Scientists have discovered what was described as the oldest human calendar among the fragments of an ancient Mesoamerican fresco, which was found in Guatemala and considered the oldest conclusive evidence of the existence of the “Sacred Maya calendar”.
The head of an animal decorated a small part of a mural that adorned a temple in the Mayan civilization, but the interesting thing about this head is the presence of a black dot and a solid line representing “7 Deer” (the history of the seven deer), which is considered one day out of 260 days in the calendar.
According to the article published in the scientific journal Sciencealert, this discovery is a very rare example of a clear day of the year in hieroglyphs, which was written sometime between 200 and 300 BC, according to radiocarbon analysis.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, indicates that this calendar is more than a thousand years older than other hieroglyphic calendars discovered elsewhere in Guatemala.
Scholars speculate that the calendar was in use long before this date was written, due to the maturity of existing texts.
“Evidence now indicates that we can no longer identify a single region of Mesoamerica such as Oaxaca as the point of origin for texts or calendar-keeping records… The discovery points to an earlier origin of the calendar sometime during, if not earlier than, the Middle Preclassic. , although the evidence is still indirect.
This pyramid is home to several layers of Mayan history, each “stacked on top of each other”, stretching back to approximately 800 BC.
It is known that the Maya followed a sacred 260-day calendar that is still used by some indigenous communities today.