How knowledgeable were the Maya and their sister cultures?

The ancient Mesoamerica Maya-Azteca cultures were more advanced in the science of astronomy than their contemporaries in Europe and Asia. They even took astronomy into consideration how they laid out the core of their cities, placing buildings not just taking into consideration the four cardinal directions but placing obser
vatories strategically to study the sky.

No other ancient society recorded as accurate observations of celestial phenomena as the Maya (and later the Azteca) did, and they measured time with obsessively elaborate precision. Their Long-Count Calendar, which predicts our world will come to an end on 2012, was infinitely more advanced than anything the Old World had when Cortez conquered the Aztecs militarily in the 16th century.

-- Did their astronomical observations have a practical purpose?

In some regards, they did. In ancient times, the sky was an integral part of daily life – people looked to the sky not just to see whether they needed an umbrella, but for guidance on how to cross a sea, the route caravans took, when crops were to be planted and harvested, and even to predict future events.

Is humankind more vulnerable to mass extinction that species from earlier periods?

Humanity is far more vulnerable to extinction events. In the past, life on the planet only had to worry about natural disasters. But when the dinosaurs passed, the mammals were able to rise, chief among them homo sapiens – a life form clever enough to be able to engineer its own mass extinction through nuclear weapons, chemically-induced climate change and genetically-engineered pandemics.

We must fear ourselves even more than natural catastrophes.

-- What do the Maya and the Toltecs in APOCALYPSE 2012 have to teach us about coping with global catastrophe?

The Maya faced and went through almost everything that our world is experiencing today, including religiously-motivated wars, climate change which produced the sorts of drought-driven food and water scarcity which now plagues Asia and Africa, particularly India. They faced internecine class conflict fueled by escalating inequities between the ruling and the laboring classes.

They faced the same tensions that many theocratic nations face today—the eternal conflict between science and religion. As drought ravaged their croplands, their religious/political leaders demanded not technological advances and organized efforts to improve food production and alleviate water scarcity but massive sacrifices of blood and treasure consecrated to their sky gods, including en masse human sacrifices. If the Mayans and their sister civilizations had put that effort into additional aqueducts, new irrigation systems and crop diversification, they might not have gone under. Instead they cut out hearts and hacked off heads.

Sites near Chichen Itza and Tulum.

Hi Craig:

You asked about sites near Chichen Itza and Tulum. Coba is also in the area of Chichen and Tulum. It is not a postcard picture perfect site like Chichen, but it not only has the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan, its architectural style is much more Mayan than Chichen, which has a Toltec appearance.

Thanks,
Bob Gleason

Do all the natural apocalyptic threats emanate out of the heavens?

--

Many of them do. Not only comets and asteroids threaten humankind but apocalyptic solar storms in our own sun could end civilization as could a nearby star turning supernova. A major collision with black hole—such as the one at our galaxy’s core—could prove lethal for life on earth . . . particularly if that collision involved another black hole.

Some of humanity’s worst threats, however, come from the earth’s bowels, where many mythologies have believed hell resides. It turns out those mythologies were right. Supervolcanos—whose colossal calderas are measured in terms of square miles, sometimes tens of square miles—are scattered around the earth, and their explosive potential is earth-shattering. One supervolcano in Lake Toba, Indonesia detonated 74,000 years ago. Blanketing the earth in ash and flaming ember, it destroyed 90 percent of homo sapiens. The rest found themselves in a world of sunless blackened skies, the air choked with drifting volcanic debris. They must have truly thought they were in hell—and they were.

Most are under or near the sea, but one landlocked supervolcano is in America’s Yellowstone Park and is due to detonate every 600,000 years. The last time it blew was 640,000 years ago, so it’s 40,000 years overdue—and it’s making its impatience known. Groaning, sobbing, roaring, occasionally erupting, the pressure inside its magma chamber has increased dangerously during the last decade—to unprecedented levels. Eventually its chamber-roof will detonate, and the volcanic mountain will again blow apart with the force and velocity of a crashing asteroid and 100,000 thermonuclear bombs. Melting, demolishing and devouring the surrounding mountains, the explosion will expand its already massive cauldron-shaped volcanic crater, currently 34 by 45 miles. This vast depression is called “the Yellowstone Caldera”—or by tourists, “Yellowstone Park.”
The last time the Yellowstone supervolcano blew, it ejected 1,000 cubic kilometers of flaming hell into the atmosphere, which, coming down, buried North America in two meters of smoldering debris. That detonation had also effectively exterminated many of the world’s life forms and plunged the planet into black, volcanic winter . . .
-- Can we do anything to mitigate supervolcano disasters?
Some scientists believe sophisticated slant-drilling could syphon off the caldera’s pressure. Testing that thesis would require a lot of work, and money however. So far, we have no workable computer models.

