RICA ANTIQUA 111 - The Maya calendar ended already in 1546

AMERICA ANTIQUA III - MAYA CORRELATION


4 AHAU 8 CUMHU

Antoon Leon VOLLEMAERE1.- PERIOD BEFORE 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU
A close look at the Maya calendar immediately shows that the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu is no real zero point,
but a second or in fact even a third zero point. It was indeed a new base for the Long Count
and the Tzolkin-Haab calendar of the Maya.

Let us explain why.

After years of investigations we concluded in 1984 (25 years ago) that the Mayas had following aspects
and periods for their moon/solar/Venus calendars.
1) PREHISTORY without a calendar.

• 
  Before the creation of their first calendar, in prehistoric times, the migrating pre-Mayas lived

• 
  in very small family groups somewhere in Northern America or maybe even in Asia.

• 
  They followed the game they hunted, gathering fruit, nuts, edible roots, fishing here and there, etc.

• 
  There was in fact no such great need for a calendar,

• 
  they could easily live by counting their days and nights, one after another.

2) MOON CALENDAR

• • 
    During their migrations came a social evolution and a first form of organization
  • 
    by the growing of the family groups: a form of hierarchy and a retribution of the individual tasks of every member of the 'clan'.
  • 
    The Mayas, like almost all other Amerindian communities, developped a count by twenties (fingers and toes) or, in other words, a vigesimal system.
  • 
    There came also a general use of a moon calendar of 30 days without a starting or zero point.
  • 
    There are many indications in ethnohistoric sources that there were lunations of exactly 30 days before the Moon's revolution was disturbed by a celestial body.
  • 
    It was the

'Age of the Moon'

• • 
    .

The evolution of the moon is easy to follow for everyone.

Most of the communities counted the lunations from New Moon to New Moon,
it is to say, from the first glimpse of the new moon.

This can be the theoretical moment of the New Moon, maybe + 1 or maybe 2 days.

3) SOLAR CALENDAR of 360 Days

• • 
    During their migrations, the Mayas learned year by year, and bit by bit,
  • 
    the evolution of the life cycle and the secrets of seeds, plants, shrubs, and trees.
  • 
    Slowly they became interested in a semi-sedentary life and, after a long time,
  • 
    eventually in a sedentary way of live.
  • 
    From that moment on they depended partly upon a good knowledge of the seasons
  • 
    and the weather conditions. So they needed a good knowledge of the solar evolution.

Their first and most important notions and wisdom came from a simple stick!

This is indeed the best and finest introduction to solar science.

We should all do some experiences with a stick to understand ancient astronomy,
because with this rudimentary tool one can discover the most important aspects
and properties of the solar year (providing that the sun is not hiding behind clouds).
We may say of this period therefore that it was in fact the 'Age of the Stick'.

Most of the important ancient cultures and civilizations in the world took a starting or zero point
for their calendar.

They used also a calendar of 360 days!

More hereover later.

Together with their vigesimal count, it was the introduction of the first long count (LC)
of the Maya calendar.

This calendar was used during an unknown number of years.

Then came suddenly a cosmic catastrophe.
4) COSMIC INTERVENTION

• • 
    Then occured a cosmic intervention. Earth and Moon were disturbed by a celestial body: comet, asteroid, meteor, planet, etc. Much changed: their revolution, inclination, magnetisme, seasons, precession, geological and astronomical positions, Ice periods, etc.

Moon revolution changed, but above all, the solar year of 360 days changed into a year of � 365.25 days.

A new calendar count started parallel with the ancient or classic calendar of 360 days
and a new zero day as base : 0.0.0.0.0 (zero point 2), first day 1 Imix.

The lunations changed from 30 into � 29.5 days.

The Maya counted their moons alternatively by 30 and 29 days, with from time to time a + or -correction day. As said before, the Mayas used a parallel calendar count:

• • 1. conservatively, the archaic calendar of 360 days (Tun); and
       
       
    2. by obligation, the new solar calendar of � 365.25 days; for this calendar they needed correction days.

As we have seen during our 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu-investigation, the Mayas added correction dates
but they left the day name unchanged and adapted only the month position (see 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu table).

After a long period of 1000 Tunob of 360 days (2.10.0.0.0 or 360000 days),
and 239 correction days they ended on a day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu.

The Mayas decided to use this particular day as new base for a further count.

