated Y2K phenomenon.”
Robert K. Sitler
Cultural Diversity
The next 2 maps will show how diverse Mesoamerica is ‐
both culturally and linguistically.
The Maya, and the later Mixtec and Aztec cultures, are only
a few of many.
Mesoamerica has greater linguistic diversity than Europe.
Just the Mayan area (light blue), for example, comprises 22 living
languages even today.
Map courtesy FAMSI.org — modified from The Handbook of Middle American Indians.
Culture Areas and Dates
The next 4 maps display the dates and areas of the Olmec,
Early and Late Classic Maya, and the Aztec cultures.
These groups were as different from each other as Egypt,
Greece, and Medieval Spain. Nevertheless, like Greece and
Spain, the later cultures respected, and built on their
forebears.
They also felt free to adapt as well as adopt. Ancient

Mesoamericans had no compunctions about changing or even
inverting stories, just as Christmas traditions vary around the
world.
Cultures worldwide suffer cycles of Rise and Fall. But
those in Mesoamerica apparently lived in a more fragile
environment; when they fell, they fell hard. Unlike Rome,
Baghdad, and other Old World cities who rebuilt after a
collapse, most of the great Mesoamerican capitals were
completely abandoned after their respective Falls.
The Mesoamerican People suffered
Multiple Collapses
900 BCE/BC The major Olmec city of San Lorenzo was abandoned, and La Venta rose.
(Gulf coast)
400‐300 The Middle Classic Collapse snuffed the Olmec Horizon, and fertilized
BCE/BC dozens of Late Formative city‐states. (pan‐Mesoamerica)
100 BCE/BC Multiple Collapses
Cuicuilco, buried by a volcanic eruption (southern Valley of Mexico),
coincides with rise of Teotihuacán (northern Valley of Mexico)
200 CE/AD The abandonment of great cities in the Mirador Basin. (Northern

Guatemala)
600/650 CE/AD The burning of Teotihuacán marks the boundary between Early and Late
Classic.
600‐800 CE/AD The Late Classic saw not only a dramatic florescence of Maya cities, but
also the appearance of new civilizations: Tajín, Huasteca, Xochicalco,
Cacaxtla.
900 CE/AD The Classic Collapse: Maya, Zapotec, Veracruz, etc. (pan‐Mesoamerica)
1100 – 1250 The rise of the Mixteca city‐states.

1350 – 1450 The Aztec/Mexica establish an empire.
1500‐1540 The Conquest: Introduced disease; the fall of Tenochtitlán (1521), and
CE/AD then the rest of the Americas. (pan‐Mesoamerica)
The 2012 Galactic Alignment:
How rare is it?
Some researchers claim that the Maya Calendar was set,
The Galactic
originally devised, specifically to reach its “end” (the Long
Count date 13.0.0.0.0) coinciding with this very special event.
Alignment – How
So how rare is this “galactic alignment,” that occurs every
26,000 years? Rare is It?
How rare is it?
The Galactic Center is about here: X
Here is a sky chart showing the sun on the morning of 21 Dec., 2012.
The line marking the Ecliptic is green, and the Galactic Equator is violet.
How rare is it?
Here is a sky chart showing the sun on the same day, three years
earlier in 2009.
How rare is it?
Here is a sky chart showing the sun on the morning of Dec. 21, 2006.
How rare is it?
The sky chart showing the sun on the morning of Dec. 21, 2003.
To see the slight movement of the sun at these three‐year
intervals, click back and forth through the last three slides a
few times. You will notice that the sun has been in virtually
the same spot every Dec. 21st for many years.
In fact, the sun has already crossed the Galactic Equator in
1999. The edge of the sun first touched that Equator in the
early 1980’s, and will be in contact with it each 21st of
December until about 2019. Again, this “rare” alignment has
already been happening for twenty‐five years and will
continue for a decade more.
How rare is it?
The sky chart showing the sun on the morning of Dec. 21, 1999.
The next slide shows the sky chart showing the position of
the sun on the morning of the solstice in 1941, seventy-one
years before 2012. It is approximately one degree, or two
solar diameters, away from the Galactic Equator. This slow
movement is what astronomers call “Precession of the
Equinox.”
How rare is it?
Sky chart showing the position of the sun on the morning of the
solstice in 1941, seventy‐one years before 2012.
How rare is it?
This shows the sun’s position at dawn of the solstice 71 years earlier
still, when it was two degrees short of the Galactic Equator.
How rare is it?
The sun’s
position on
21 Dec., 2012
and on 23
Dec., 1870.
Here we show the sun’s position on mornings two days apart, in 1870 and
2012. The sun in 2012 occupies precisely the same positions as it did 142 years
and two days earlier. They are two degrees apart, or four solar diameters.
How rare is it?
However, two days later in 1870 on Dec. 23rd, the sun did cross the
Galactic Equator. And in 1941 it crossed on the 22nd.
How rare is it? Not very.
Allow us to repeat, the sun has crossed the galactic equator every winter
solstice since 1983, and will continue to do so until 2019.
In fact, the sun has aligned annually (on other days) since
time began. (It precesses a solar diameter in 36 years.)
This is an annual event, is not rare at all.

However, the Maya did celebrate the Sun’s
The Maya did celebrate
almost‐imperceptibly slow progression through the
Zodiac (or “around the sky”) called the Precession of
the Precession
the Equinox.
Barbara MacLeod has been working with an unusual Maya concept, a
significant interval of time they called “3‐11‐Pik” (or “3‐11‐Baktun,” to use
the traditional epigrapher’s name for the 144,000‐day/400‐year period). 3
x 11 x 144,000 days is 4,752,000 days, or 13,010.5 years, half the length of
the Precession cycle.
Maya rulers celebrated a micro‐cycle of this huge interval:
every 8660 days (about 24 years) was an “11‐Pik station” in
the Long Count, (it would have the same Calendar Round as
11 Piks later would have). If a king lived long enough, he
would witness three of these in succession (taking 25,980
days, about 71 years; 3.12.3.0 in Maya numerals) and be
given the title “3‐11‐Pik Ajaw.” This 71 years is the length of
time for the Equinox sun to precess one day. In other
words, the sun’s position against the backdrop of stars
would have shifted to the adjacent day’s position 71 years
before.
…Not only did the Maya occasionally
celebrate the Precession, they observed and
measured its progress sufficiently to
calculate with it.
If a lord saw 3 successive 8660‐day periods
(about 71 years), he was given the title “3‐11‐Pik
Ajaw.”
(71 years is the time it takes for the sun to precess back one day.
Thrice 8660 is also 25,980 days, microcosmically reflecting the full
Precession cycle of 25,800 years. Perhaps.)
Premier archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni is not at all convinced

by Barbara MacLeod’s evidence, which he calls coincidental. (We
scholars are not at all monolithic.)
This is a drawing of a Xcalumk’in inscription (CMHI 4:197) one of the
handful of monuments mentioning this 3‐11‐Pik interval/title. Glyph A
is the title “3‐11‐pi‐k(u),” or “3‐11‐Pik‐ku,” one of a string of titles boasted
by the Lord ending at glyph J with “Ajaw”.
Drawing after David Stuart
This is a drawing of a Copan Stela 49 with the 3‐11‐Pik Ajaw
interval/title highlighted.
Photo courtesy of the Morisawa Type Company, Tokyo, Japan Drawing by Ian Graham (CMHI)
This is a photograph of Naranjo Altar 1 along with a drawing of the altar. The text
selected is H9 – I12. The 3‐11 Pik Ajaw title exists in H12 (highlighted).
Drawing by Matt Looper
This is a drawing of Quirigua Stela F, A12 – B14. The 3‐11 Pik Ajaw interval/title is

highlighted in A13.
Solstices:
How important
were they?
Observatory,
Palenque Palace
Photo by Linda Schele
So far, we have found no glyphic inscription that refers
to a solstice or an equinox per se. The only events
recorded in inscriptions that consistently fall near one of
these dates are the “Flapstaff Dance” lintels at Yaxchilan.
The Maya called this baton/banner Jasaw‐Chan, and the
handful of records of this dance always happen a couple
days after the summer solstice: June 25, June 26, etc.
(GMT+2 correlation; two days earlier in the GMT correlation).
Further, Maya rulers could choose the date of their
inauguration. They had substantial leeway for it; a typical
Maya Ajaw‐to‐be had between a month and about two
years after his predecessor’s death to set a date.
Examining 80 recorded coronations for Maya lords, I
found only one (in each correlation) that fell on either a
solstice or an equinox, which is precisely what chance
would predict. In fact, I found four that coincided with
February 14th, but that does not prove that the Ancient
Maya celebrated St. Valentine’s day. Remember that!!
When faced with a choice of an auspicious day on which to
schedule an important event, Maya almost never chose a solstice
or an equinox.
Solstices:
How important were they?
Answer:
Not very
Why we use the Aztec Myth (Leyenda de los
Soles) to Explain Maya Creations
The surviving accounts of the Maya Creation Myth are
fragments, tatters. Much more is missing than is there.
The earliest surviving fragments appear on the
monuments of Izapa (and neighbors) and the newly‐
discovered Murals of San Bartolo (ca. 100 BCE).
As if through a keyhole, we glimpse a rich, intricate
cosmology connecting time, space and personalities. It
relates the cardinal directions to colors, species of trees
and game, the calendar, myths, and who knows what else.
Eight centuries later, Classic Maya vase painters
illustrate a few other Mythic scenes, some involving the
Hero Twins. A few Classic stone inscriptions connect
Creation with house‐building.
Six centuries later, one of the curiosities Cortez
presented to the Emperor, a book we call the Dresden
Codex, recounts several arcane events which occurred
on 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u.
Later still, a Quiché Maya scribe in the impoverished
and conquered Guatemalan highlands copied out the
Popol Vuh, connecting his cacique’s ancestors back to the
Creations of the World (ca. 1700). It dwells on the Hero
Twins, who prepared the world for its final Creation ‐
our Creation.
Though it is clear that the Maya conceived a dizzying,
intricately interconnected cosmology, we have difficulty
working out its details. This is partly due to the
fragmentary nature of our evidence, but it is also
increasingly clear that the stories varied substantially
from city‐state to city‐state. (Not unlike the conflicting
versions of Abraham’s Sacrifice: In the Biblical version,
the son is Isaac, who goes on to father the Israelites. In
the Islamic version, the son is Ishmael, father of the
Arabs. These divergent stories represent the infinite
variety found in all mythic traditions.)
The Aztec adapted their Five Creations stories (called
the “Five Suns”) from Maya and other accounts. Our
knowledge of the Aztec myths is much more complete
than that of their antecedents. If we proceed with
caution, keeping in mind that they changed things at
will, it will be instructive to examine the Aztec Creation
cycle as a reflection of the older Maya tradition.
Though various versions of the Aztec Creation myth
existed1, the canonical story is laid out in the central
section of the famous Aztec “Calendar Stone,” also
known as the Sun Stone and Altar of Axayacatl. The
symbolism seen there corresponds to the most coherent
Aztec account of the five Creations, called “the Five
Suns” in the Leyenda de los Soles2.
1 even after they were homogenized under Tlacaélel
2 “Legend of the Suns” — the Aztecs called each Creation a “Sun.”
The Aztec
Calendar
Stone
or
Stone of
Axayacatl
Note the
eight
triangular
signs
representing
rays of the
Sun.
Original colors.
Dated (at top)
13‐Reed
(“13 Acatl”)
=
1479 AD.
A Sun‐ray from the Stone of Axayacatl.
This “ray” sign is the same sign incorporated into the “A‐O” or
“trapeze‐and‐ray”, also known as the “Mexican Year Sign”,
which we saw in Part 4.
Xiuhuitzolli, symbol of East 1‐Flint = North
This “Calendar
Stone” (shown in its
original colors) is so
called because of its
central section.
Here Aztec priests,
like the Maya,
combined time and
space in a
symmetrical,
complex
iconography.
1‐Rain, symbol of South 7‐Monkey = West
Xiuhuitzolli, symbol of East 1‐Flint = North
The four emblems
tucked into the top and
bottom represent the
four cardinal directions.
East (upper left) is
Xiuhuitzolli, the imperial
headdress issuing a
speech‐scroll (the Aztec
emperor’s official title
was Tlatoani, “Speaker”).
The other three
directional emblems are
also dates – holy days
sacred to the gods who
ruled the directions.
This connects sacred
Space to sacred cycles of
1‐Rain, symbol of South 7‐Monkey = West Time.
Xiuhuitzolli, symbol of East 1‐Flint = North 1st Sun:
4 Jaguar
(956 BC ‐
250 BC)
The upper right arm of
the central sign contains
the date 4‐Jaguar, the
beginning and the end
date of the First
Creation, which the
Aztec Leyenda de los
Soles tells us began on
that day in 956 BC. It
lasted precisely 13
cycles of 52 years (676
years), ending on
another 4‐Jaguar day in
the year 280 BC. The
primitive inhabitants of
this Creation were, in
the end, eaten by
1‐Rain, symbol of South 7‐Monkey = West jaguars.
4 Jaguar
2nd Sun: (956 BC ‐
4 Wind; 250 BC)
Lasted
364 yrs
An unspecified interval
elapsed before the next
Creation began and
ended on 4‐Wind
(upper left arm). This
one lasted seven 52‐
year cycles (364 years),
before ending —you
guessed it— in a
hurricane. The slightly
improved inhabitants of
this world turned into
turkeys.
4 Jaguar
2nd Sun: (956 BC ‐
4 Wind; 250 BC)
Lasted
364 yrs
Likewise, after a period
in limbo, the “Third
Sun” started (and
ended) on 4‐Rain,
lasting six 52‐year
cycles, or 312 years
(lower left). It ended in
a “rain of fire”
sometime in the late
fourth century AD.
3rd Sun:
4 Rain;
Lasted
312 years
4 Jaguar
2nd Sun: (956 BC ‐
4 Wind; 250 BC)
Lasted
364 yrs
(Lower right): The
“Fourth Sun,” 4‐Water,
began with a 52‐year
Flood, then lasted 13
more 52‐year cycles (676
years). The entire
world, though much
improved over previous
ones, was washed away
in another catastrophic
flood, and its people
turned into fish. This
brings us up to at least
3rd Sun: the end of the eleventh
4 Rain; 4th Sun:
century AD (likely to
Lasted 4 Water;
some time after 1125
312 years 52 years of
AD.)
Flood, then
1‐Rain, symbol of South 7‐Monkey = West 676 years.
Each of these Creations was described as inherently
unstable, ruled by gods in constant conflict. Each
associated with a cardinal direction – North, South,
East or West – but ours, the Fifth Sun, the Creation
of the Center, is fundamentally different.
The Creation in which we live began on 4‐Movement
(or 4‐Earthquake) in a 2‐Reed year (probably in 1143
or 1195 AD). The gods made a blood sacrifice to set
the Sun in motion. Thus was the insatiable need for
blood established; the Sun needs continued
nourishment to keep moving. However, unlike
previous Suns, this Creation is in balance; it could last
forever.
4 Jaguar
2nd Sun: (954 BC ‐
4 Wind; 258 BC)
Lasted
364 yrs
5th Sun: 4 Movement.
(simple form above)
Began (at earliest)
1125 AD.
The large central sign is
3rd Sun: itself a giant date. This
4 Rain; 4th Sun: era will end with
Lasted 4 Water; cataclysmic earthquakes,
312 years 52 years of and it is the last Creation.
Flood, then There will be no other.
1‐Rain, symbol of South 7‐Monkey = West 676 years. (Center: Tonatiuh, the Sun God)
Points on the Aztec Calendar
‐‐Aztec derived from the same source as the Maya.