Should we worry about global annihilation on 2012 for scientific reasons?

Yes, because it’s happened before. Science has identified 20 times during which earthly life has faced a “mass extinction event” caused by a natural phenomena. On some occasions over 90 percent of the life forms on the planet was wiped out.

Extinction of one life form to make room for the next is the way life has evolved on Earth. For instance, the dinosaurs’ extinction made possible the emergence and eventual domination of mammals . . . none of which is all that comforting if yours is the species facing extermination.

-- Does the fact it happened in the past mean it will happen again?

Absolutely – because many threats are cyclical in nature: Asteroid strikes, rise of poisonous atmospheric gases such as methane, geological upheavals such as super-volcanic detonations, ice ages and other radical climate changes are all events that occur in cycles.

It’s been said that life is a circle – and in many respects the universe operates that way. A good example of that is the near-miss asteroid on March 3, 2009. This chunk of speeding space rock was the size of the one that destroyed 800 square miles of Siberian forest in the early 1900s. This one swept “darn close,” as a JPL scientist put it. If it had hit a major metro area like New York or L.A., millions would have died.

The most frightening thing is that we only had about two days notice when it suddenly appeared closer to earth (about 48,000 miles) then most of our satellites . . . and it is coming back for another shot at us.

Five years ago a major asteroid missed the earth by only 4,000 miles, and we had only 19 hours warning.

In 2036 a massive planet-killing asteroid is estimated to have 1 in 5500 in hitting us. Given the scope and duration of its orbit, that impact is “too close to call.”

In 2013 the US will have a chance to approach the asteroid and attach a transponder to it, after which we could monitor its 2036 approach with scientific precision. We would have to begin that mission immediately, which no one is doing. The US seems indifferent to a potential extinction event 27 years from now.

Something even bigger could be coming at us and we are unable to spot it because space objects are tracked as they race across the line of sight – ones that come directly at us are not seen until they are almost on top of us.

You learned in the earlier blog how to find the right author’s agent for that manuscript you want to submit. How do you contact that person?

I will return to 2012 in my next blog. Now I must answer some queries on how to get published.
My earlier blog—posted a couple of blogs ago—told you how to find the right agent and publisher. It also explained why finding an agent is important. Go to that blog and re-read it. After you’ve learned how to locate the agent’s name and that of the publisher, you need to contact them. Go online and google the agent’s name. Google the agent’s website, and it will contain all your information. If you don’t find it, google the agent’s name and profession. Maybe their name isn’t mentioned in the name of the agency. Many of the big multi-media agencies don’t mention the name of the agent.

A non-Internet venue? Go to your library and look the agent up in the Literary Marketplace (LMP). If you can’t locate their agency, look for their name in the index. Or look in the library’s copy of The Writer’s Market. They will have an agent section and an index. Look for other publishing reference books as well.

Many agents are in New York, so you could go online and look them up in the New York online phone directory. Or you could telephone New York City information.

These agents are business people. They do not conceal their addresses and phone numbers. You should find their addresses and phone numbers at the very least, perhaps even their email addresses. If you call the agent’s switchboard, they may well give you his or her email address as well.

If you absolutely could not find the agent’s name, I mentioned in the previous blog how to learn the name of the author’s editor. You could write the editor of the successful author you most closely resemble at his or her publishing company and ask for the agent’s name. You could then look them up.

Next we’ll discuss how to meet the successful author you most resemble and how to recruit that author in your quest for your perfect agent.

How do we know that the earth and solar system align with galaxy’s center on 12/21/09?

