The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Belize’s first eco resort and home of the Belize Natural History Centre, will be keeping thousands of years of local Maya culture and ritual alive when it hosts the 2012 Summer Solstice celebrations this week, marketing administrator Larry Waight said today.

“Chaa Creek is located in the centre of the Heartland of the Maya, and the Summer Solstice, which was a very important date, would have been celebrated at the ceremonial centres of nearby Xunantunich, Cahal Pech, Caracol and in Guatemala at Tikal, as well as at the Maya temple of Tunichilen in the Chaa Creek nature reserve. So our celebrations on June 20 represent a continuum encompassing thousands of years,” Mr Waight said.

The Summer Solstice, also considered to be the first day of summer, falls on June 20 in the northern hemisphere, making it the longest day of the year. Conversely June 20 in the southern hemisphere is the winter solstice, with the shortest day of the year.

While many cultures mark and celebrate the solstices, the ancient Maya, the most accomplished astronomers of ancient time, pin pointed it and other celestial events with astounding accuracy and charted the positions of planets and other celestial bodies well into the future.

“They would have had a very good idea of what our sky will look like on the evening of June 20 2012,” Mr Waight said and added that while any summer solstice would have been important to the ancient Maya, all celestial events during 2012 would have taken on an added significance.

“This would have been the last summer solstice of that cycle of the Maya Long Count, an event thousands of years in the making, so we can be certain that the Maya celebrations would have been extra exuberant, and we want to capture the respect and the excitement that would have been shown right here at Chaa Creek,” he said.

Mr Waight said the day would be marked with traditional Maya feasting featuring food from the Maya Organic farm, and activities including a wide-ranging presentation by Chaa Creek’s resident Mayanist and Belizean anthropologist Joe Awe.

Mr Awe said he will discuss the summer solstice in context of the Maya cosmology, spiritual beliefs and social structure so as to present a comprehensive picture of ancient Maya civilization while explaining the significance of the summer solstice.

“It’s a great opportunity to talk about all aspects of the ancient Maya culture and if the last presentation was anything to go by, we expect a lively Q and A session and audience participation,” Mr Awe said, “It’s an event I personally, along with many Maya people in Belize and the region, have been looking forward to, especially as it leads up to the huge Winter Solstice of December 21, 2012, he said.

As reported here earlier, members of Belizean Maya villages have raising concerns in the international community over what they see as yet another serious threat to their culture and livelihood through the illegal logging of rosewood from rainforests in Belize’s Toledo District.

And this time we’re happy to report some good news – The Belizean Government earlier this month banned the harvesting and export of rosewood with immediate effect from March 16, 2012.

A government statement said that the moratorium would go into effect immediately “to carry out an orderly assessment of the situation on the ground and as a first response to regulate the timber trade occurring in southern Belize.”

The statement added that the moratorium was the first step in instituting “a rigorous regulatory framework throughout the country.” To protect this endangered and highly sought after hardwood.

Rosewood has been integral to the life of the Maya of Belize for thousands of years. The beautiful timber has a range of traditional uses, from ceremonial marimbas and other musical instruments, day-to-day implements and for the sturdy posts that literally support their homes. Through sustainable harvesting methods developed over millennia and the practice of the unique Maya Forest Garden, the Maya have been able to make use of this rainforest resource while ensuring its long term survival.

However, global demand combined with problems in enforcing Belize’s commendable environmental protection legislation has put the timber under serious threat.

The international trade of Brazilian rosewood is now banned under the  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and with traditional suppliers such as Brazil no longer supplying the market, there is increasing pressure on Belizean, or  Honduran Rosewood (Dalbergia stevensonii), especially for the manufacture of guitars and other instruments.

Given this scenario, some overseas companies have intensified efforts to stay one step ahead of environmental protection in a bid to secure as much of the precious timber as possible while they can. This has led to logging in prohibited areas and the harvesting of undersized trees.