• Similarity of dates (4 Movement, 4 Jaguar, etc., & 4 Ajaw)
• Similarity of rhetorical structure to the Maya Popol Vuh
• Both describe each Creation as improving on the
previous
• Both accounts clearly say this latest creation is the
ultimate
• Motivation for the Maya Popol Vuh destructions: gods
displeased with their Creation, as with Noah’s Flood.
• However, none of the Aztec Creation dates are 4‐Flower,
which would correspond exactly to 4 Ajaw, so the Aztecs
either received a corrupted account of the Maya Creation,
or deliberately changed it. Noted above, they also
changed Quetzalcoatl’s birthday from 9‐Wind to 1‐Reed.
Points on the Aztec Calendar
‐‐Aztec account much more complete and clear — and
contrived— than Maya.
– The five Creations are ruled by five different gods in turn.
– Each Creation lasts a precise multiple of 52 years —13 x 52, 7 x
52, 6 x 52 — therefore each begins and ends on the same day. Note
that two of these earlier Creations last 13 x 52 years, and the other
two add up to 13 x 52 years.
– Each Creation has a specific color and direction, ruled by a
different god.
– The augury of each Creation’s calendar date predicts its end: for
example,
– “4‐Jaguar” people were eaten by Jaguars,
– “4‐Wind” Creation was blown away by Wind, etc.;
– This one (“4 Motion”) will end in a massive earthquake.
– There are only five Directions: N, S, E, W, and Center, each
associated with a Creation. The last was unique: it possessed a
stability the first four lacked. But most importantly, the Annals of
Cuauhtitlan explicitly tell us that ours is the final Creation. There
will be no others. As León‐Portilla puts it, “There would be one
final earthquake‐one so powerful that ʺwith this we shall perish.ʺ
” (León‐Portilla, p. 56, note 39, citing Lehman 1938, p. 62)
Ironically, according to this reckoning, if Earthlings
were somehow to achieve genuine world peace, our
universe would come crashing down around us in a
final earthquake, on a 4‐Movement day in a 2‐Reed
year.
The next opportunity for the Aztec End – i.e., the next
4‐Movement‐in‐a‐2‐Reed‐year, arrives in 2027 (as I
noted above; the next after that in 2079…).
The Leyenda de los Soles explicitly tells us that this

Creation will be the last; there is no provision for a
“Sixth Sun.” But I guess, the way things are going, it
looks like we will be satisfying the gods’ blood‐lust for a
long time to come.
The Aztec “Calendar Stone,” despite its visual appeal, is
not really an appropriate symbol of the Maya
Calendars. It would be comparable to portraying the
Colosseum when talking about Classical Athens.
So what do Ancient Maya
records say about 2012?
What do Ancient Maya records
say about 2012?
1.
Prophecy 1 – “The quetzal shall come, the green
bird shall come.
Book of Cham Ah Kantenal (“He of the yellow tree place”)
shall come. Blood‐vomit shall come
Balam (As it did in the last Katun 4 Ahau, the katun just
before the Conquest).
Kukulcan (“Feathered Serpent”) shall come
with them for a second time. The
word of God. The Itza (a Maya people)
shall come.”
Above: Translation from p. 53 the Chilam Balam of

Chumayel, a written between 1775 and 1800 AD/CE in
the Maya village of Chumayel, Guatemala. It is one of
several Chilam Balam manuscripts originally preserved
in various villages. Each purportedly contains the
pronouncements of a reknowned Maya prophet,
though each book also emphasizes local history and
issues. (The Chilam Balam of Naa, for example, has some
interesting native medicinal recipes.)
Chilam Balam of Chumayel, 1775‐1800
f.16r.
Here the manuscript describes eclipses.
The first and third lines on this page
are in Spanish; the rest of the page and
the main text of the book is in Yucatec
Mayan.
This section of the Chilam Balam
manuscript incorporates astronomical
information learned from the
Conquistadors. It is apparent to any
viewer that the quality of Maya
drawing declined in the centuries since
the Collapse, and especially since the
Conquest.
Previous Slide: Chilam Balam of Chumayel, Folio 53r,

containing Katun Prophecy for Can Ahau Katun
(K’atun 4 Ajaw), translated above, the 20‐year eras
ending ca. 1500, 1756, and 2012. (The lower half of
the page has the following Cabil Ahau Katun
[K’atun 2 Ajaw] prophecy.)
(Photo downloaded from the website of Princeton University’s
Library, where the original manuscript is housed in the Garrett
Collection.)
What do Ancient Maya records
say about 2012?
2.
Prophecy
“Tzuhtz‐(a)j‐oom2 –
u(y)‐uxlajuun
  (ta) Chan Ajaw ux(‐teʹ) Uniiw. 
pik
Tortuguer
Uht‐oom Ek’‐? Y‐em(al)??
Bolon Yookteʹ (Kʹuh) ta ?.”
o
Monument
“The Thirteenth ʹBak’tunʹ will end (on) 4 Ajaw,
the 3rd of Uniiw (a.k.a 3 Kʹankʹin).
6
?? will occur.  (It will be) the descent(?)
of the Nine Support? (God(s)) to the ?.”
—Final phrase of Tortuguero Monument 6, Translation by David Stuart
This (Tortuguero Monument 6, shown in next slide) is the one and only
Classic Maya document that refers explicitly to the date 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw
3 K’ank’in, equaling 21 (or 23) December 2012.
It says the 13th Pik/Bak’tun will end, that a god or gods called Bolon Yokte’

will descend, but to where, and what Bolon Yokte’ will do once he gets
there, ironically those two glyphs are broken.
This we call “Murphy’s Law of Epigraphy.”
By the way, the eminent epigrapher Steve Houston does not accept this interpretation, saying, “I suspect
the structure simply relates the Bolon (many?) Yokteʹ to the final historical date on the monument.”
[private communication, March 2008]
Bolon Yokte’ (other interpretations: “Nine Support [Gods]”, “Many‐

Strides God”, “Nine‐Dog Tree”, or “Many‐Root Tree”) is a god of change,
of destruction, and of Period‐endings (modern epigraphy’s term for
Maya Long Count dates which end in lots of zeroes, such as 9.16.13.0.0 or
9.0.0.0.0. These “round number” dates were very important to the
ancient Maya.) Unfortunately, he is rarely mentioned, and we know
relatively little about him, or them. Although mentioned once or twice in
the Dresden Codex, he was not sufficiently important for them to illustrate
him, though they did draw dozens of other gods.
Thanks to Christian Prager and Markus Eberl for delineating this obscure deity.

Drawing of this
monument, the oddly
T‐shaped Tortuguero
Mon. 6, which mostly
records the recent
history of the king who
erected it around the
year 700 AD/CE. The
symmetrical upper left
‘wing’ of the
monument, containing
the Long Count, is
missing.
Drawing by Sven Gronemeyer. Present
locations: Portions A, C, D, and G in Civic
Museum, Villahermosa. Portion B is in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York. Portions E
and F are in a private collection.
A close‐up of the segment at the end, which contains, in its last
twelve glyphs, the “2012 text.” We shall return to this frustrating
inscription after comparing some related texts dealing with the
Creation in which we live, that of 3114 BC/BCE.
13.0.0.0.0 Creation stories on
Monuments ‐ Quirigua
Photos by Linda Schele
Quirigua Stelae E and D, the largest Maya monoliths ever erected. These and other Quirigua stelae

form a forest of monumental inscriptions whose texts are subtly interconnected.
Most important for our purposes here is the east text on
Stela C (775 CE), which provides the most complete
description of the 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u Creation (3114 BC) on
any monument.
The next slide displays a drawing of the whole text, with
an enlargement of the Long Count and first sentence…
What happened at the
last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation
gives us a clue as to what was
expected at the next one.
“The Count of the Years (is)
13 Pik, 0 Winikhaab,
0 Haab, 0 Winik,
0 K’in. (On) 4 Ajaw,
on the 8th day of Kumk’u,
(the hearth) was manifested,
…”
—Quirigua Stela C east, dedicated
29 December 775 CE
Drawings of Quirigua Monuments by Prof. Matt Looper,
enlargement of the Long Count and first sentence at right.
I’m going show you a little how decipherment works, so
you know where we epigraphers are coming from.
By rearranging the text into our reading format:
horizontal rows, we can use a process called distributed
analysis, a technique of comparing parallel texts which
has been very productive in understanding Maya
hieroglyphic inscriptions.
We’ll use the Quirigua Stela C Creation story as an

