Conflicting Essays in scholarship which have been the most engaging research job I have ever done. I have also added, over the years, queries about our "dated" geology with their "computerized" confirmations together with climate changes denied since 1963. The Ten-O'clock News have been telling us to change our clocks for DSL and back again BUT no one as noticed it has been changed, more than a few years ago, from March 31 and October 31, to a week or so earlier or even a week or so later.

Monday, November 26, 2018

The "dn" Numbers of the Maya and the 819 Dilemma



In 1998, Floyd Lounsbury decided he had to create series of coefficients for the
Maya glyphs. As he atempted to make the MOD units. He decided that the 819
number was the lowest common denominator by combining six “dn” units  
[n0, n1,, n2,, n3,, n4, n5] ALL of which are divisable by Five.


    There was an odd reason for that. He created that 819 number by combining:
n1 - Uinal = 01-day
n2 - Veintana = 20-days
n3 - Sacred Almanac = 260-days
N4 - Nine days = 19-days
and n5 - Calendar Year = 365-days of 52-years or 18,980-days


   Other grouped units that could be used were 9-days, 819-days, 4 x
819-days, and the moon which has 29 or 30 nights.


Now if anyone could get through the 819 calculation by assuming that all
of the above unit numbers, which the author claimed are divisible by 5,
then one could run five of those numbers together to reach the 819 figure
which would then become the coefficient for each one. Lounsbury made
a disclaimer, just in case.

“It is not known whether this was the Maya  way; it probably was not.”


In other words, he made up the process in order to create another math  problem
that might solve the Maya Calendar computations. On the other hand, I must
assume that the Maya had a specific way of counting number’s: like a bar
(=5) + a dot (=1) = 6. They also had a set of names for very large numbers: from"

kin = 1-day;
uinal = 20-days;  
tun - 360-days;
katun = 7200-days;.
baktun - 144,000-days.  

Added were more titles: pictun, calabtun, and kinchiltun, eetc.which seem to have
come through those people who research dates of the Maya.  This set of three
seemed appropriate for Maya numbers, but there is no information that the Maya
ever used those names themselves.
Lounsbury also obtained the Yucatec names used for 1 to 20 numbers.
He probably took them from the Maya calendar maker in Merida, who was also
attempted to find the names for higher groups of Yucatec/Maya numbers.

The worst of the inferences was when it was the n0  dn numbers were used to find the month names as far back as the BC centuries. Even though the Maya recorded over and over again:
“the month names were created by Rome in 1583 for the year 1584
Month Name became 0-POP. “   [Edmonson, Munro, ( , 78, 81,
86-87, 89, 90, 93, etc )  The Book of the Year]
In other words, Rome sent out new month names which they had created.
The new names would be used  to make Maya dates comparable with the
European calendars.


We must not forget the distance numbers, marked in Lounsbury’s Calculus
formula as “dn.” There is also a Maya commentary on them which has also
been ignored by the scholars.


Native Maya Calendar Makers, after much discussion, decided that
although Rome’s dates would be used in the post-conquest monuments,
they would continue to use the dn numbers as the true Maya calendar
of 360-day, the same as those used in China for their 60-year sequence.


“Let us permit our calendar to gain on the true year; as fast as it will. We will
allow our calendar to function without change, but when we erect a monument,
we will engrave upon it, IN ADDITION TO  THE OFFICIAL CALENDAR DATE OF ITS
DEDICATION DATE, A CALDENDAR CORRECTION FOR THAT PARTICULAR DATE.In this
way, no matter WHAT DATE OUR CALENDAR MAY REGISTER, WE WILL ALWAYS KNOW,
whenever, we erect a monument, the POSITION OF ITS CCRRESPONDING DATE IN
THE TRUE YEAR.”   


The above gives us the definition of the “dn” numbers. They are nothing more
than the Maya date method of IK being the first day of a 360-day year. That would
be the very same date that is in Rome’s approved calendar beginning with IMIX
[from February 8] as the first day of Rome’s version of the month of 0-POP [from July 26.]


Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have Maya teachers who could teach us
their math in simple Maya terms instead of Rome’s convoluted dating system.
The Maya actually gave the correct Maya math for Rome’s version of their calendar.
So to begin with we have had a very good lesson from the Maya about the “dn” numbers after the glyphic version of dates on monuments of stone. But as usual, no one cared enough to listen to the Maya. The researchers as youngsters just on their first archaeological dig, usually could not communicate in Maya, and not very well in Spanish.