As we reported last July 2011, tensions came to a head in Belize’s Toledo district, leading to a meeting on August 4, 2011, between the Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), Belize’s Chief Forest Officer and other Forest Department staff.

At that time, the forestry department reported that some 60,000 board feet of rosewood had been legally extracted over the past 18 months, largely for exportation to China, and acknowledged that illegal logging remains a growing problem.

Southern Belize is the home of the very last Belizean stocks of rosewood, and it is here that the battle for the timber’s survival is being waged.  High incidences of both legal and illicit logging combined with slash and burn agriculture, usually conducted by illegal settlers who freely cross the porous border, continue to erode the remaining stocks of timber.  Belize now has the third highest rate of deforestation in Central America.

In addition to rosewood, other endangered tree species such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), cedar (Cedrela odorata) and fiddlewood (Vitex gaumeri) are also in greater demand and being logged legally and illegally.

The problem of rosewood extraction has been compounded by grey areas in Maya communal land ownership in Belize. On one hand, Belize’s Supreme Court has identified certain lands as being Maya communal property. On the other hand, the current government of Belize is appealing that ruling. This has led to a situation where Forest Department officials are reluctant to monitor and enforce logging laws on Maya land, while Maya leaders, with no clear legal title to their land, are powerless to stop what they see as the degradation of their traditional rainforest resources.

On March 13th 2012 Belizean conservationist Lisel Alamilla was appointed by the newly elected Belize Government as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Sustainable Development.

Ms Alamilla was formerly Director of the southern Belize-based Ya’axché Conservation Trust, which had been lobbying for such a moratorium. The Trust has also been alerting the public to the widespread harvesting of immature trees which it said was one more indication that rosewood numbers had fallen to a critical level.

While MLA spokespeople were unavailable for comment after the announcement of the moratorium, Gregory Ch’oc, director of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) said,” We recognize this as the first positive and assertive step in mitigating the environmental crisis caused by the unregulated harvesting of rosewood in Toledo, which has threatened the survival of the hardwood species in Belize and potentially increases the negative impacts of climate change on our region. It is important that we jointly put into place rigorous and long-term measures that will ensure a healthy forest and the sustainable continuity of our forest resources.”

In light of the uncertainty of Maya communal land ownership, the moratorium seems to represent the best defence of Belize’s remaining rosewood trees until an inventory of existing stocks, projected rates of regrowth, community consultation and other factors are compiled.

However, there are Maya communities that did gain legal recognition of their traditional lands in previous court cases, and they are actively working towards rosewood sustainability.

The Maya village of Conejo, for example, has established an internationally recognised program of community-based sustainable forest management that holds promise for other villages.

Conejo villagers conducted an inventory of rosewood within their communal territory and have identified a specific number of trees large enough for harvesting each year. This strategy provides some needed income for the village while sustaining the forest cover and continued viability of the species.

However – and it is a big however – due to the decimation of rosewood elsewhere, other villages may not have enough trees left to institute and maintain such a strategy, at least not for the hundred years or so  it will take for the slow growing rosewood stocks to be re-established.

So while there are fears that the moratorium may be a case of too little too late, the move has been widely welcomed by local and international environmental organisations including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

We will continue to monitor the situation in southern Belize, and look forward to seeing continued cooperation between the government, NGOs, private sector and concerned individuals to protect Belize’s incredibly diverse yet fragile ecosystem while ensuring that Belize’s earliest inhabitants and longest serving land stewards, the Maya, continue to have their voices heard.

Findings from new research into the dramatic collapse of the ancient Maya Empire that covered Belize and much of the neighbouring region pose warnings we should heed now, Chaa Creek owner and environmental studies coordinator Mick Fleming said today.

The recent report prepared by researchers from the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research and the UK’s University of Southampton ,and published in the journal Science suggest that the drought widely considered to play a significant role in the sudden decline of the ancient Maya civilisation was more moderate than previously thought.

And the findings may have relevance for us today, with predictions that even drier conditions worldwide are expected in the coming years due to climate change, the scientists said last week.