example, because it mirrors the 2012 event: they
(apparently) share the same Long Count date 13.0.0.0.0.
What happened at the last
13.0.0.0.0 Creation,
Part 1
“…(The hearth) was manifested,
three stones were bound.
(1) The Jaguar Paddler and the
Stingray Paddler plant a stone
at Nah‐Ho‐Chan; the Jaguar Stone.
(2) Ek‐Nah‐Chak‐?? plants a stone
at the Big?/Banner?‐??‐ma;
the Serpent‐Stone. …”
One of the most common Maya
hieroglyphs is highlighted, the
word for “stone,” to show how it
can vary from one position to
another.
—Quirigua Stela C, dedicated 29 December 775 CE
The text
continues, and
here is a
photograph of
part of it. The
original
carving is
hardly eroded
and quite clear.
The toothless
guy with the
spine through
his nose is
known as the
“Stingray‐
Spine Paddler.”
He and his
twin, the
“Jaguar
Paddler,” pilot
souls in the
canoe to the
Underworld.
Here they play
a role in
Creation…
What happened at the last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation...
(1) “They plant a stone, the Jaguar Paddler and the Stingray
Paddler, at Nah‐Ho‐Chan (“Great‐5‐Sky”); (it is) the Jaguar‐
Throne‐Stone.
In this glimpse of the story, Creation is likened to building a
house. A builder’s first priority is to make a place to cook: a
firepit surrounded by three stones, on which one rests a
griddle to cook tortillas and tamales. Everyone must be fed,
even before the house is completed.
(2) “He plants a stone, Ek‐Nah‐Chak‐??, at the Big?/Banner?‐??‐
ma; (it is) the Serpent‐Throne‐Stone.
This god, whose name means something like “Black‐House‐
Great‐Somebody,” is barely known elsewhere. The place he
plants his stone starts with the glyph Lakam, which means
either “Big” or “Banner;” (Inscriptions refer to a stela as a
lakam tuun, “Banner Stone” or “Big Stone.” )
(1) “They plant a stone, the Jaguar Paddler and the Stingray
Paddler, at Nah‐Ho‐Chan (“Great‐5‐Sky”); (it is) the Jaguar‐
Throne‐Stone.
(2) “He plants a stone, Ek‐Nah‐Chak‐??, at the Big?/Banner?‐??‐
ma; (it is) the Serpent‐Throne‐Stone.”
Splitting and spreading the glyphs so they line up in parallel,
one can see that the first and second sentences are identical
except for the names of the actors and the designations of the
particular stones. Each stone, the Jaguar Stone and the Serpent
Throne‐Stone, is planted in a specific celestial location, by
different gods.
(3) “And then he tied a stone, Itzamnaaj (God D), (it is) the
Water‐Throne‐Stone.”
The third sentence is almost the same structure, but the location is not
named (until the next line), and the verb is “tied” or “wrapped” rather
than “planted.” Apparently the Creation‐reenactment ceremony of the
Three Stones involved “planting” and then “wrapping.” Itzamnaaj
a.k.a. ‘God D,’ is a high‐ranking, wrinkled Old God, ubiquitous in Maya
art, usually ruling over other gods. Occasionally, as here, God D
appears as a serpent‐head.
(4) “It happened at the Edge‐of‐the‐Sky First‐3‐Stones‐Place;
Six‐Sky‐Lord oversaw the ending of the 13 Pik (“bundles” of
years).”
The next phrase in the main text notes the location of the Third Stone, which we missed in the
previous sentence. Then the last three glyphs state that 13 Pik (“bundles” of years, i.e., 13 x
400 ‘years’) ended, and the whole affair was overseen by one “Six‐Sky Ajaw.” This mysterious
supervisor appears rarely, but does occasionally act in some other contexts. Perhaps this is a
pseudonym for ‘God L,’ or some other deity whose name we cannot otherwise read.
(1) “They plant a stone, the Jaguar Paddler and the Stingray Paddler, at
Nah‐Ho‐Chan (“Great‐5‐Sky”); (it is) the Jaguar‐Throne‐Stone.
(2) “He plants a stone, Ek‐Nah‐Chak‐??, at the Big?/Banner?‐??‐ma; (it is) the
Serpent‐Throne‐Stone.
(3) “And then he tied a stone, Itzamnaaj (God D), (it is) the Water‐
Throne‐Stone.
(4) “It happened at the Edge‐of‐the‐Sky First‐3‐Stones‐Place;
Six‐Sky‐Lord oversaw the ending of the 13 Pik (“bundles” of years).”
Most stone monuments refer to Creation only in
terms of the 3‐Stones story; they use the same
verb (tz’ap) to describe the “Creation of the
Hearth” as they use to describe the erection of
the monuments themselves.
That is, when the Maya put up a stone monument,
they were re‐enacting a part of the Creation story.
Whenever the Maya build a new house, they start
with the hearth, thus also re‐enacting this part of
the story.
Two painted vases illustrate a different event of
the Creation story.
The glyph in the background is u‐tz’apaw, “…was planted.”
What happened at the last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation, Part 2
K2796: The Vase of the Seven Gods: Gods in the dark, with “lots of star‐earth,” presided
over by God L on a Jaguar Throne inside a mountain. Photo: Justin Kerr
13.0.0.0.0 Creation Part 2:
K7750: The Vase of the Eleven Gods: is a
second copy of precisely the same scene as
K2796: gods in the dark, with “lots of star‐
earth,” presided over by God L on a Jaguar
Throne inside a mountain. (here by a
different artist, polychrome versus black‐
and‐white, on a square vessel instead of a
cylindrical one, and with the gods
rearranged somewhat.
(Right: K2796: Vase of 7 Gods.)
Photos: http://research.famsi.org/kerrmaya.html
The two
gods in
the front
ranks, one
with
jaguar
features
and the
other
looking
like a
skeletal
horse,
each
confront a
wrapped
bundle
labeled
“9‐Ek’‐
Kab,”
“Lots of
Star‐Earth
(stuff),”
the raw
material
of
Creation.
13.0.0.0.0 Creation, Part 2:
K2796: Vase of 7 Gods (black):
On 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u, they were put in
order: The Black‐its‐Center God, the Sky
Place God, the Earth God, Many‐Strides
God Bolon‐(y)okte’‐K’uh),
The Three‐Born‐Together Gods (Ox‐lu‐ti‐
K’uh),
20‐??‐Tree‐Deer?‐God” (K’al‐na?/ya?‐Te’‐
chi K’uh); The Jaguar (Paddler?) … the
Tree (God?) (These two glyphs appear
only on this vase, and probably name the
first two characters in the top row. But
they are anomalous, not fitting the
rhetorical pattern of the previous list.)
K7750: Vase of 11 Gods (red):

Starts the same as above and continues
on with:
…20‐??‐Tree‐Deer?‐God” (K’al‐na?/ya?‐
Te’‐chi K’uh); it happened in the East?
(K’in‐chi‐yi? K’in‐ni‐chi‐li)
(next column): ?? is the “cherished one”
(child) of Lady ??, Lady Jaguar‐Tail,
Lady ??‐ba‐?? Ajaw, West‐??.
He is the son of the 4‐winikhaab (= “ 60–
80‐year‐old”) incenser,
K’ak’‐Tiliw (“Fire‐Tapir”), 9th in
succession, White‐Monkey?‐Lord?
The 3 glyphs above the bundle
are a scribal signature: “It is his
painting, Loose‐Flint‐Death‐Shark.”
It is difficult to assign which name goes with which god.
The problem is complicated by the fact that in the text, the
list of gods keeps the same order in both vases, while the
illustrations appear to mix them up. There may be a
correlation between the names of the gods and their
pictures, but this puzzle is not yet resolved, and is another
example to warn us not to flatter ourselves that we have
anything near complete understanding of the ancient Maya
mind. More importantly, none of the names in the list
match the known names of the few recognizable gods.
(The last two gods on the bottom row of the [black and white] Vase of 7 Gods,
God GI and a Death God, are promoted to the end of the top row on the
[polychrome] Vase of 11 Gods, even keeping precisely the same poses. I
respectfully disagree with Christian Prager and Markus Eberl’s connection of
God GI to the mysterious Bolon Yokte’ Kuh who is the actor on the “2012 Stela”
from Tortuguero [Mon. 6], on which more later.)
What happened at the
last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation,
Part 3
The next example,
Coba Stela 1, though
badly eroded,
provides yet a
different glimpse of
the 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u
Creation (13.0.0.0.0).
Photo by Ian Graham (CMHI Vol.7)
13. 0.
Coba
Stela 0. 0.
1
0, 4
Ajaw
G9, F
3E, 5C
B, X
30A,
8 Kum‐
k’u
Mani‐
fested,
the ??
Ended
13 pik?
8‐??,
???…
Though badly worn, we can read that the date 13.0.0.0.0,
instead of just five vigesimal digits, is an abbreviation; the
“full” version they rendered with an extra 19 digits.
Creation’s date is here rendered
13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0
.0.0. The units of time are each twenty times larger than
the following period: the 13 Pik (Baktuns) are equivalent to
5125.366 years, the next digit up is 13 Piktuns, or 102,507.3
years. Above that, 13 Kalabtuns, is 2,050,146.45 years. And
so on.
A few Maya texts employ calculations involving huge
bundles of years like this, and these vast numbers count
not only time much earlier than the 4‐Ajaw Creation, but
far exceeding the age of our known universe.
Coba 13. 0.
Stela
1 0. 0.
0, 4 Ajaw
G9, F
3E, 5C
B, X
30A,
8 Kumk’u
Manifested
the ??
Ended 13
pik?
8‐??, ???…
The “normal” last five digits of this huge Long Count appear enlarged at right, with the rest of the Initial Series date, followed by the
Creation event itself. In the middle is the equivalent text we just saw, from Quirigua St. C: the ‘crossed planks’ verb Jalaj, “It was
manifested, the ?? …”
Coba 13. 0.
Stela
1 0. 0.
0, 4 Ajaw
G9, F
3E, 5C
B, X
30A,
8 Kumk’u
Manifested
the ??
Ended 13
pik?
8‐??, ???…
“…and Tzutz‐ya/It ended…”
Coba 13. 0.
Stela
1 0. 0.
0, 4 Ajaw
G9, F
3E, 5C
B, X
30A,
8 Kumk’u
Manifested
the ??
Ended 13
pik?
8‐??, ???…
“…the 13th Pik (Bak’tun)…” The next phrase could tell us more about the events on this fateful day,

but they are too eroded to read.
Likewise, the ten glyphs that begin the next
double‐column are tantalizingly illegible. Again!
After them, the text jumps ahead to the (then)
present, signaling Reality with another Long
Count.
This, too, is very rare; the number of inscriptions
containing two Long Counts can be reckoned on
the fingers of one hand. Color‐coding indicates the
parallel sentences in the two monuments.
Here is a
drawing
of the
entire
Initial
Series of
Coba
Stela 1.
What happened at the last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation,
Part 4
The Dresden Codex (ca. 1500 AD/CE) gives us a little more information about the last
Creation, in this case the invention of Time itself.
It also mentions an important event 34,000 years before Creation. (Perhaps involving
Neanderthals?)
Dresden Codex
Example
Here are the two introductory passages One can see that
from the Dresden Codex, the upper parts the two upper
compared on the left and the lower halves passages (pre‐
on the right. Creation) are
identical, but for a
few spelling
differences. The
lower sections
(after Creation and
counting back to 9
K’an 12 K’ayab)
are similar but
exhibit minor
differences. The
two were written
by different
scribes, which
accounts for some
of the spelling and
other differences.
I have also copied
a “13 Piktun”
glyph from the
Coba Stela, so you
can see the Piktun
is mentioned at
least twice in each
passage.
“
The last four glyphs before the Era Date 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u say “He the Winal (the period of 20 days) was
“formed” (pataj).” In the previous slide, the same pataj verb refers to the Piktun glyphs a bit earlier in the
inscription, so we can conclude that that time period (20 Pik/20 Bak’tuns) was also created in this pre‐Creation
limbo. In other words, Time itself was invented just before this Creation was set in motion.
(Deciphered by Carl Callaway)
Another Creation event on p. 70, a bit more puzzling, says that gods of the East and West
“paused (in their travels)” on 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u. There are several other mentions of this date
in the Dresden, but most are damaged or even more obscure than this.
Panel Fragment 7th What happened at the last
century AD/CE 13.0.0.0.0 Creation, Part 5
…8 Wo, 0 Days, 16* Winik (Distance Number)
(Haab Date) *(written “0 Days, 18 Winik, which is surely an error)
i‐uut 4 Ajaw (Tzolk’in Date)

“And then it was”
8 Kumk’u ilahiiy /”His first appearance”

(Haab Date)
Yax K’oj Ahk, (royal name)
Chak‐K’uh Ajaw, 9 Pik/Bak’tuns (a DN)

“Holy Ajaw of (9.0.0.0.0)
Chak” i‐uut “and then…”
Photo by Justin Kerr
Panel Fragment 7th
century AD/CE
…8 Wo, *This Distance Number is highly
0 Days, 16* Winik anomalous. It seems to be read “18
passed, Days, zero Winik,” but a normal DN
would just say, “18 days.”
and then it was (One never says, “I’ll be there in zero
4 Ajaw hours and 13 minutes.”)
However, “Zero Days, 18 Winik”
violates another rule: the coefficient of
Winik never exceeds 17; an interval of
8 Kumk’u 18 Winiks would be written “1 Haab.”
He first appeared, The distance from 8 Wo to 8 Kumk’u is
sixteen, not 18 Winik. Here the carver
erred, misreading the (painted) hollow
‘space fillers’ on a 16 ( ) for solid
Yax K’oj Ahk, dots, and carved an 18 ( ).
Chak‐K’uh Ajaw
9 Pik/Bak’tuns
(passed?) and then…
Translation by Marc Zender, who
believes that this text does NOT
…8 Wo, refer to a Creation event, but to the
0 Days, 16* Winik historical date 9.9.16.0.0 (629 AD),
passed, which also fell on a 4 Ajaw 8
Kumkʹu.
and then it was
4 Ajaw I believe he is probably right,
though any ceremony on a 4 Ajaw
8 Kumkʹu is certain to recall and
perhaps re‐enact part of the
8 Kumk’u
Creation story, just as a Christian
He first appeared,
sermon on Christmas Eve will
always take some aspect of Christʹs
birth as its theme.
Yax K’oj Ahk,
The event here, in any case, is not
the usual ʺPlanting Three Stonesʺ
that we find on other monuments.
it records the ʺappearanceʺ of a
Chak‐K’uh Ajaw Chak Kʹuh Ajaw name Yax Kʹoh Ahk;
9 Pik/Bak’tuns e.g., of a ʺGreat Holy Lordʺ named
(passed?) and then… ʺGreen Mask Turtle.ʺ
What happened at the last 13.0.0.0.0 Creation, Part 6
The earliest explicit mention we have of the 4 Ajaw Era date is carved on the back of an
unprovenienced greenstone mask (probably from Rio Azul). It dates from the 4th or more
likely the early 5th century AD/CE.
Distributive Analysis of 4-Ajaw Texts: Comparing 4-Ajaw Dates
I’ve
divided
the six‐
column
text into
double‐
column
reading
order…
Drawing by Mike Carrasco
4 Ajaw Earth‐God
Hul?‐ya, “arrived? (at),”
Edge of the sky, U‐Kab‐ji
New 3‐Stones (directed by…)
Place
GI Yax Waybil ??? ???

