Evening star., 1933-05-18
MAYAN YEAR OFF
ONLY SIX SECONDS
System Of Calculation Clos
est Among Ancient Peo-
piles, Says Book.

BERLIN (P).-TWenty-SiX seconds in
one year don't count for much in life
time, but to astronomers 1t is figure
not to be neglected.
To them it is the difference by which
our Gregorian year exceeds the solar
year, which has 365 days hours 48
minutes and As seconds. Our calendar
makes it 26 seconds more.
The Maya peoples of Central and
South America had a closer system of
calculation, for their year was only six
seconds short of the astronomical year.
says Erwin P. Dieseldorff. in the third
volume of his "Kunst Und Religion Der
Mayavoelker" cart and Religion of the
Maya Peoples'O. which has just ap-
peared here.
Dieseldorff is hacienda owner and
scientist of Coban, Guatemala, where
he has resided more than 40 years. He
has devoted a lifetime to the study
of the Maya cult in its Central Ameri-
can cradle, and his book deals at length
with the significance of the strange
hieroglyphs found in Maya Temple
ruins.
Double System Used.
In contrast with the old Egyptians
who took the star Sirius as time guide
for the rising of the Nile, he says, the
Mayas had a double system. based on
Venus and Mars, mainly to regulate
the cultivation of the maize fields.
The Maya priests found that the
Venus revolutions necessitated an inter-
calary day every four years, whereas
after six revolutions of Mars, three in
tercalary days were needed. But the
former INTERPOLATION proved yet a little
too long. and the latter just trifle
too short. To adjust this, they dropped
two days in 256 years on the Venus
count, and added two days on the Mars
count. BY this correction they OBJ
tanned their fundamental principle:
That in 26O times 800, or 93600 days
62 days should be leap days, which
exactitude showed, as Dieseldorf says
that the Maya priests possessed high
scientific attainments.
The ordinary Indian was kept in ig-
norance of these calculations: it was
the priests business to tell the people
when the time had come for tilling their
maize fields
BY comparisons, Dieseldorf has estab-
hshed the relationship of the Maya
relics of Mexico, Yucatan and Hon.
duras with the pre-Inca inscriptions of
Peru and Bolivia.
"Lost" or Dead" Days.
he explains the meaning OF the curl
GUS drops on the Maya sun gods face,
as tears for the "lost" or dead days
of the intercalary system. 1t was a
superstition of the time that the people
gathered in the temples to seek sane
tuary from evil spirits supposed to be
particularly active during those periods
The 'step-ladder" pattern which re-
turns again and again on carvings and
in woven material. says Dieseldorf, is
synbolical of the intercalary system,
and serves to establish the age of the
various Maya temples-there being a
span Of 2.3O7 years between the earliest
and the latest.
Interesting is the fact that some
Maya inscriptions indicated the popular
belief that the world would be de-
etroyed by great flood
That the NIayas calculated at long
sight is shown by the fact that their
grand era was one Of 5,125 years, at
the end Of which came one final inter-
GALAXY day. The Maya civilization,
however, did not live to see the end of
this era, but the system was as near
perfection as any yet devised, Diesel
dorf believes.