5) 2.10.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu (zero point 3)

• • 
    Start of easier parallel calendar counts:

• • 1. the archaic calendar count of 360 days (Tun);
       
       
    2. the uncorrected solar year count of 365 days (Haab);
       
       
    3. the "official" ending of the Maya calendar came shortly after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, and after 10.10.0.0.0, NOT after 13.0.0.0.0.

The Mayas preferred to use a solar year of 365 days instead of � 365.25 days.

In that way they could use a wonderful basic calendar of 260 days created probably shortly
before 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu.

In earlier works we explained allmost all these points, but for the moment
we must limit our attention to the signification of the double term 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu(h),
a Tzolkin-Haab position. What can this date tell us?


2.- THE MEANING OF 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU

4 Ahau is a certain day position in a cycle of 260 days (Tzolkin)
and 8 Cumhu is a certain position in a solar calendar of 365 days (Haab)(see tables).

The combined Tzolkin-Haab date is a certain position in a cycle of 52 uncorrected solar years.

The day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu is the 349th (350th) day of a year starting with the day 7 Eb (old style)
or 8 Ben (new style) of a calendar round of 52 years.

This in itself proves that there certainly was a period, of 348 days at least,
that preceded 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu and that there were certain corrections of the solar years.

Most specialists have not paid much attention to this period, although this is a major clue to understanding the origin of the Maya and the evolution and end of their calendar.

How many days have in fact gone by since the first (real) zero point of the second calendar system
until the day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, the second (in fact third) zero point?

As far as we know, until 1972 nobody had been able to calculate the exact period
preceding the important date of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu.

This period was arbitrarily estimated by some Americanists at 5200 years,
which is sheer nonsense because this brings the start of the Mayan calendar to the year -8513 !


3.- CALCULATION OF THE PERIOD BEFORE 4 AHAU 8 CUMHU

At first sight it seems impossible to calculate the preceding period when we have only the date
of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, and yet...

To our amazement and great satisfaction, on a Saturday evening in the month of May 1972
(37 years ago), we managed to calculate the exact duration of that first period
(see paper Intern. Congress Amer. Rome 1972).

It was really a unique experience! What was our line of reasoning,
and what were the questions we asked ourself?

• What does 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu means exactly?
  
• Corrected the Maya their solar years?
  
• How can the current corrections of the solar year result in the famous date of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu?
  

1. Was 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu maybe a Tun or a Katun?

We know the meaning of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, and we also know that the Maya knew very well the exact duration of the solar year, but how did they manage to keep an exact track of their years?

How could, or how should one adapt the current solar years ?

The duration of a current solar year is now today 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds
or simply 365 1/4 days - 674 seconds.

Therefore, when we add a leap day every 4 years, we have corrected by 674 x 4
= 2,696 seconds too much.

A day of 24 hours lasts 60 x 60 x 24 = 86,400 sec. When we divide 86,400 by 2,696,
we get 32 and, as it concerns periods of 4 years, this means in fact 32 x 4 = 128 years.

In other words, this implies that we may correct the solar years by adding one day every 4 years, providing that the 128th year remains unchanged.

This theoretical correction system can be applied to the period that elapsed by since the origin of the Maya calendar, and this until the position of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu is reached.

In order to know this, all positions of 4 Ahau must be checked
and all corrections of the solar years must be taken into account.

And this is exactly what we have done.

We know very well that we have every 260 days a day named 4 Ahau.

This means that, in the worst case, one might have to calculate thousands of 4 Ahau-positions,
which is of course a hopeless task.

But these thousands can be reduced to hundreds if we first see what the position
is of every Tun ending with 4 Ahau.

The first Tun 4 Ahau comes 4,320 days after the real zero point.

The next Tuns always come after 13x360 = 4,680 days,
each time with a different Haab-designation.

Back in 1972 (30 years ago!) we made all these calculations in 1972 with pen and paper,
but now we can easily do this with a personal computer.

For every Tun 4 Ahau we calculated :

• - the Tzolkin-Haab position,
  
• - the number of correction days (M6),
  
• - the number of groups of 128 years (M7), and
  

• - the difference between both (M6 - M7 = M8).

The calculations resulted in a fantastic finding :
the 77th calculation gave us the date of 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu!
This was the solution (see table) we looked for.

These are the most striking findings:

1. The 34th Tun gives a 4 Ahau 9 Cumhu instead of a 8 Cumhu. Is it possible that this is the second zero point? In fact no, for some reasons.
   