(version of Chaak,
the mask itself) (Personages?)
&…
??? arrived …
Six‐Sky Lord
At a Cave?/
Spring? ‐ place
?? ‐ U‐Kab‐ji
(directed by…
royal person.)
Sky‐God
…And translated the relevant Creation passage in the first two double‐columns. Some familiar
faces appear: Sky‐God and Earth‐God, 6‐Sky Lord. As usual, 6‐Sky Guy is supervising the
activities, but he is in turn supervised by a “child of (father),” who is apparently a real person,
possibly the denizen of the tomb from which the mask was taken.
4-Ajaw Dates
cf.
cf.4-Ajaw
4-Ajawdates
dates
Comparing side‐by‐side the six texts we have just seen, you can find the 4 Ajaw 8 8
Comparing side‐by‐side the six texts we have just seen, you can find the 4 Ajaw
Kumk’u dates, usually the opening phrase (4 Ajaw 3 K’ank’in on the Tortuguero
Kumk’u dates, usually the opening phrase (4 Ajaw 3 K’ank’in on the Tortuguero
monument….), common to all six.
monument….), common to all six.
13-Pik Period Endings
References to the “end of 13 Pik” appear in three of the texts.
References to the “end of 13 Pik” appear in three of the texts.
Sky God, Earth God
The “Sky God” and “Earth God” also make three appearances.
Edge-of-Sky, New 3-Stone
Place
The “Edge of Sky, New 3‐Stones Place” is mentioned in two venues.
The “Edge of Sky, New 3‐Stones Place” is mentioned in two venues.
Verbs
The verbs in these contexts are all different, and some are not yet precisely
deciphered. They say: “(They) were put in order” (yellow), “(They) arrived(?)” (red),
“(Three Stones) were planted and tied,” “(The Hearth) was manifested,” “13 Pik
ended,” “The K’oj (image?) changed over, (turquoise),” and the future, “He will come
down and … (green).” (More next page)
9-Ok-Te’ God
The mysterious god or gods
The mysterious god or gods
9‐(Y)Ok‐Te’
9‐(Y)Ok‐Te’appear at the “earth‐and‐sky‐stuff”
appear at the “earth‐and‐sky‐stuff”
manufacturing party on the Vases, and in the single “prophetic” text from Tortuguero.
manufacturing party on the Vases, and in the single “prophetic” text from Tortuguero.
U-Kab-ji-ya 6-Sky Lord
The Overseer 6‐Sky Lord is mentioned twice (u‐Kab‐ji‐ya, “He oversaw it,…”).
The Overseer 6‐Sky Lord is mentioned twice (u‐Kab‐ji‐ya, “He oversaw it,…”).
The Quiché Maya Popol Vuh (copied about 1700 AD/CE) describes the four Creations. Note
similarity here between names of gods Creator of the Green Earth and Creator of the Blue
Sky with the Classic‐era pair Sky‐God and Earth‐God; And (perhaps) Heart of Sky with
Lord 6‐Sky.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Here we shall gather the manifestation, the declaration, the account of the sowing and the
dawning by the Framer and the Shaper, She Who Has Borne Children and He Who Has
Begotten Sons… along with Hunahpu Possum and Hunahpu Coyote, Great White Peccary
and Coati, Sovereign and Quetzal Serpent, Heart of Lake and Heart of Sea, Creator of the
Green Earth and Creator of the Blue Sky, as they are called.
THIS IS THE ACCOUNT of when all is still silent and placid. All is silent and calm.
Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky.
THESE, then, are the first words, the first speech. There is not yet one person, one animal,
bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, or forest. All alone the sky exists. The
face of the earth has not yet appeared. Alone lies the expanse of the sea, along with the
womb of all the sky. There is not yet anything gathered together. All is at rest. Nothing stirs.
All is languid, at rest in the sky. There is not yet anything standing erect. Only the expanse of
the water, only the tranquil sea lies alone.
All alone are they …,
Luminous they are in the water, wrapped in quetzal feathers and cotinga feathers.
Thus they are called Quetzal Serpent.
In their essence, they are great sages, great possessors of knowledge.
… There is also Heart of Sky, which is said to be the name of the (chief) god.
—Creation texts, Part 7: the Popol Vuh, translated by Allen Christenson
Note that although the Popol Vuh parallels the 5
Aztec Creations, it provides no dates.
It also expounds quite a bit on events between
Creations, particularly the Hero Twins’
preparing the way for the latest Creation. This
involves a lot of action with blowguns and the
Ballgame, and a tricky magic act in Xibalba, the
Underworld.
To return to 2012, here again is Tortuguero
Monument 6.
Tortuguero Mon. 6 reprise
Tortuguero Monument 6,
7th Century AD
Tortuguero Monument 6, upper right wing. With
the relevant text in a drawing and (partly) in
photograph, you can assess the extent of the
damage to the missing two glyphs.
Above drawing by Sven Gronemeyer, photo by Donald
Hales
Tzuhtz‐(a)j‐oom u(y)‐uxlajuun pik (ta) Chan
Ajaw ux(‐teʹ) Uniiw. 
Uht‐oom Ek’‐??  Y‐em(al) Bolon (Yo)okteʹ
(Kʹuh) ta‐chak‐ma?‐??.
“The Thirteenth B’akʹtunʺ will end (on) 4
Ajaw, the 3rd of Uniiw (a.k.a. 3 Kʹankʹin).  
Black‐?? will occur. 
(It will be) the descent(?) of the Many‐
Strides?* to
the great? (or red?)‐ma?‐??.”
—Translation of the final phrase of
Tortuguero Monument 6 by David Stuart,
Additions/emendations by Mark Van
Stone.
—Because Mayan is rife with homonyms,
the translation of this descending god
could be “9‐dog‐tree,” “many roots,”
“many supports;” Usually his name
includes the epithet K’uh, “god(s),” as we
saw on the Vases of the 7 and 11 Gods.
Stephen Houston has recently updated his interpretation of this “prophetic”
text (“What Will Not Happen in 2012” at http://decipherment.wordpress.com/).
He compares it to similarly‐phrased future‐statements from Naranjo and La
Corona. Of one he says, ‘The text … situates itself in present time, leaps to a
future presented in highly schematic terms, and then reverts to the present.’
Then,
‘The final passages of the La Corona panel do much the same …’ From a “base
date” of ‘9.12.5.7.4 4 K’an 7 Mak, (Julian Oct. 24, AD 677)., the inscription
lurches forward … almost in yo‐yo effect … to 9.13.0.0.0 (Julian March 15, AD
692), one of the most vivid times for the Classic Maya because of its evocation of
a 13th cycle. The relevant part of the text terminates the inscription: i‐u‐ti/tu? 4
K’an 7 Mak. The parallel with Tortuguero Monument 6 is clear, in that a future
date jolts back to the present as marked by a phrase beginning with i‐.’ (This
date also has a 13.)
The glyph he calls i‐ is the one I identified as “Black.” He concludes,
‘Whatever Monument 6 has to tell us pertains to the dedication of the
building associated with the sculpture. It has nothing to do with
prophecy or the supposed, dread events that await us in AD 2012.
About that the Maya are notably silent…or, truth be told, a bit boring.’
In other words, the part about Bolon Yokte’ coming down
refers to the dedication of a building back in the seventh
century. In this interpretation the monument tells us even
less about 2012 than we thought. Houston finally adds:
‘Note ‐ 9 Yookte’ (Bolon Yookte’) is an enigmatic expression.