So the Math that they learned was that 52-weeks are 52-years in Calculus.
At the end of those 52-years: a great First Fire would be celebrated, and
everything used in the homes would be destroyed. All new items during the
First Fire celebration would be bought to replace pots, ollas, cups, plates,
baskets, digging sticks, rebozos, skirts, shirts, sandals, . . .everything NEW
to be used for the following 52-years.


It would be akward to have burned food in the bottoms of pots and ollas,
which could not be removed. . . . since clay is porous to begin with. Germs
could produce diarhea and other disturbances of the intestines. These might
be a grave problem if pots and ollas are constantly used for 52 years.


As it was, Floyd Lounsbury’s paper,  was an experiment with enough clues throughout the 28 pages, that it was just a paper about that which he wanted to
accomplish; however, his theories were never specifically fixed into a usable formula.


On page 804. After comparing sun and moon eclipses during the time that
his inferred formula would not work well:  So he tried again:


10.   7. 4.    3. 5. = 3 Chicchan, 13 Yaxkin  and subtracting
-- 8. 11    7, 13, 5.    = 3 Chicchan, 8 Kankin
______________
   1. 15. 16.     8. 0. = 2 x  (17.13.4.0)         
                                  = 2 x (128,960 days)
By the time he reached the end of the very long paragraph, he had decided
the math was still wrong.


10.   7. 4.   3. 5. = 3 Chicchan, 13 Yaxkin  and substracting
                        -4 = Interval conj. to crescent moon.
______________
10.   7. 4.   3. 1.  = 12 Imix , 9 Yaxkin (conj.)              
        1. 7. 8. 13      = 335 lunations
 _______________
   10.  5. 16. 12.   8 . = 12 Lamat 11Tzec  (epoch)
--    9. 16.   4. 10. 8.     = 12 Lamat 1 Muan  (epoch)
  _______________
         9. 12. 2.  0. = Interval between epochs
 --      8. 6.  2. 0. = 5 full eclipse cycles
     _______________
           1 6. 0. 0.     = one short cycle = 9,360 days or 36 almanacs


The preceding computation was Lounsbury’s solution to the eclipse problem.  
Therefore,


10.   7. 4.    3. 5. = 3 Chicchan, 13 Yaxkin  and substracting
-- 9. 17.   8, 8, 5.    = 3 Chicchan, 18 Xul
_______________
         9. 15. 13. 0.     = 5 x (1.13.4.0) +    1.9.11.0.
                                  = 5 x (11,960) + 10,660 days

Still between page 804 to 818, he had not worked out the solution. In this way, the  
best possible date for the 3 Chicchan, 13 Yaxkin, would probably be between 1210 and
1536 AD.   On page 766, Lounsbury indicated that his count was far distant from the
Neither assumption was helpful to understanding his own calculations.  


The last statement Lounsbury made as his proposed conclusion for all his
efforts was:
It is perhaps superfluous to such that this {paper] should be
taken as no more than one person’s attempt at a chronology
of the developments in Maya calendrics and astronomy,
that it is incomplete in many respects and thaft the dates
rashly ventured here are held subject to revisions.”
[Lounsbury, F. (1998, 759-818) Maya Numeration,
       Computation, and Calendrical   Astronomy]

As far as I know, Carlos Barrera Alueste is still working with the 819
created by Floyd Lounsbury. He is trying to fit it into the Venus Tables of the Dresden Codex.  

The exception to the Venus Tables in the Dresden, is the about birth of
the “venus” glyph on D-47b, which shown by the Skeletal ruler of the
western Land of the Dead and the single shaft of a lance with two obsidian
spearheads. Two comets with one body. One of the Night and the other
named for the day, who eclipsed the sun and the moon on the same day,
and left a “mirror” at high noon, so it could return to its [sun] home in
the east.{Tedlock, D. (1996)]

Therefore, it has nothing to do with the Planet Venus which as the
Morning star goes behind our sun and emerges eight days later
as the Evening star in the west.


                                        

         Fig. 01: The God of the Land of the Dead in the West.

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