   
2. When we add the calculated correction days (M8 = 239) to the Haab-position (9 Xul) of the 77th Tun 4 Ahau-position, we obtain the day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu after exactly 1000 Tunob plus 239 correction days for the solar years !
   
   
3. It is striking that the Maya chose a round number, 1000 Tun or 900 years of 400 days (as was the case with the Quich� and the Cakchiqueles) to make 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu the starting point of the new Great Cycle.
   
   
4. The second zero point 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu ends with the 50th Katun of the first cycle.
   
   
5. It is also noteworthy that the correction days were applied to the Haab-position (8) 9 Xul just before 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu and again on 7 or 8 Xul in 1539 (see Xiu paragraph). There must be a special reason for this.
   
   
6. The Baktuns after 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu (second zero point) are in fact, in regard to the first zero point, 1/2 Baktuns after 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu (see table).

The complete 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu table and all details are given in (Vollemaere) "De Leiden-plaat en de Maya-korrelatie" 1984a, and other correlation publications (see Bibliography). The result of our investigation was :

---

4 Ahau 8 Cumhu = 1000 Tun + 239 correction days = 360,000 + 239 = 2.10.0.0.0 + 11.19

---

This period corresponds to 986 solar years plus 349 days.
We see that 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu is in fact already a Katun 2.10.0.0.0, that means in other words that we need only 10.10.0.0.0 to reach the final date 13.0.0.0.0 of the original calendar !

To find the end of the Maya calendar, we may NOT add 13.0.0.0.0 to the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu,
but only 10.10.0.0.0 !

There is exciting news.... Vollemaere published the final conclusive proof for his Maya correlation solution of 1984, in his "Codex Dresdensis-Tritos connection solves the Maya correlation problem" (2005).

Without any doubt he found that the Codex Dresdensis eclipse sequence of pages 81-85 is based on the period 1186.09.30 - 1219.06.29.

For the calculation of the period after 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu till the end of the calendar
, you need to read our publications about the solar eclipses of Codex Dresdensis 51-58.

It is good to know that the Maya calendar ended on the winter solstice of 12.12.1546.

Almost every mayanist believe totally wrongly in a 13.0.0.0.0 ending on the wintersolstice
of the year 2012.

The Maya calendar ended already in 1546!

This table gives the most important key dates for the Vollemaere's correlation solution.

Dr. Antoon Leon VOLLEMAERE
AMERICA ANTIQUA III
De Noterstraat 21
B.2800 MECHELEN (Machlin)
Belgium - Europe

antoon.vollemaere@skynet.be


http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/4ahau8cu.htm

 

SUSAN LYNNE SCHWENGER SAYS:

iN ORDER TO FIND THE CORRECT END DATE
you would need to have the following date
of 12.12.1546 aka 12 DEC 1546
be the actual day before the last full moon in December
in order to align to The Six (6) season calendar of 360 ancient days...
ie: 6 x 60=360 Days

or, The 260 Day Cycle (utilized by all tribes) of 13 cycles of 5 days per week x 4 weeks
ie: 13 x (5x4=20) = 260

because MAJOR GRAND CYCLES always end on the day before the last full moon in December,
and, the next major grand cycle will always begin on the day of a full moon,
in this particular time frame,
it does NOT fit the critera for grand cycles.

Unfortunately the last full moon in 1546 occurred on 25 December 1546,
which would make 24 December 1546,
the actual last day of a yearly cycle of 360 ancient days,
and, 25 December 1546 - would be the start of the next ancient year.

NOW; if we look at this end date of 12 DEC 1546
we will discover on:
http://maya-portal.net/tzolkin
10 imix
(which is the start of a cycle, NOT the end of a cycle)

11 DEC 1546
is 9 ahua
(which is the end of a cycle)

also; if we go forward
from 12 dec 1546 to 24 dec 1546 (+13 days)
there is 13 days

24 DEC 1546 (day before full moon)
is 9 BEN

25 DEC 1546 (day of full moon)
is 10 lK

So, this cycle given of 12 Dec 1546 or 12.12.1546

• is NOT an end date - 10 imix is the start date of a cycle

~ Susan Lynne Schwenger



There are however, between 12 dec 1546, and, 24 dec 1546, exactly
on the ancient calendar.

~ Susan Lynne Schwenger