When postfixed by K’UH, it appears to identify some
collective totality of gods.’ In other words, the “god”
mentioned here as “coming down” is actually nine gods.
There is a bit of evidence that shows that although the Maya
reset the Long Count at the last 13.0.0.0.0, they don’t plan to
do it again. They seem to have thought that there would be
no more re‐creations after this one. After 13.0.0.0.0 would
come 14.0.0.0.0, and 15.0.0.0.0, and on up.
The first is carved on a step
in Yaxchilan. The second is
from Palenque, where events Calendar
in Pakal’s life are connected
to events in the distant past Doesn’t Stop at
and the far future. The third
comes from Tikal, and has a 13
higher‐order Long Count
with a coefficient of 19.
Picture: aerial view of Palenque’s Palace [foreground]
and Temple of Inscriptions [behind].
This step from a Hieroglyphic Stairway at Yaxchilan shows two dwarves playing ball. The Long Count above
them is historical, that is, it dates an event in the then‐present (9.15.13.6.9), but, like the Long Counts at Coba, it
includes larger time‐periods, eight orders of them. On the Creation date 13.0.0.0.0, all the higher orders were also
set at 13. One would expect that when the Pik/Bak’tun clicked over from 13 to 1, the next‐higher order (Piktun)
would have risen to 14, like an odometer. But it didn’t. Apparently, though the lower five orders of the Long
Count run smoothly and reasonably, the higher orders were considered, at least at Yaxchilan, entirely symbolic.
Translation of
Yaxchilan
Stairway by
Linda Schele &
Carolyn Tate,
1991
Comparing the higher orders of this Long Count with
that of Coba Stela 1, we see that, although we have lost
the names of the orders above 206 tuns, that the Maya
mathematicians were pretty consistent (though the 209
and 2010 orders appear reversed in the two dates).
“head variants”
Once we enter “real” time, however, the two texts differ considerably. The Yaxchilan date uses “head
variants” of the time‐period glyphs, while Coba’s artists chose the easiest, most abstract versions of the same
glyphs. Finally, I wish to draw your attention to the pictorial glyph for “ballcourt” —a ball bouncing down
steps.
Palenque Temple of Inscriptions: West Panel (final third of text)
The longest intact Maya inscription goes into some detail about Palenque’s history, especially that which
occurred under the purview of Pakal the Great, who is buried under the Temple of the Inscriptions, the pyramid
that carries this long text. The full name of Lord Pakal, the most famous Palenque ruler, was K’inich Janahb
Pakal, “Resplendent Flower Shield.”
Its first
four
double‐
columns
also
connect
the reign
of Pakal
with
period‐
endings
in the
future,
and
anniver‐
saries in
both the
past and
future.
Pakal’s coronation date was linked to the 10.0.0.0.0 Period‐ending, which at that time was 137
years in the future.
Likewise,
it was
then
linked to
the end of
the Piktun,
some 4100
years
away at
the time.
It is not a
Piktun of
13
Bak’tuns,
but one
containing
20
Bak’tuns.
At Palenque, at least, the astrologer‐priests did not believe that the next 13.0.0.0.0 would be followed again by a
1.0.0.0.0, but by 14.0.0.0.0, and then 15.0.0.0.0, and on up till, at 20, it clicked over to zero and presumably raised
the Piktun coefficient to 14. Or maybe from Zero to 1.
Then they
were
linked to
a date far,
far in the
past,
some
1,247,000
years ago.
Interestingly, these are not “prophecies” in the strictest sense; the event they foretell (or “recall”) on these dates
are almost always trivial: As if to say, On the 21st of June, 2051, it will be a Friday, and the Lord’s 100th birthday
will be celebrated.
At the very least, this implies that the
ancient Maya expected the status quo to
continue at least 4000 years into the future.
That’s 2760 years after 2012.
They expected no interruption.
A closeup of the
drawing of the large
Distance Number,
leading back to this
date over a million
years ago. I overlaid it
with its photograph,
showing how
shallowly the sculptors
worked on this
inscription.
Photograph by Linda Schele
At Tikal there is a date (from another
era, perhaps far in the future or using a
different Long Count Calendar than we
have seen so far) which has a Piktun
coefficient of 19. Apparently, the
higher orders of Tikal’s Long Count
Calendar were not, as at Yaxchilán,
stuck at 13. It seems that different
schools of time‐reckoning existed in
different city‐states. These were
proud, squabbling polities, constantly
jockeying for power like Athens and
Sparta. When one thinks about it, it
seems much more likely that they
would have competing mythologies
and scientific systems, than that they
would have been of one accord.
19 Piktun
Photograph by Linda Schele
Much evidence suggests that Maya city‐
states had more differences between their
mythologies than similarities, much as the
various Mixtec polities practiced a few
centuries later (see John Pohl’s Mesoamerica:
http://www.famsi.org/research/pohl/).
This is a good reason not to interpret “Maya prophecies” as
if they were Biblical or scientific, or in any way like
predictions of our day. Maya prophetic literature, as far as
we can discern from badly‐shredded evidence, was as
diverse as the cities’ architecture or art styles. For example,
Tikal alone has K’atun‐Double‐Pyramid groups, clustered
in the inner city, and (like Copán and Calakmul) bristles
with stelae. Palenque ignored stelae, adorning buildings
with voluptuous stucco reliefs and low‐relief panels. The
city of Toniná is virtually a single building covering a
mountainside, and its sculptors, uniquely, carved
sculptures in‐the‐round. Yaxchilán’s artists left us 50
carved stone lintels, while nearly everyone else made them
of wood. Pottery styles were even more locally diverse.
An indication of local cities’ peculiar
mythologies is their “patron gods.” The
Hero Twins, so common on Classic Maya
painted vases, are almost completely absent
from Classic carved monuments. (Oddly,
the ubiquitous head‐variant glyphs for
“Ajaw” and “Nine” are portraits of these
two, but that is almost their entire role in
carved inscriptions —so far as we know.
See next slide.)
The well‐known “Palenque Triad” Patron
Gods (GI, GII, and GIII) appear uniquely at
that city. Other cities have Triad Gods, but
they are a different trio in each place (see
next slide). These gangs seem to have
nothing in common from city to city, save
the epithet Ox‐lu‐ti‐K’uh, the “Three‐Born‐
Together Gods.” This title also appears
among the cast of Creation Characters on
the Vases of the 7 and 11 Gods, though the
three individuals are not specified.
In summary,
The 13.13.13….13.13.0.0.0.0 Long Count dates imply that the Maya
considered this Creation to be unique. Its enormous time spans (billions of
billions of times longer ago than the Big Bang), will “never” again all line
up to be all 13’s.
(Maya period‐ending monuments favored 13’s in the lower‐orders as well: we find
disproportionate mentions of 9.13.0.0.0, or 9.17.13.0.0, for example, but oddly, discover no
monuments extolling a date like 9.13.13.13.13, or the five‐of‐a‐kind 13.13.13.13.13. Why
not? Apparently Maya numerologists did not consider 13’s and zeroes as equivalent.)
The Palenque Maya did not expect 2012 to be the end of days.
They calculate a piktun‐ending with a piktun of 20 bak’tuns. This could not
happen if the bak’tun reset again after it reached 13.
It was important to them to connect events in Pakal’s life with like events
in previous Creations and future eras (even though time itself seems not to
exist in any coherent way between Creations).
The most important connection between events seems to have been that
they occur on the same Calendar Round.
The Maya conception of Time itself
Maya Concept of Time
Is very different from ours:
The Codex‐Style “Snake‐
Lady” vases illustrate a
mythical event, expressed in
“mythic time” or “outside of
time.”
Can we always trust Maya Dates?
Maya codex‐style vase (K5164) portraying
the “Snake‐Loop Lady and the Old Lecher,”
ca. 7OO AD/CE
—rollout photographs by Justin Kerr, from website http://research.famsi.org/kerrmaya.html
We shall here examine a set of vases
painted with nearly‐identical scenes,
accompanied by nearly‐identical texts,
painted by a close‐knit group of artists,
all copying almost certainly the same
original illustration. The artists were
probably all working in the same shop,
with no doubt some friendly rivalry.
The scene consists here (K5164) of a bosomy topless woman sitting in the loop of a huge serpent, which grows
from the foot of K’awiil (here on the left). I’ve artificially colored K’awiil blue, and the head of this enormous
snake green. The snake’s jaws are wide open, and out pops an old man who entreats the lady to come a little
bit closer. She seems to recoil, and texts comprising about 15 glyph‐blocks surround the scene.
On this vase (K6754), she faces the other way, but the other two characters are in much the same position.
However, now the scene is set indoors, in a curtained interior; the main text seems painted on the central
house‐post, and a mummy of the ‘Te’‐God’ is enthroned on a dais to the right.
Vase K1081 reverses the positions of the three, and puts them on a dais adorned with tobacco leaves.
The ‘Te’‐God’ mummy is joined by a mummy of ‘Chaak,’ both seated on large round bundles.
Vase K1198 has the actors in precisely the same positions as K6754. Here, however, the snake’s enormous
deer‐ear hides the mummies. K1198 also shows ancient stitching‐holes which presumably allowed the
sewing up of some cracks. In all these, the main text adorns a column.
Two more Maya codex‐style vases portraying the “Snake‐Loop Lady and the Old Lecher.” In K1813 and
K4485, the Lecher is actually fondling the Lady, cushioned on a layer of tobacco leaves, with mummies
witnessing the scene. K4485 has an extra character, who seems astonished at the mummies. These both
have the usual inscribed column. ca. 7OO AD/CE
—rollout photographs by Justin Kerr, from website http://research.famsi.org/kerrmaya.html
K0719 (with no inscription at all) seems to copy the big‐eared Snake of K1198, but the other two characters change position again.
K1382 shows yet another arrangement, and its text has drifted off the column into the sky above the lecher‐lady pair.
A plate
(K3702)
portraying the
same scene as
the previous
vases.
Note new features:
Incense burner (right),
Reclining guy (below)
Photographs of these plates and
vases are by Justin Kerr, from
http://research.famsi.
org/kerrmaya.html
Tzolk’in
day
Haab Date
Comparing the five clearest texts from these nearly‐identical vases, we see that they are not quite identical. The
Tzolk’in day is almost always Muluk, with a coefficient of 7, 9, 12, or 13. The Haab dates vary a little more, but
still seem restricted, as if the artists were picking numbers and month‐signs at random from a few favorites.
The verb is constant: Siy‐Ya‐Ja, “was born.”
The Actors vary among three names, some of which may combine to identify a
single individual.
The Actors vary among three names, some of which may combine to identify a
single individual.
Chaak is the most recognizable of these names.
Mysterious Dates assigned to the
‘Snake‐Coil Lady and the Lecher’ “birth” event:
Mysterious Dates
K 5164: 13 Muluk 17 Pax
K 6754: 7 Muluk 15 Yax
K 1081: 12 Muluk 14 Zak
K 1198: 7 Muluk? 14 Zak
K 1813: 7 Muluk 15 Pax
K 4485: 7 Muluk 10 Keh
K 1382: 13 Muluk 1 Pax
K 3702: 9 Muluk 18 Zak
When the tzolk’in falls on a Muluk, the haab coefficient is always

the 2nd, 7th, 12th, or 17th of the Haab month.
Why is there such deliberate variation in the dates??
Mysterious Dates assigned to the
‘Snake‐Coil Lady and the Lecher’ “birth” event:
K 5164: 13 Muluk 17 Pax Possible date
K 6754: 7 Muluk 15 Yax Impossible date
K 1081: 12 Muluk 14 Zak Impossible date
K 1198: 7 Muluk? 14 Zak Impossible date
K 1813: 7 Muluk 15 Pax Impossible date
K 4485: 7 Muluk 10 Keh Impossible date
K 1382: 13 Muluk 1 Pax Impossible date
K 3702: 9 Muluk 18 Zak Impossible date
When the tzolk’in falls on a Muluk, the haab coefficient is always the 2nd,

7th, 12th, or 17th of the Haab month. A date like “7 Muluk 15 Pax” cannot
exist. It would be like saying, “Wednesday February 30, 2008.”
The most plausible explanation for this deliberate and calculated variation
between “impossible” dates? Does an unworkable date signify “Myth time,”
a time beyond our reckoning?
The Maya understanding of Symbols
Maya understanding of
is very different from ours,
Symbols
“Cultural icons” were not at all sacrosanct.
Symbols were subject to revision,
Symbols were “open‐source”,
The Maya altered dates, interpretations,
Whatever suited their purpose at hand.
The Maya were not as restricted to specific interpretations or specific details
as we are today. We live in a milieu permeated by Judeo‐Christian and
Muslim tradition, whose Scriptures strictly define every aspect of, say, Good,
Evil, the Deity, and Creation myth, etc. We forget what it is to have one’s
cultural mythology be flexible, mutable, adaptable. Mesoamericans, like
ancient Greeks and Romans, had no such God‐given Scripture, and
consequently left us some very‐different, even contradictory, versions of
their myths.
Ex. 1: World Trees
Ex. 2: The Three Stones
Ex. 1 ‐ The Precolumbian World Tree:
Metaphor with a Thousand Faces
Ajaw /King = Tree = Ceiba = Maize = a Celt
= Milky Way Galaxy
Snake = Sky = Ecliptic
World trees communicate to heaven, give birth, or support the
corners of the cosmos.
Tree‐symbolism is a prominent area where we find Mesoamericans
manipulating and transforming religious symbols to fit their
numerological, astrological, and political agenda.
Note how the iconography and interpretation is not constant.
Evidence of Maya manipulation of their narrative makes unreliable
any precise prediction about what could happen in 2012.
This tree, sacred to
the Maya, would
grow to be King of
the Forest.
In its youth, it is
distinctively
Ceiba studded with
thorns, and often
Tree bulges as if
pregnant.
Note how the
branches arrange
themselves,
shooting straight
out from the trunk
to the cardinal
points.
“Pregnant” Ceiba trees

[Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena]
Tree image from the Late
Formative (about 100‐50 BC/BCE),
exhibits the bulging trunk of a
Ceiba, and supports a large
mythical bird.
Interpretation: a Directional Tree.
Before this tree the Maize God
(not shown) lets blood and makes
an offering of a deer (greyed out).
Atop the tree perches the Bird
deity, wings outstretched, with a
bleeding, twisted serpent in its
mouth.
West wall, San Bartolo Murals, Petén, N. Guatemala.
ca. 50 BCE.
Drawing: Heather Hurst
Tree image from the Late Formative
(about 100‐50 BC/BCE, from Izapa, SE
Chiapas, México, near Guatemalan
border), exhibits the bulging trunk of a
Ceiba, and is part crocodile. It
supports a mythical bird with smoke
or mist curling up from its head.
Echoing it is an artificial tree, a
standard or scaffold upon which
perches a larger bird, wings
outstretched, wearing a Bird‐deity
mask. The two are linked by a twisted
rope, which Karl Taube likens to the
rope ladder hitched around a Volador
pole (see Slide 36).
Interpetation: Plays a part in the Popol
Vuh myth of the Hero Twins and
Vucub Kaqix, The Macaw Who
Claimed to be God.
Izapa Stela 25, S.E. México.
ca. 50 BCE.
Drawing: Linda Schele
A World Tree, present in virtually every mythic tradition,
connects the Underworld (roots) with Heaven (branches) and
the Earth (trunk). World Tree
Possibly the most important function a Maya ruler could
perform was a ceremony where he assumed the role of the
World Tree, connecting his people to the gods. Innumerable
Maya monuments portray a ruler standing erect, holding a
double‐headed “Serpent Bar” tightly across his chest.
The serpents’ mouths open wide and belch forth Visions in

the form of gods. The lord’s costume and his visions change,
but his pose remains quite consistent.
Serpent Bar
Snake head
K’awiil (God K)
K’awiil (God K)
Typically, the ruler stands erect, holding a Serpent Bar tightly across his or her chest. This regalia is
an effigy of a double‐headed snake, mouths agape, and from each mouth emerges a god. This snake
was the standard Maya delivery system for a hallucinatory Vision. Most often the god so invoked is
K’awiil (or God K), the Maya patron of rulers and abundance, as here, but the Vision could be any of
several characters in the Maya pantheon.
The Serpent‐Bar can
take three or four
forms. Sometimes, it
can be “living,” as
below, or fleshless, as
at left. Both visions
shown here (blue) are
K’awiil (God K), god
of royalty and
abundance.
Typical Maya Vision‐Serpent‐bars: Copan St. H , Bonampak Lintel 6
Typical interpretation: Maya king is Milky Way/World Tree; Vision‐Serpent‐bar is ecliptic. Drawings by Linda Schele.
Copan Stelae
A and B,
8th Century AD.
The king in
ceremonial pose
as a World Tree,
holding a
Serpent‐bar
across his chest.
The Serpent‐Bars are
colored blue. Note the
characteristic “grip:“
the ruler appears to
avoid touching the
Serpent‐Bar; his hands
form a peculiar back‐to‐
back ‘crab‐claw’
gesture, and he seems
to hold the Bar with his
wrists, or the edges of
his palms. This weird
hand pose is consistent
across Maya
iconography; it must
have a clear meaning,
but nobody has offered
a convincing
interpretation.
Copan Stelae
A and B,
8th Century AD.
The king in
ceremonial pose
as a World Tree,
holding a
Serpent‐bar
across his chest.
The Serpent
opens its mouth
wide to emit
the Vision
(colored red),
which is a
different
character for
each occasion.
At Copan, the
Maya named
each stela for
its Vision.
Copan Stela A, Sun
god vision, ca. 731
All photographs of Copan
Stelae by Linda Schele;
hand‐tinting by MV
A close‐up of Stela A, showing the emerging Sun God. In our usual interpretation of this

ceremony, the Ruler becomes the Tree. At the same time, the Tree appears in the sky as the
Milky Way, which stretches from north to south; and the Serpent‐bar represents the Ecliptic, the
path through the firmament of the sun , moon and planets. Occasionally, the serpent‐bar is
decorated as a Skyband, adorned with glyphs reading “Sun,” “Star,” “Moon,” “Sky,” “Night,”
etc., but more often it simply carries a ‘mat’ motif, the woven‐mat pattern of a royal throne‐
cushion.
Copan Stela N,
two different
vision gods
It is likely that the woven mat motif also represents the sky; its simplest form, as here on Stela N, is a
diagonal cross. Any cross, whether upright or slanted, invokes the celestial intersection of the Ecliptic
with the Milky Way. Here the lord, wearing a ridiculous pair of shell ear ornaments, invokes two
different gods. The ‘collar’ from which each snake‐head emerges is a typical bell‐shaped jade bead, its
high polish indicated by a semicircular “mirror‐mark.”
Copan
Stela P
(Early
Classic,
6th Century)
This stela’s Serpent‐Bar is flexible, composed of jade‐bell‐bead ‘vertebrae,’ each