The study led by Martín Medina-Elizalde and Eelco Rohling examined lake and cave sediments to gauge past rainfall and found that a 40% drop in rainfall occurred in the Maya region in Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan from about 800 to 1,000 AD – less of a decline than previously thought.

“What seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems … Today, we have the benefit of awareness, and we should act accordingly,” Mr Medina-Elizalde said, and added, “Let’s imagine that today, from one year to another, major cities can no longer supply fresh water to a third of their populations. “

Medina-Elizalde said that current models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that there could be annual rainfall reductions of up to 50% in the Yucatan Peninsula by the end of this century.

“Some climate models suggest that local vegetation does contribute to increase rainfall significantly … which would suggest that by preserving the forests, we are mitigating the impacts of climate change,” he said. “Definitely, local governments need to start making serious efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change in light of the forecast for the next decades.”

Mr Fleming said that such findings were important for Belize, where forest cover, estimated at over 75% in the 1980 and then 62% in 2010, is disappearing at a rate of 0.6% a year, according to NASA and other studies. “In the coming years, there will be increasing pressure to log these areas, and we already have a major problem with illegal logging practices. Here at Chaa Creek we maintain a 365 acre private nature reserve and strive to make people aware that our rainforest resources are not something that should be exploited for short term gain by a few, but are a vital part of the world’s ecosystem that must be safeguarded for everyone’s benefit.

“Rather than people being worried about unsubstantiated and frankly harebrained Maya predictions about the end of the world, this sort of legitimate research shows that there are some very real lessons to be learned from the ancient Maya, and we ignore them at our peril,” Mr Fleming said.

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The Maya were remarkable mathematicians and astrologers, and certainly some of history’s most proficient, accurate keepers of time. To appreciate the Maya concept of time, It is important to understand the different calendar systems they developed and how they were used.

The Tzolk’in or Sacred Round calendar consists of a 260 day cycle. This calendar is composed of 20 day names, each represented by a distinctive symbol, or glyph, and thirteen “tones”, arranged in sequential numerical order from one to thirteen.

The Tzolk’in calendar cycle begins with the first day name, Imix’ and tone number one. The days then continue with a combination of the next day name, Ik’ and the number two, and then the day name Ak’b'al combined with the number three and so on, the day names and tones continuing to combine in that order until 13 tones are used.

After the arrival of day 13, denoted as Bén and aligned to the number 13, the days begin again with the 14th glyph, Ix’ and the number one. The rotation through the series of the tones and glyphs in this manner results in 260 unique combinations of a day name and tone – hence the 260 day cycle.

It is useful to think of the Tzolk’in as two intermeshing gears, one inside the other, with the 13 numerals marked at intervals around the smaller gear set inside a larger one that is marked with day names denoted by glyphs. If you arrange those gears together at the number one and the day name Imix’, and then rotate them, continuing around to the number one and Imix’ again, you will produce 260 combinations of unique days. The “teeth” of the gears revolve and mesh until the final combination clicks into place at 13 Ajaw, marking the end of the year.

It is safe to say, and with no pun intended, that Maya life revolved around the Tzolk’in calendar. As with modern belief in astrology, the Maya believed that a person’s birth date determines their personal and spiritual characteristics as well as their place in society. The Tzolk’in calendar was also of primary importance in determining the most auspicious dates for every aspect of Maya life and to determine the specific dates for when important events, sacrifices and ceremonies would take place.

At the beginning of each uinal (period of 20 days), day keepers and other members of the sacred elite would count forward to determine when religious and ceremonial events would occur. They would select the dates that would be the most effective for communion with the gods and propitious for sacred rites and activities.

The Tzolk’in calendar has essential spiritual, esoteric and social functions but it does not measure a solar year – the time it takes for the sun to complete a cycle. Instead, the Maya used another calendar, the Haab, to track the length of time that we consider to be a full year.

