Archaeologists say they have find the earliest - yet evidence of a Mesoamerican calendar in fragments of painted murals made in what is now Guatemala over 2,000 years ago .
The mural were come up in a building complex call Las Pinturas ( “ the house painting ” ) , on the Maya site of San Bartolo in Guatemala . The murals show various humans and divinity in a pyramidal synagogue . They go out to between 300 and 200 BCE , and immortalize a escort , 7 Deer , that is part of the260 - day Tzolk’in divinatory calendar . The team ’s enquiry ispublishedtoday in Science Advances .
“ It was generally believed that the calendar system of 260 days originated elsewhere , maybe in Oaxaca , ” said David Stuart , an archaeologist at the University of Texas , Austin and lead author of the research , in an email to Gizmodo . “ This new find cause Maya grounds just as old , and indicate that the origin - berth of the Calendar is an open question . It could even have been a Maya exploitation for all we live . ”
A mural fragment depicting a Maya maize god.Illustration: Heather Hurst.
The Tzolk’in calendar pairs 13 numbers with 20 named twenty-four hours in a 260 - mean solar day cycles/second , meaning that there are no weeks and months in the organization . Some Maya groups still observe the calendar . The 7 Deer date the team found include the Mayan numerical for seven with the head of a cervid painted below .
Much of what we cognize about the Maya ’s astrological and calendrical systems come from aseries of codicesthat pull through devastation at the script of Spanish priests in the 16th 100 . But several survive artifact indicate the Mesoamerican civilization ’s calendar system date to well before the codex were scribed . In 2011 , a team of archeologist ( a squad Stuart was a part of ) found a Maya room in the Xultún composite in Guatemala that moderate calendric hieroglyph . But the freshly obtain calendar criminal record is over 1,000 years older .
“ former evidence of Mesoamerican calendar has been debated , but they present clear evidence of the 260 - day calendar , ” said Takeshi Inomata , an archeologist at the University of Arizona who is unaffiliated with the new piece of work , in an email to Gizmodo . “ Their body of work at the site of San Bartolo has been transforming our reason of Maya piece of writing and art . ”
The mural fragment containing “7 Deer”, at top.Photo: Karl Taube, courtesy of the Proyecto Regional Arqueológico San Bartolo – Xultun
The investigator note that one apparent Maya hieroglyphic found in Mexico ’s Tabasco region see to 650 BCE , but they do n’t consider that hieroglyph represents a day . The newly herald Guatemalan calendar glyph is also rare in that it was painted ; originally possible evidence of the calendar is carved in rock monument .
Gerardo Aldana , an archeologist at UC Santa Barbara who was unaffiliated with the research , state that the workplace was rare and significant but “ raises as many questions as it answers . ” Aldana remark that cultural exchange between what ’s now considered Maya and Isthmian realm of Mesoamerica indicates that “ penning and calendric traditions and calendrical tradition were educate at the regional degree , ” rather than in a unmarried place .
“ One thing is absolutely clear : San Bartolo and the immediate neighborhood is crying out for further research , as it may be able to provide a unique windowpane into the longsighted - full term development of regional authorship tradition as well as galactic practice session , ” Aldana articulate .
Hopefully , more discoveries will give more calendrical perceptiveness , as archaeologists go forward to disclose down the origins of this complex timekeeping organization .
More : Lost Monument of Early Maya Civilization let on in Mexico
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