‘mirror‐marked.’ The gods invoked are our old friends the ‘Paddler Twins,’ who
planted the Jaguar Throne Stone on Quirigua Stela C.
Copán Stela H’s
vision (at left)
is the usual
K’awiil, (his
standard color,
like Krishna, is
blue, with red
flames from the
torch in his
forehead) here
elbowing his
way out of a
[yellow]
skeletal Vision
Serpent.
On right: a
woman
stands in the
costume of
the Moon
Goddess,
casually
invoking a
baroque
Vision
Serpent.
Left: Copan Stela
H, Vision: K’awiil
Right: San Fran‐
cisco Stela,
Vision: K’awiil
Enlargement: Her scaly
Serpent spills out of its
thighbone‐shaped Bar,
coiling around her body
and towering over her.
The head (at top) spits out
a hoofed K’awiil, whose
head is the same size as
hers.
Seibal
Stela 10
900 AD/CE
To confirm our cosmic interpretation, note that some World‐Tree‐Sky stelae portray the ruler holding the
Serpent‐bar at a jaunty angle. Seibal Stela 10 is one of these. Both his Serpent‐Bar and his belt are
portrayed as Skybands; their glyphic icons (colored in shades of blue and yellow) respectively read “star‐
night‐sky” and “sun‐sky‐night.”
Coba Stela 1 Naranjo Stela 12, photo & drawing
Slanted Serpent‐Bars
The Maya conception of Mythic Symbols and
Mythic Scenes is very different from ours:
The World Tree
Recently, the popular film The Da Vinci Code caused an uproar among orthodox Christians

by suggesting that Jesus fathered children. This indicates our culture’s narrow and fixed
interpretation of the Bible. Imagine a more radical example: Suppose Satan tempted
Adam to bite the apple, while Eve refused complicity in his Sin. Such a “heretical”
The World Tree

inversion is barely thinkable.
Yet we tolerate some divergence. The parallel accounts of Abraham’s Sacrifice in Jewish
and Muslim tradition provide an example. (Abraham nearly sacrificed his own son. In the
Biblical version of the story, the son was Isaac, later to father the Jewish race. In the
alternate version, his half‐brother Ishmael had the close call, and went on to father the
Arabs.) The Mesoamericans were not bound by an inerrant scripture the way we are; we
encounter enormous variation in different Mesoamerican reflections and representations of
their gods, myth, and history.
Mesoamericans had very different concepts of history and reality.
Again, we must be very, very careful not to project our own values and attitudes onto
Maya myth, propaganda, and art.
We find a vast landscape of meanings associated with the Tree, from Mother, Sky‐
Supporter, Nourisher, Divine Homeland Indicator, to national symbol.
Voladores, Tajin, Veracruz, &
Cuetzalan, Puebla
The popular Mexican Voladores
(“flyers”) have ancient roots. This
performance traditionally takes
place in a sacred plaza before a
temple, as at left (or its modern
analogue, the church, as at right).
The low platforms with four radial
stairways that anchor the plazas of
many great archaeological sites may
have been the sockets for
performances such as these.
Note that the flyers represent the
four cardinal directions, thus by
extension the Universe. They make
thirteen revolutions as they spiral
out and down around their sacred
Tree, while a fifth performer dances
at the Center, playing a flute. These
numbers have cosmic significance, of
course: the thirteen levels of Heaven,
4 x 13 = 52, the number of years in a
Calendar Round, etc., etc.
Photos: National Geographic, Mauricio Alcaraz Carbia.
These two
manuscript
illustrations
date from just
before the
Conquest, ca.
1500 AD/CE.
The left is
from the
Nahua‐
Puebla‐style
book known
as Vienna
Codex or
Codex
Vindobonensis,
and the right
from the
Maya Dresden
Codex. Both
show a
‘pregnant’
tree with
people
chopping at
it.
Vienna Codex p. 37 (above) Dresden Codex p. 69a. (right)
Both Late Postclassic, ca. 1500 CE/AD
In this example, the two
hero‐deities (with the
calendric names 7‐Eagle
and 7‐Rain) do the cutting,
and a naked human
couple, an Adam‐and‐Eve,
emerge.
It is labeled: the disks are
spindle‐whorls, indicating
a woman’s role as spinner,
and the darts signify the
male warrior.
The rectilinear branches
resemble those of a ceiba.
The curled bumps on the
tree here usually indicate
that it is made of stone.
The young woman’s head
substituting for the roots
is drinking from the
toponymic‐land‐glyph of
Apoala, the local Place of
Creation.
In this example the lightning
god Chaak chops his own
way out of the tree. The
emerging figure take the
place of the Celestial Birds
perched in the first trees we
saw.
Like the Vindobonensis Tree
we just saw, this is a Duality
symbol: the half‐and‐half
coloration is non‐specific,
though it might also be
interpreted as Male‐Female.
Note also: It may be no
accident that this image is
directly adjacent to the blue‐
background Creation texts
we examined earlier.
The Chaak
tree grows
from a
crocodile
head
suckling
from the
earth, like
the Izapa
Tree; the
Apoala
Birth Tree
from a
young
woman’s
head.
‘Dragon‐roots’ in Izapa Stela 25 & Dresden Codex p. 69a.

L. Tepantitla
Murals,
Teotihuacán,
Great Goddess
Tree, with
acolytes.
Early Classic,
ca. 500 CE.
Butterflies are
the souls of
dead soldiers;
Spiders are
spinners. This
is a Male‐
Female or
Duality Tree.
Around 500 AD/CE, in the great city of Teotihuacán, the Tepantitla Murals portray the Great

Goddess as an abundant Mother, ringing yet another change on this symbolism. Abundance
streams from her hands and from her womb, flocks of birds sing and sup in her branches, and
the twined trunks, yellow and pink, are again male and female: Spiders who spin, and
butterflies, the souls of warriors.
The acolytes who attend her also pour forth wealth; her face and body are so
burdened with symbolic clothing that only her arms are visible.
L. Tepantitla Murals, Teotihuacán, Great Goddess Tree, R. San Bartolo, West Wall, Tree of the Center(?), Late
Early Classic, ca. 500 CE. Male‐Female tree, like Vienna p. 37. Preclassic, ca. 50 BCE. Twinned, twined fruit trees,
Bird atop.
The twin trunks are twisted like an umbilicus; another symbol of nourishment,
repeating the Duality Tree of San Bartolo, 500 years earlier.
Drawings: (L) Linda Schele, (R) Heather Hurst
The San Bartolo Murals portray five trees.
Specific species of trees associate with the
cardinal directions throughout
The Borgia Directional
Mesoamerican art, we saw 1500 years
later in the Fejervary‐Mayer
Trees diagram of the
260‐day cycle (Part 1). Another late
Postclassic book, the Nahua‐Puebla Borgia
Codex, presents an even more complex
diagram of the symbols of each Direction.
This example shows the
South, which portrays a
scarlet Macaw perched
in a spiky red celestial
Ceiba, whose fruits are
suns. His foot is down in
the split of the tree, as if
emerging from it like the
“Adam” figure in the
Vienna Codex. His
position is carefully
echoed by the other
Birds in their respective
Trees…
Borgia Codex p. 52 ‐ South Tree page.

In the East the Quetzal, patron of the
jungle‐bound Maya (in a hard‐to‐
identify arboreal species with jewel
fruits); in the West a hawk or other
raptor perched in flowering Young
West
Maize. Each Tree sprouts from a
supine skeleton which represent
aspects of the Earth God; they are
variously dressed but in the same
peculiar position.
East
Details of West (top), East, & South Trees.
The Tree of the Center
is abundant, mature
Maize, ready for
harvest. Another
Quetzal, tail feathers
like maize leaves,
perches above, while
two gods kneel and
pierce their penises,
fertilizing the Tree with
streams of blood.
Borgia Codex
late Postclassic,
ca. 1500 CE,
p. 53.
This arrangement strikingly resembles the
famed Sarcophagus of Pakal (ca. 682 CE,
shown here), as well as another carving at
Palenque that we’ll see in a moment. The
Pakal’s Sarcophagus as a
two compositions have long been
Directional Tree
interpreted in terms of the World Tree,
but usually as unique statements, rarely
as part of a continuum.
Here Pakal as
an ‘Infant
K’awiil’ (one of
Palenque’s
patron gods)
strikes the pose
of the skeletal
woman at the
base of the Tree
(here posed as
if falling, with
his legs spread
as if letting
blood). The tree
seems to be a
Ceiba. The
Segmented
Vision Serpent
threads through
the arms of the
Cross, spitting
K’awiil and the
‘Jester God’.
Perched at the
summit of the
Tree, as usual,
is a Celestial
Bird, a Quetzal‐
like god.
A closely comparable illustration appears
Tablet of the Cross as a
a generation later on the Tablet of the Cross,
erected by Pakal’s
Directionalson Kan‐Balam
Tree (or
Chan‐Bahlum, “Snake‐Jaguar”) around 702
AD/CE. The Tree takes the same form as
on Pakal’s Sarcophagus, with slight
differences.
In this version, the
sacrificial body at the
Tree’s root is replaced
by a personified Bowl of
Sacrifice, nicknamed the
‘Quadripartite Badge’.
The prominent spike
rising from its center is a
stingray spine, used by
the Maya to pierce the
body for bloodletting.
The same Bird perches
in the summit, a slightly
different Segmented
Vision Serpent threads
through the Cross (its
segments are glyphs
representing “jade” and
“green”/”new,” and its
lower jaw echoes that of
the Celestial Bird.)
Tablet of the Cross,Palenque, ca. 702.
Flanking the Tree, two celebrants echo the sacrificing pair in the Borgia Codex; but instead of
explicitly squatting and piercing, one on the left holds a bloodletter (red, crowned with the same
quadripartite badge), streaming blood. The elder holds a statue of the ‘Jester God.’
This Tablet is the centerpiece of the
eponymous Temple of the Cross, which
itself is the head of a trio of pyramids.
The three pyramids reflect the Three
Stones of Creation that we saw earlier on
Quirigua Stela C. Kan‐Balam has here
combined iconography of the Three
Stones with the World Trees of the
Cardinal Directions.
His Tablet of the
Foliated Cross
from the same
architectural
group replaces
the Ceiba with a
Maize stalk,
sprouting from a
personification of
Wealth. (The ears
of corn are
personified as
heads of the
Maize God.)
Though the
Serpent is
missing, the Bird
sits in the
branches, the
same Celebrants
present the same
Tablet of the Foliated Cross, Bloodletter marked red
offerings.
Palenque,ca. 702 Celestial Bird green
In the center of the Plaza of the Cross Group
stands a low platform with four stairways.
This may have been a socket for a World
Tree; perhaps Volador‐type ceremonies were
held there, or some other ritual Tree‐erection.
Or it may have held a gnomon for marking
the Zenith Passage, as in Yucatán. (At Kabah
and Uxmal, for example, the focal platforms‐
of‐four‐stairways still have such a gnomon: a
tapered pillar, slightly wider at top, whose
rim would shade all of its sides when the sun
was at Zenith.)
We have examined four of the Borgia Trees.
The Eastern and Central ones closely correlate
to Maya Trees from Palenque, but the
Northern Tree is strikingly like another, more
familiar cultural icon. The bird here is an
Eagle, with flint‐knife‐tipped feathers,
perched on a Cactus. He offers grey tobacco
from his claw, like the Bird of the South, and
from his mouth issues a stream of blood. The
Dual trunks, blue and green, grow from a
supine blue skeleton.
To emphasize the many points of comparison, here are the Mixtec Duality/Birth Tree, and Pakal’s
Sarcophagus, whereon the hand gesture of the Young God at the bottom exactly prefigures that of
the supine skeleton.
Borgia Codex, Page 50, the (dual) Tree of the North. Ca. 1500 AD/CE
Flag of
Mexico
The Sign‐of‐Tenochtitlán adorns the Mexican flag: An Eagle eating a Serpent,
perched on a cactus growing from a stone in the water. In other words, the symbol
of their Homeland, supposedly granted uniquely to the Aztec people, was borrowed
directly from older icons of the cardinal directions. “But wait,” you are thinking,
“that wasn’t exactly the Aztec vision. Where is the snake?”
The Aztecs themselves portrayed the Vision
in various ways. Here, on the Teocalli de la
Guerra Sagrada, the Serpent was replaced by
Atl‐tlachinolli, dual streams of fire and water.
(To be precise, tlachinolli means “burned
fields,” but its symbolism is pretty much the
same.)
Teocalli de la
Guerra Sagrada,
an Aztec temple effigy‐
throne, 1502‐1520.
Eagle with Atl‐tlachinolli
“water & burning fields” =
“water & fire,” instead of snake
Here is the skeletal Earth god, from whose mouth the cactus grows, like the supine
skeleton we saw in the Borgia Tree‐pages.
Here on the backrest of the same Teocalli throne, two gods flank a Sun‐disk; the same dual streams
of fire and water spew from their mouths. (The serpent‐footed god on the left, by the way, is
Tezcatlipoca, Aztec descendent of the Maya K’awiil.)
The Aztec date 1-Death (also
from the Teocalli de la Guerra
Sagrada) also spits fire-and-
water.
Above: Date 1‐Death, from side of Teocalli de la Guerra Sagrada
The painting on the left is
a Map of the Aztec
Capital (labeled in
Spanish Tenochtitlán), in
which the Eagle’s beak is
empty.
In other words, the Aztecs
were not at all fussy about
the precise composition of
their most sacred image,
why should we be?
L: Codex Mendoza
And, after examining a veritable forest of
World Trees, we see that neither composition
nor meaning of this ubiquitous icon was at all
“cut in stone,” as it were. Once again,
Mesoamericans remind us not to interpret
their myths by our standards. I shall close
with one more example of this distinctly un‐
dogmatic flexibility in Maya art and literature.
Lord Kan Balam of Palenque —Photo
by Linda
and the Three Stones of Creation
Lord Kan-Balam and the Three Schele
Stones
A Maya Mythic Icon, manipulated for political ends.
The view here from the top of the Temple of the Cross, shows the Temple of the Sun on the left and
farther away to the right, his father Pakal’s Temple of Inscriptions.
You will
recall that the
Jaguar Throne‐Stone Cross Group
pyramids
correspond to
the Three
Stones of
Creation,
Snake Throne‐Stone mentioned at
Quirigua: the
Jaguar
Throne‐Stone,
the Snake
Water Throne‐Stone
Throne‐Stone,
and the Water
Throne‐Stone.
Quirigua Stela C,