Charles, this blog is in response to your question:

John Major Jenkins, the author of COSMOGENESIS 2012, is the first authority to propound the “Galactic Alignment” thesis. He argues that such an alignment will occur on 12/21/09, that the alignment only happens every 26,000 years and that it occurs within a 36-year 1980-2016 alignment “zone.” One of his sources is the astronomer, Jean Meeus. Jenkins has written:

It is an astronomical FACT the position of the December solstice sun will be aligning with the galactic equator in the years around 2012. Specifically, following calculaitons by astronomer Jean Meeus (Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, 1997:216), and considering that the sun itself is one-half of a degree wide, we can speak of an alignment "zone", 1980-2016 AD.

Secondarily, the alignment of the December solstice sun with the Milky Way's equator happens to occur in that part of the Milky Way that houses the "nuclear bulge" of our galaxy's center. Our Milky Way is saucer shaped, and to naked-eye watchers the Milky Way appears wider between Sagittarius and Scorpio. That "nuclear bulge" is, visually, where the galactic center is located. It is where the December solstice sun is aligning. Thus follows the factually true statement about the sun, on the solstice, aligning with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is more precise, however, to speak of the alignment in terms of the galactic equator, as that affords a precise mid-line of the band of the Milky Way with which the solstice-galaxy alignment can be measured--as Jean Meeus did. Thus, the alignment "zone": 1980-2016 AD.

http://www.mayastudies.org/2012page2.pdf


Jenkins expands further on his alignment thesis:

The Galactic Alignment is the alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic equator. This alignment occurs as a result of the precession of the precession of the equinoxes.

Precession is caused by the earth wobbling very slowly on its axis and shifts the position of the equinoxes and solstices one degree every 71.5 years. Because the sun is one-half of a degree wide, it will take the December solstice sun 36 years to precess through the Galactic equator.

The precise alignment of the solstice point (the precise center-point of the body of the sun earth) with the Galactic equator was calculated to occur in 1998 (Jean Meeus, Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, 1997).

Thus, the Galactic Alignment “zone” is 1998+/- 18 years= 1980-2016. This is the “era—2012.”

This Galactic Alignment occurs only once every 26,000 years, and was what the ancient Maya were pointing to with the 2012 end-date of their Long Count calendar.

http://alignment2012.com/whatisga.htm


I’ve seen attempted refutations of Jenkins position on the Internet but was never able to verify the evidence or confirm the writer’s credentials. Since I’m an editor at Tor/Forge Books however and we publish a lot of science-oriented books, I’ve gotten to know some highly reputable astrophysicist-authors over the years—some of them quite distinguished in that field. I’ve questioned a few of them on Jenkins’ thesis, but I’ve never gotten a definitive answer—especially on the second part which states that the alignment only occurs every 26,000 years. Since his thesis has floated around for over a decade, and I haven’t seen a detailed rebuttal, I’ve tended give Jenkins the benefit of the doubt.

Nonetheless, I’ve re-approached one of these distinguished scientist-authors and will report on what I hear. He has to resources to come up with a definitive answer.

Perhaps someone out there has an iron-clad refutation of Jenkins’ thesis, but if they have, I haven’t seen it, which does not mean such a refutation does not exist. It only means I haven’t seen it.

Some scientist may also have proven Jenkins’ thesis to be indisputably correct. I haven’t sent there work either.

Even if astronomers definitively refuted Jenkins’ thesis, however, that refutation would in no way undermine the Mayan’s incomprehensible astronomical achievements. For instance, they understood long, long ago that our galaxy was a spinning disk. They believed it so deeply and pervasively that they imbedded their belief into their very language: Their Hunab Ku galactic glyph which depicts the Milky Way—which they called “The Tree of Life,” among other things—as a spinning disk. They could not have inferred that insight from their math, science or direct observation. That revelation seems to me an accomplishment of a transcendent order. If, on top of that belief, they also divined insights as arcane as Jenkins’ Galactic Alignment thesis, their astronomical knowledge is even more miraculous. On the other hand, were Jenkins’ thesis proven erroneous after all these years, I would in no way hold that against the Mayans. They were preternaturally gifted astronomers.