/data/photo/2022/04/14/6257f125f1b98.png "The Mayans Have Been Using Calendars Since 2200 Years Ago, Early Evidence Found in Guatemala")
KOMPAS.com – Researchers have found preliminary evidence calendar once used by Mayans since 2200 years ago.
The existence of such evidence is seen in two pieces of ancient walls in a ruin that was built between 2300 and 2200 years ago in Guatemala from Central America.
The two pieces of the ancient wall are decorated with fragments with dots and dashes above the deer’s heads, which represent one of the dates of the Mayan 260-day calendar.
Quoted from New Scientist, Thursday (4/14/2022) several ancient communities living across America, including the Aztecs, Maya, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs, tracked time using a 13-day cycle represented by numbers as well as a 20-day cycle named after a deity.
In this calendar, specific days are numbered and named, resulting in 260 unique days before the cycle repeats itself.
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It is estimated that people Mayans use calendars dating back 2200 years which are used to decide when to hold ceremonies or to mark important dates and also predict future events.
Previously, most of the early evidence of the use of Mayan calendar by ancient people it has been found in stone monuments dating from around 100BC.
But from research conducted by David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues, they managed to find evidence that the Mayans had used the calendar more than a century earlier.
Findings of preliminary evidence of use Mayan ancient calendar It all started when researchers discovered the archaeological site of San Bartolo which includes a pyramid called Las Pinturas.
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While the research team was sifting through the pieces of the pyramid’s foundation, they realized the two pieces of debris fit perfectly together to form a date symbol.
“This is extraordinary. We believe that this is the earliest example of the use of the Mayan calendar showing the seventh day of the Deer,” said Stuart.
The piece of wall is likely the remains of a platform that may have been built to track astronomical events as well as time.
“This platform may have acted as an observatory to view the sunrise or other astronomical objects in the sky. Or it might just have been to track time like some kind of clock,” explains Stuart.
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Using radiocarbon dating, researchers then determined that the symbols on the wall pieces date back to between 300 and 200 BC.
Even so, some archaeologists still question whether the find is the earliest evidence of the Mayan 260-day calendar.
“The early evidence for calendars has been disputed, but in this study they present clear evidence for the use of a 260-day calendar. This is very important work,” said Takeshi Inomata, of the University of Arizona.
Study on use Mayan ancient calendar which has been used since 2200 years ago it has been published in Science Advances.
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