east side text of Creation
Palenque Palace Tablet
Parents present regalia to their son at his coronation, ca. 720 CE/AD.
The Palace Tablet, also from Palenque, portrays a coronation with the three participants
sitting on precisely these thrones. The Quirigua glyphs for comparison: the glyph for
“throne” represents a bundle of sticks or leg‐bones. The “water” throne in the middle has
finny shark‐heads.
Photograph of the Palenque Palace Tablet
Palace
Tablet,
detail of the
bone‐
thrones
of
Creation.
ca. 721.
Palenque, Tablet of the Sun,
ca. 702 CE/AD
Note
that
nearly
everyone
has
“serpent
eyes.”
The Bird is missing, but the
same celebrants offer
statuettes of K’awiil and the
Jester God to a Took’‐Pakal
Altar, or Altar of (Sacred)
War. Took’ means “flint,” as
in “flint blade,” Pakal means
“shield,” decorated as usual
with the ‘cruller‐eyed’
‘Jaguar God of the
Underworld.’ It sits on a
throne that seems to combine
the three god‐headed thrones
we saw before. Note that
there are 14 figural faces in
this picture, and that 11 of
these have ‘serpent eyes.’
But if we examine the triple
throne closely, we see the
prominent Jaguar head in the
center, and a snake head on the
side, but find instead of the
expected shark‐head on the other
side, an identical snake head.
(These look exactly like the
Vision Serpent we saw on Pakal’s
Sarcophagus.) What is going on?
Why replace the Third Stone of
Creation with a duplicate of the
Second Stone?
I believe I know the
answer:
Kan‐Bahlam means
“Snake‐Jaguar.” The
king has replaced the
sacred Triad of Creation
with icons of his own
name!
There are snake‐eyes
everywhere on this
Tablet, even on the jaguar
heads. The shield not
only bears the usual
effigy of the Jaguar God
of the Underworld,
ringed for good measure
with jaguar spots; even
God L’s armadillo cape
has been replaced by a
jaguar skin.
Portrait and name‐glyphs of Lord
Kan‐Balam, or “Snake‐Jaguar.” The
head conflates Jaguar spots, nose,
and ear with Serpent chin‐scales,
teeth, and eye.
Lord Snake‐Jaguar appropriated the “Three Throne‐
Stones of Creation” as an icon of political propaganda.
A comparable act in our time would be for a politician
named “Fatherson” to adopt as his personal symbol a
caricature of the Holy Trinity —
— with an extra Christ replacing the Holy Spirit.
The Ancient Maya were deeply religious, like Medieval
Europeans, but indulged in a high level of satire, or
manipulation of their most potent religious symbols.
To sum it all up,
What will happen in 2012?
Keeping in mind the Maya never specified that anything
spectacular would happen, and that life would go on as before,
and because their conception of the future was very malleable, and
particularly because our evidence is in tatters at best…
Deducing from a few shreds of evidence…
It’s up to us…
I say, we party!
Just as we do, the Maya had
several calendars to record time.
The Maya had very complex and interlocking calendar
Several Calendars
systems, which were as precise as modern day
calendars. In the same way our Gregorian count ties to
an important event, ‐the birth of Christ‐ the Maya
calendar also counts forward from an important
‘Creation’ date, 11 August 3114 BCE.
The Maya recorded time mainly using 3 interconnected
calendars ‐ the Tzolk’in, the Haab, and the Long Count.
Like us, they kept track of other cycles, but these only
appeared in special circumstances (particularly in the
Initial Series, in the next slide), and we can practically
ignore them in this presentation.
Yaxchilan Lintel 21, carved in
limestone around the year 756
AD/CE, provides a typical Maya
ceremonial‐historical text, and
indicates to us the ancient Maya
passion for precise keeping of time.
Example of The opening date occupies more
than three‐quarters of the first
Maya Date in column. About a third of the rest of
the text is taken up by additional
Stone calendric information.
In other words, over half of this
inscription is devoted just to stating
precisely when the events occurred.
As I said, this is typical of Maya
stone inscriptions employing several
aspects of Maya calendars.
Our Gregorian calendar also include
multiple counts.
Drawings and photos of Yaxchilan monuments by Ian Graham et al.,
Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions.
For example, the Gregorian date Monday, December 29th 2008 records:
Monday = One day in a named cycle of 7 days (week)

Gregorian Date vs.
29th = One in a numbered cycle of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days
December = One in a cycle of 12 named months
Maya Date
363 = One in a cycle of 365 days
2.0.0.8 AD/CE = A count of years since the birth of a Christian cycle
Two days before the end of the current year (New Year’s Eve) = Interval or
Distance Number between this day and the next significant event (2.0.0.9)
To compare, this same date as written by the Maya records:
7 Manikʹ 10 Kʹankʹin 12.19.15.17.7
Manikʹ = One day in a named cycle of 20 days (tzolk’in)
7 = One in a numbered cycle of 13 days
Kʹankʹin = One in a cycle of 18 named months (haab)
10 = One in a numbered cycle of 20 days
12.19.15.17.7 = A count of years since the birth of a Maya Cycle
13 days before the end of the 15th tun = Interval or Distance Number
between this day and the next significant event (12.19.16.0.0)
Several other calendars can also be used:
Capricorn = Another cycle of 12 named months
Year of the Rat = A cycle of 12 named years
1430 AH = Anno Hegirae, a linear count of years since the hegira of prophet
Muhammad. 29 December 2008 is the first day of the Muslim New
Year.
4706, 5769 = Linear counts of years since diverse “creation” events (these
are the Chinese and Jewish years)
Let’s look again at Yaxchilan Lintel 21
Just as we do,
the Maya had several calendars.

The first six glyphs state the
Long Count (the calendar
which reaches a critical
Long Count Example number in 2012). This is a
number, used similarly to
our numerical “year 2008,”
counting “years” and days
since the last Creation in
3114 BC. (The “years” here
counted, called Haabs, are
only 360 days long.) Each
‘digit’ of the Long Count is
twenty times the next one,
just as each digit of 2 0 0 8 is
ten times the value of the
following. We call our
system, based ultimately on
our fingers, decimal
notation; the Maya system
is vigesimal, based on 20’s.
They counted by twenties
because in the tropics
people go barefoot, and
counted on their fingers and
toes.
Immediately after the
Long Count is the
Tzolk’in Date Tzolk’in date. This is a

divinatory calendar of
260 days stated as a
numerical coefficient
(from 1 to 13) attached to
a daysign (a cycle of 20
named days, rather like a
long “week”). The cycle
passes through every
possible combination of
daysign and coefficient
before repeating; this day
(2 K’an) only occurs once
every 260 days. The
daysign is easy to spot,
because it is enclosed in a
distinctive frame called a
cartouche (Fr.
“cartridge”), which is a
round‐cornered square
set on three ‘feet,’
looking rather like an
old‐fashioned television
picture tube.
Tzolk’in – 20 Day Names
Imix Chuwen
Ik’ Eb’
Ak’bal Ben
K’an Ix
Chikchan Men
Kimi’ Kib’
Manik’ Kab’an
Lamat Etz’nab’
Muluk Kawak
Ok Ajaw
* Daysigns from Reading the Maya Glyphs by Michael Coe & Mark Van Stone, 2001.
Three other cycles important enough to
include in an Initial Series date are the
Other cycles within the

• Nine Lords of the Night (a nine‐day cycle like our
weekdays);
Initial Series
• a 7‐day cycle (here the days are numbered rather
than named);
• and the Phase of the Moon (here given precisely in
days of Moon‐age since New Moon).
G & F Glyphs – 9 day
cycle
7-day cycle
Moon Phase
The Moons are named in a 6‐moon cycle. This is
called the “C Glyph,” and it is often followed by the
“X Glyph,” which qualifies the C Glyph, and may
actually expand the cycle to 18 moons. The fine
details of this and many other abstruse Maya
practices are still being worked out.
X Glyph
Glyph A – 29 or
30 days
Penultimately, a number tells us whether the Maya
observed this particular month as 29 days or 30 days. The
Maya did not use fractions of days, so the lunar cycle of
29.53 days came out to just about 29 days one month, 30
days the next. This number (here “29”), called the “A
Glyph,” was empirical; the astronomers of one city might
deem this a 29‐day “month,” while another bunch would
call it a 30‐days. Differences would average out, but
again, we are warned not to read too much precision into
some Maya calendrical calculations. John E. Teeple noted
that inscriptions in five Maya cities (Piedras Negras,
Yaxchilán, Copán, Naranjo and Quiriguá) all synchronize
their ‘A Glyphs’ during an 80 year “Period of Uniformity”
from 9.12.15.0.0 — 9.16.5.0.0 (687 ‐ 765 AD/CE) (Teeple
1930, p. 54).
Haab Date
Haab – Month Signs
Pop Yax
Wo Sak
Sip Kej
Sotz’ Mak
Sek K’ank’in
Xul Muwan
Yaxk’in Pax
Mol K’ayab’
Ch’en K’umk’u
Wayeb’
* Daysigns from Reading the Maya Glyphs by Michael Coe & Mark Van Stone, 2001.
Finally, the Initial Series (the complex statement including
all these cycles) ends with the Haab, a date in a 365‐day
Solar year. It works precisely as our “9th of June” or “First
of May” do. (Instead of a 12‐month cycle of 30‐day
months, the Maya had an 18‐month cycle of 20‐day
“months,” with an extra “monthlet” of five days (called
Wayeb) to round out the solar year.)
The Maya sometimes included in the Initial Series the
position in other cycles, too, particularly the 819‐Day
Count. The origin of this “calendar” is probably
numerological: 819 is the product of 7x9x13.
The Haab was the second‐most important of Classic Maya
calendars; most Maya dates were expressed as a
combination of the Tzolk’in and Haab (as you shall see
soon). Because of the arithmetic of 365‐day and 260‐day
cycles, 2 K’an, 2nd of Yax, will only recur once every 52
years, and for most dates, no Long Count is necessary.
This combination is called a Calendar Round.
Summary of Maya
Calendars
As Mentioned above,
Just as we do, the Maya had several calendars.
Long Count: A count of years, Like our “2008 AD/CE.”
Tzolk’in: A sacred 260‐day divinatory cycle, 13 x 20 named days
Lords of the Night: A “week” of nine named days, like “Friday.”
Haab: A 365‐day cycle, like our “30th of May.”
But the ancient Maya were fanatical about situating their events in
time.
Often the date on a monument will occupy more space than the event
that it features.
Example: the Leiden Plaque, a jade celt recording a lord’s accession in
320 AD/CE. (21.7 cm high, 8.6 cm wide, Museum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden,
Netherlands)
Initial Series
Initial Series
Leiden Plaque Example
Calendar
Calendar
Round
Round
Event
Event
Photo
Photobyby
Justin
Justin
Kerr
Kerr
The Yaxchilan text continues, and soon states a
Distance Number, the interval of days and years that
elapsed between the two historical events recorded on
the Lintel. The glyphs for Winal (20‐day “month”)
and “Tun” (360‐day “year,” which the Maya
Distance Number
confusingly also called Haab) are the same as in the
Long Count, as we see.
Distance Number
Example
The Distance Number starts with the smallest units
(days and months) first, then counts Tuns or Haabs, then
Winikhaabs (groups of 20 years, often called K’atuns, i.e.,
“20‐tuns”), then higher orders if necessary.
This sum is followed by a glyph reading i‐u‐ti, “And
then it was…” followed by a Calendar Round (or CR),
giving the precise date on which the next event
occurred. Note the cartouche on the tzolk’in date, the
first glyph of this CR pair.
The gist of the inscription is to connect an early ruler,
Yo’Pat Balam Ajaw (“Lord Penis‐Jaguar”) with a
descendent, Yaxuun Balam Ajaw (“Lord ’Bird’‐Jaguar”),
300 years later.
Both performed a ceremony at the “4‐Zotz’ House,”
and the inscription simply states that the earlier Lord
Jaguar did so on a certain date, that 302 years and some
days passed, and the later Lord Jaguar did so too.
The “4‐Zotz’ House” is almost certainly the temple in
which the lintel was installed.
This text is typical of the kind of record that the Maya
deemed worthy of inscribing in stone, indicating how
different their priorities were from ours.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address begins with a
distance number: “Four score and seven years ago…”
His invoking the American Revolution forms the same
kind of connection with the Battle of Gettysburg which
the Maya celebrated so frequently in hieroglyphic texts
like this. Remarkably, Lincoln’s distance number
counts larger units of years in twenties, just like the
Maya.
Summary of Maya
Calendars
(Remember that the ‘digits’ here are multiples of 20) )

