IZAPA: BIRTHPLACE OF TIME
Home Page of Vincent H. Malmström -- Dartmouth College
The Pre-Columbian peoples of Mesoamerica -- the vast cultural
realm which
embraced most of central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, and the
western
portions of Honduras and El Salvador -- were united in their usage of
an elaborate
time-reckoning system composed of both a 260-day sacred almanac and a
365-day
secular calendar. Once supposed to have been the creation of the
Mayas, it is now
realized that the Mesoamerican calendars had their origin amongst a
shadowy
people known as the "Olmecs", whose culture reached the zenith of its
development
in the tropical lowlands bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Although the
"Olmecs" are
now recognized as "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, their own
origins have
long remained a mystery -- ironically, a mystery whose solution lies
in the very
calendrical system which they created.
For an explanation of where the "Olmecs" came from, and why, when,
and how
they developed, first, a sacred almanac with 260 days, then shortly
thereafter, a
secular calendar with 365 days, and finally an ingenious method of
combining
them into a precise day-count pre-dating a similar invention in
Europe by 1800
years, the reader is referred to my recent book titled "Cycles of the
Sun, Mysteries
of the Moon: The Calendar in Mesoamerican Civilization" published by
the
University of Texas Press.
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