via Gizmodo

It's a very limited-edition clock probably for those to whom price is no object.

We have built up 2012 as something extraordinary, because it is described as "The End" of the Mayan Long Count.

I propose that what we have at the end of the Mayan long count is no different then what many Western nations have at the end of December 31st, or the end of decades or of centuries. It is important to understand the perception of time in Western countries in the modern era is different than in other Human eras. We see time as mostly linear, a progression of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, et cetera. These are units described and marked with mechanisms of our design and from which we abstract both larger and smaller units. These units of time are still based on the rotation of Earth and the period of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Yet, there are many other cycles observable in the sky. The Mayan Long Count is one of many systems devised around the world in ancient cultures that tracks these many cycles that are not defined by Man. Time, for our ancestors, was cyclical.

A fellow named Thomas Razzeto wrote an essay at Infinitely Mystical called The Actual Astronomy of 2012 and the Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun. I don't want to steal his thunder as his argument is elegant and the article is worth reading. He posits that the Long Count ends, and begins again, with a very special configuration of the Sun as viewed from Earth—more specifically as viewed from what is now part of Mexico.

I learned, in reading the article, that the Mayan calendar is likely based on calender work of the Olmec, an even earlier civilization. The Long Count did not start at One, unlike the Western Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar dates an epoch based on the number of years passed since the birth of the Christian savior. The Long Count acknowledges something called The Great Year (a period of approximately 26,000 years) in its inception. What we call The Long Count is one of five recurring long counts within each Great Year. They located our place in the cycle much as we might locate ourselves on a map, and began the reckoning from there.

This is an extraordinary achievement of observation, measurement, calculation and prediction. I'm really glad I read the essay because Razetto's theory, more than any other I have seen, explains the significance of the Winter Solstice in 2012 in a sensible fashion and in a way that is completely respectful of Maya and Olmec philosophy.

Now, why were the Maya so concerned with what happened in the sky?

The good news is that they have written it down. Their exact thoughts and beliefs survive to the current era in various codices, though it is also recorded that many were destroyed.

The bad news? In our time, we have discarded these writings intellectually as myth.

"…Knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience."

Found a great new site today that gives great coverage to the history and development of science, scientific dogmas and paradigm challengers:

Nature magazine published some fairly detailed findings recently, concerning the Antikythera Mechanism. Some of the newest information I will summarize only briefly:

• It has been determined based on the names of the months used on one of the dials that the device could have been made in Corinth (or a Corinthian colony) and, if so, may bear some relation to the work of Archimides.
• The device appears to predict eclipses in relation to the local calendar.
  
• One dial appears to be dedicated to the 4-year Olympic Games cycle

The article goes into a great deal of further information on the nature of the script used on the dials and more specifics about the cycles indicated.

What's not entirely clear to me is whether the mechanism was designed as a perpetual calendar, or if it simply was designed to calculate over the course of 19 years—after which it ceased to be useful. I would argue the calculations had already been made prior to the execution in bronze. The mechanism was then representational and no more or less predictive than a mechanical clock. Or perhaps I misunderstand.

That said, the making of a device that does what it does displays an acute awareness and knowledge of the cycles evident in the sky, and it is a very concrete way of tying those cycles to the calendar used every day.

I am still intrigued by the precision and ingenuity in the design of the mechanism. Clearly more credit is due to the men and women of that age. I still feel that a great deal of knowledge was lost in the intervening years. We humans seem to have recovered nicely, of course, but it's fun to speculate on how things might have turned out differently.

Please do go read the article on the Nature web site, and go to the AMRP site to see more about the work being done.

The question for me, most recently, is not what the symbols mean. I have had many satisfying and gratifying meanings attached to many of the symbols I have loved and learned about throughout my life.

The bigger question for me now is why do some symbols continue to resonate with generation after generation of human beings? Why do they resonate with me now? Is there a deeper connectedness and deeper meaning yet still?

Making connections is appropriate. I'm convinced that intellectually it is about the most human thing we can do. We are recognizers of patterns and sometimes we excel at this.

I believe in synchronicity and happy accidents. So many good and fortuitous things happen that are very much in sync with our actions and our desires that it is impossible for me personally to discount them, even if the connection between the event and my desires exists only in my brain.

And I struggle with this: Assuming that good things will magically happen vs. letting good things magically happen. I do feel selfish at times, expecting that things will go my way and petulantly feeling upset if the thing I wanted was not the result I think I got.

But what does this have to do with anything?

Sometimes I loose track of what is synchronicity and what it is I'm inferring.

Sometimes I get really disappointed that what I want to see is not what I'm getting back.

I try really hard to find like minds looking at like things and I'm not finding many places where the things that excite me intellectually are the same as things that excite others.

I know you're out there, but maybe I'm trying too hard to make my expectations be the ones that are satisfied. And maybe what I'm looking for, as in so many other occasions, was right under my nose to begin with.

And ultimately, it's all about my own expectations and my own reactions.

If the ancient Egyptian year indeed only had 365 days, and no fraction, then the calendar would drift relative to fixed occurrences such as the solstices, the equinoxes, or the rise of Sirius (Sothis) above the horizon on the ancient Egyptian New Year's day. In this case, the calendar would shift 1 day every four ancient Egyptian years.

1.the difference in days between a solar year and a lunar year.

Since there are about twelve lunations in a solar year, this period (354.37 days) is sometimes referred to as a lunar year.

Funny how on the Web, everything old can be new again.

BoingBoing today linked an article on The Guardian's Web site about the Antikythera Mechanism. I wanted to be angry that the article brings no new information to the table, until in linking it, I noticed the article was from 2006:

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

Instead, what I find telling is still how much remains mysterious about the device's origins.

There is still much to know:

• Who made it?
• Where are its predecessors and siblings?
• Why did the technology have to be re-invented?/Why was it lost?