13.0.0.0.0 – Maya Long Count “Start Date”
13.0.0.0.0 is the Maya starting date, analogous to the birth of
Christ in our Western calendar, from which we count our years
and centuries.
Dated Maya Creation stories always have a Long Count
starting date of 13.0.0.0.0, which the Maya referred to by its
Calendar Round, 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u.
This corresponds to 11 or 13 August 3114 BC/BCE.
The Maya Classic period began about 8.10.0.0.0, and their cultural apogee
was between 9.0.0.0.0 and 10.0.0.0.0. The Collapse occurred ca. 900 AD, in
the first decades of the “10th Baktun,” as it is commonly called.
Like a clock after midnight, this (5‐digit) date reset just after
the beginning. One “bak’tun” (400 “years”) after 13.0.0.0.0
“should” have been 14.0.0.0.0, but the Maya called it 1.0.0.0.0.
(The motivation for setting it at 13 instead of zero is unknown.)
The Maya date for 30 May 2008: 12.19.15.6.12 13 Eb 15 Sip.

(‘285 correlation. By the ‘283 correlation it’s 12.19.15.6.14 2 Ix 17 Sip)
Soon it will reach 13.0.0.0.0 again. (The end is near!)
It corresponds to 21 or 23 December 2012.
This time, the Calendar Round will be 4 Ajaw 3 K’ank’in.
Correlating the Maya Calendar and Ours
Scholars propose several correlations between the Maya and modern
calendars; the two most‐accepted differ by two days.
The older, called GMT (Goodman‐Martinez‐Thompson), also called the
584283 (or ‘283) Correlation, was worked out by 1930. (584,283 is the
Julian Day Number of 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u.)
Some decades later, Floyd Lounsbury and others, using evidence in the
Dresden Codex Venus Tables, convinced Thompson to add a two‐day
correction. This is the GMT+2, or 584285 Correlation (also called the
‘285 Correlation).
By the GMT+2 correlation, the date of the 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u Creation

(the one in which we live), was 13 August 3114 BC, and the next
13.0.0.0.0 falls on 23 December 2012. This is the correlation used by
many top scholars, including Linda Schele, Michael Coe, and Marc
Zender. By the original GMT, these dates fall on 11 August 3114 and
21 December 2012.
Their correlation evidence comes from a couple Conquest‐era
documents.
I happen to lean toward the original GMT, based on evidence and arguments presented
by Dennis Tedlock and Bob Wald, who know a lot more about Maya anthropology, the
Dresden Venus Pages, and Maya decipherment than I do. Naturally, those who see
significance in the Maya Calendar’s ending on a winter solstice prefer the original GMT
as well.
There have been other correlations proposed, usually multiples of 52
years away from the GMT. Bowditch offered 394,483; Spinden used
489,383; and Vaillant 774,083. According to Vaillant, 13.0.0.0.0 would
fall in 2532 AD. Using Spinden’s correlation, 13.0.0.0.0 would have
already passed; it fell in 1752.
Bowditch’s correlation is the most interesting of all: his “end‐of‐the‐
calendar” fell on 17 August 1492, about two weeks after Columbus set
sail, and two months before sighting the Bahamas. It is too bad that
Bowditch’s calculations are highly unlikely to be correct; I cannot think
of a more appropriate year for a Mesoamerican End of the World than
1492.
The Tonalpohualli,
the Aztec name for
the 260‐day sacred
calendar, is
derived from the
Maya tzolk’in, and
works precisely
the same way,
Aztec & Mixtec with a numerical
coefficient from 1
Calendrics to 13 attached to
20 cycling day‐
names. Their day‐
names are
refreshingly
simple: “Rabbit,”
“Wind,” “Grass;”
for the most part
they reflect the
meanings of the
(often obscure)
Maya day names.
Though the Aztecs also
used a 365‐day cycle, also
derived from that of the
Maya (or perhaps they
both derive from a
common source), they
used it much less often in
their writings.
Instead of pairing a 260‐
day date with its 365‐day
date, the Aztec and
Mixtec simply mentioned
the 365‐day year in which
the date fell. Each year
was named for the
tonalpohualli date on
which it began, and
indicated the Year‐Bearer
or “name of the year”
with a sign we call the
“A‐O Sign,” the “Mexican
Year Sign,” or the
“Trapeze and Ray.”
One example of a Maya Calendar
chart survives in the Madrid Codex.
This Maya diagram (next slide), from the Madrid Codex
Charts elating to
(ca. 1530, around the time of the Conquest) contains a
R
central image of two celebrants under a peculiar kind of
the 260-day Cycle
tree or platform. The daysigns in the ring around the
center have been rearranged.
to the Cosmos
West
North
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are needed to see this picture.
are needed to see this picture.
South
East
They daysigns have been rearranged according to a
mathematical algorithm, except that they seem to have
mixed up at least one pair of days. This kind of error is
common, and stands as a warning that we should not put
too much faith in Maya mathematical calculations — or
predictions. On the one hand, they were astonishing
mathematicians, but on the other their conception of Truth,
error, accuracy, political expediency, and Divine Will were
quite different from ours, and demand that we try to discern
when to apply our own standards and when to attempt to
understand theirs. (More on this later.)
Around this ring, connecting the calendar with the cardinal
directions, are four pairs of worshippers, each labeled with
the glyphs for North (right), South (left), East (bottom) and
West (top). There are 260 dots, carefully labeled to
correspond with the 260 days of the Maya Tzolk’in, the most
important of the Maya calendars. Beside the dots are
footprints, indicating our travel through the 260‐day cycle.
The next slide shows a very similar diagram, from a
Nahua‐Puebla book, the Codex Fejervary‐Mayer, also from
about the time of the Conquest.
The authors of this book were a distinct culture from
both Aztec and Maya, but their 260‐day calendar
obviously worked in the same way as the Maya.
Here the diagram is rotated 180°, with North at left, and
a somewhat more tidy and complex diagram than the
Madrid one.
Here the central image is of a warrior, the Fire God
Xiuhtecuhtli, there is no ring of daysigns, and pairs of
gods here are adoring four directional Trees. But the 260
day‐dots march in strict order round the diagram in an 8‐
petaled flower, exactly as in the Madrid diagram.
/ East
(Days associated with cardinal directions)
South/
North/
(Cosmic Trees)
(Attributes of Tezcatlipoca)
/ West (1. Hand. 2. Emaciated bone of

the foot. 3. Emaciated torso. 4. Head with
Explanation by the brilliant Mexican scholar Miguel León-Portilla, from Arqueología Mexicana. face painting of the God.)
You can see that each direction has an assigned species of tree, in which perches an assigned
bird, honored by specific gods.
Nested into the petals of the 260‐day cycle (shaped like the Maya glyph
for “completion”) are specific gods worshipping the Trees‐with‐birds of
each Direction.
North at left: Eagle in Ceiba growing from a Sacrifice Vessel containing

bloody bones and perforators. The Rain god Tlaloc and Tepeyollotli,
“Heart of the Mountain,” worship it. (I respectfully disagree with León‐
Portilla, who calls this tree a Mezquite).
South at right: Macaw (Loro) in a Cacao tree growing from the maw of

the Earth Monster, worshipped by Death and Cintéotl, god of Maize.
East at top: Quetzal in a quetzalquáhuitl tree springing from a Sun Altar,

worshipped by Tonatiuh‐Piltzintecuhtli (Young Sun god) and Itztli, the
personified sacrificial “Flint knife”.
West at bottom: Hummingbird (on the left of the Sun) in a spiny

(cactus?) quetzalpochotl growing out of the body of a white creature,
worshipped by two goddesses: Tlazoltéotl, “filth‐eater,” forgiver of
sinners, and Chalchiutlicue, “She of the jade skirt.”
Center: Xiutecuhtli, god of Fire, as a warrior, clutching darts and atlatl,
a spear‐thrower.
The four intercardinal directions are crowned by species of
birds emblazoned with the four year‐bearer daysigns (Reed,
Flint, House, Rabbit): two members of the parrot family and
two raptorial birds. They descend in turn to four more species
of plants… for example, the “Rabbit”‐marked parrot in the
upper right dives toward a maize plant growing from the
head of a large rodent (a gopher? rat? paca?). Flanking his
descent, we see on one side the glyphs of five days associated
with this direction, on the other the decapitated head of
Tezcatlipoca, connected by a stream of blood to Xiuhtecuhtli
in the Center. The other three corners contain similar
iconography whose details really do not concern us here
further.
The counter‐clockwise progression of the 260 days reflects the
direction followed by priests, dancers, and other celebrants in
the ritual circuits that feature in every Precolumbian
ceremony. As Wendy Ashmore points out, ʺAll static images
of space have to do with movement through them.ʺ They are
counter‐clockwise, reflecting the perceived direction of the
sunʹs movement.

Its Not The End of The World What The Ancient Maya Tell Us About 2012

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Its Not The End of The World What The Ancient Maya Tell Us About 2012

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The Year 2012.

They also felt free to adapt as well as adopt. Ancient

200 CE/AD The abandonment of great cities in the Mirador Basin. (Northern

1100 – 1250 The rise of the Mixteca city‐states.

This is an annual event, is not rare at all.

Premier archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni is not at all convinced

This is a drawing of Quirigua Stela F, A12 – B14. The 3‐11 Pik Ajaw interval/title is

‐‐Aztec derived from the same source as the Maya.

The Leyenda de los Soles explicitly tells us that this

Above: Translation from p. 53 the Chilam Balam of

Previous Slide: Chilam Balam of Chumayel, Folio 53r,

It says the 13th Pik/Bak’tun will end, that a god or gods called Bolon Yokte’

Bolon Yokte’ (other interpretations: “Nine Support [Gods]”, “Many‐

Thanks to Christian Prager and Markus Eberl for delineating this obscure deity.

Quirigua Stelae E and D, the largest Maya monoliths ever erected. These and other Quirigua stelae

We’ll use the Quirigua Stela C Creation story as an

K7750: Vase of 11 Gods (red):

“…the 13th Pik (Bak’tun)…” The next phrase could tell us more about the events on this fateful day,

i‐uut 4 Ajaw (Tzolk’in Date)

8 Kumk’u ilahiiy /”His first appearance”

Yax K’oj Ahk, (royal name)

Chak‐K’uh Ajaw, 9 Pik/Bak’tuns (a DN)

GI Yax Waybil ??? ???

‘Note ‐ 9 Yookte’ (Bolon Yookte’) is an enigmatic expression.

When the tzolk’in falls on a Muluk, the haab coefficient is always

When the tzolk’in falls on a Muluk, the haab coefficient is always the 2nd,

“Pregnant” Ceiba trees

The serpents’ mouths open wide and belch forth Visions in

A close‐up of Stela A, showing the emerging Sun God. In our usual interpretation of this

This stela’s Serpent‐Bar is flexible, composed of jade‐bell‐bead ‘vertebrae,’ each

Recently, the popular film The Da Vinci Code caused an uproar among orthodox Christians

The World Tree

‘Dragon‐roots’ in Izapa Stela 25 & Dresden Codex p. 69a.

Around 500 AD/CE, in the great city of Teotihuacán, the Tepantitla Murals portray the Great

Borgia Codex p. 52 ‐ South Tree page.

Quirigua Stela C,

Monday = One day in a named cycle of 7 days (week)

Drawings and photos of Yaxchilan monuments by Ian Graham et al.,

Tzolk’in Date Tzolk’in date. This is a

Other cycles within the

Leiden Plaque Example

(Remember that the ‘digits’ here are multiples of 20) )

The Maya date for 30 May 2008: 12.19.15.6.12 13 Eb 15 Sip.

By the GMT+2 correlation, the date of the 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u Creation

/ West (1. Hand. 2. Emaciated bone of

North at left: Eagle in Ceiba growing from a Sacrifice Vessel containing

South at right: Macaw (Loro) in a Cacao tree growing from the maw of

East at top: Quetzal in a quetzalquáhuitl tree springing from a Sun Altar,

West at bottom: Hummingbird (on the left of the Sun) in a spiny

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