Page 571 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

Harun Yahya

The Mayans: Expert

Mathematicians

Top part of the The Mayans lived in Central
reconstructed America in around 1,000 BCE, at a
Rosalila Temple
considerable distance from other ad-
vanced civilizations like those in
Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia. The
most important features of the

Mayans are the scientific advances
they made in the fields of astronomy
and mathematics, and their complex
written language.

The Mayans' knowledge of time,
astronomy and mathematics was a
thousand years ahead of that of the
Western world at the time. For ex-

ample, their calculation of the
The detailed carving on the stone shows that the Mayans possessed the nec-
essary technology for stonemasonry, which is next to impossible in the ab- Earth's annual cycle was a great
sence of tools such as steel files, chisels, and drills. deal more accurate than any other
such calculations before the inven-

tion of the computer. The Mayans used the mathematical concept of zero a thousand years before its discov-
ery by Western mathematicians, and used far more advanced figures and signs than their contemporaries.

The Mayan Calendar

The Haab, the civil calendar used by the Mayans, consisting of 365

days, is one of the products of their advanced civilization. Actually, they
were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days; their estimate
was 365.242036 days. In the Gregorian calendar in use today, a year con-

sists of 365.2425 days. As you can see, there's only a very small differ-
67
ence between the two figures—further evidence of the Mayans'
expertise in the fields of mathematics and astronomy.

The Mayan calendar is almost
identical to the 365-day
Gregorian calendar used today.
The Mayans calculated that a
year was slightly longer than 365
days (right).
An Aztec calendar stone (above).

Adnan Oktar 569