The Haab Calendar and the Calendar Round

The Haab calendar is based on the cycle of the sun and was used for civil, agricultural, accounting and administrative purposes. Like the Tzolk’in calendar, it’s also composed of uinals (periods of 20 days), and each day has its own glyph and number. However, instead of using 13 uinals for 260 days, the Haab calendar has 18 uinals, resulting in 360 days.

In the Haab calendar, the names of the month are:

Instead of every day, as with Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names change every 20 days: the day after 4 Zotz is 5 Zotz, followed by 6 Zotz … and so on up to 19 Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.

However, as 360 days does not represent a complete solar cycle, Maya astrologers and mathematicians added five “nameless days” known as the Wayeb. Sometimes referred to as a separate “month”, Wayeb is an inauspicious time with a reputation for bad luck and calamity. Also referred to as “days without souls” they were a time for prayer and mourning, with many daily activities, such as making fires and eating hot food curtailed.

The Calendar Round

The length of the Tzolk’in year was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that can be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Round. If a day is, for example, “4 Ahau 8 Cumku,” the next day falling on “4 Ahau 8 Cumku” would be 18,980 days or about 52 years later. A Calendar Round was roughly one lifetime.

The Long Count Calendar

As we see, Calendar Round dates record time in 52 solar days, or 18,980 day cycles. To measure, record and predict events over longer periods of time, the Mesoamericans developed the Long Count. Long Count dates are the ones usually recorded on monuments and stellae.

The basic unit of measurement in the Long Count is the day, or k’in. Twenty k’ins make a uinal, and eighteen uinals make a tun. Twenty tuns then make a k’tun, and twenty k’tuns are known as a b’ak’tun.

k’in = 1 day

uinal or winal = 20 k’in = 20 days (~month)

tun = 18 uinal = 360 days (~1 year)

k’atun = 20 tun = 7200 days (~20 years)

baktun = 20 k’atun = 144,000 days (~400 years)

The Long Count begins with a Maya creation date of 4 Ahaw, 8Kumkú, which translates as August 11, 3114 BC in the Georgian Calendar or September 6 of the same year in the Julian Calendar. But rather than employing a decimal, base-10 system as in western numbering, the Long Count uses a mixed base-20/base-18 scheme.

It is widely accepted that the Long Count’s “zero”, or creation date was August 11 3114BC, and that this marked the end of a previous world and the beginning of the current one, and it is further conjectured that the end of this current thirteenth b’ak’tun will fall on the Maya date 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21 2012.

This event has been given much attention in recent times and unfortunately has been subject to gross misinterpretations of Maya history and cosmology. Sensational films, television shows, internet exposure and other media present the end of the 13th b’ak’tun as “proof” of an impending apocalypse and global destruction. In fact, most serious Maya scholars and contemporary Maya daykeepers and other accepted spiritual and village leaders consider it to be simply the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another.

It is unknown what significance the classic Maya gave the 13th b’ak’tun, and most references to it in surviving inscriptions are simply historical markers, with no deep prophesies or predictions. However, we do know that the Maya had a profound regard for cosmological cycles and went to great pains to meticulously record and predict them. It can be supposed that the winter solstice of 2012 did have great import for the Maya, but many people feel it would be celebrated as a time of renewal and the beginning of a new era – much as we celebrate New Year’s, but with the significance and reverence for an event that occurs only once every 52,000 years.

The scramble to ride on the 2012 coattails is now officially on, and we’re being inundated with “new” Maya news each day when we open our internet browser.

As predicted, so-called experts, pundits and armchair archaeologists are now coming out of the woodwork to make the most of the 2012 phenomenon. Some of it is well intentioned, some of it is blather, and frankly some of it falls under the category of, “I blog, therefore I exist”.

While the flood of Maya information makes our job more enjoyable, it also increases the workload as we wade through an increasing amount of unsubstantiated reports. Because you never know – there may be a gem hidden among the dross and dreck.  But be prepared to waste some of your time.

One recent example is the much publicised “discovery” that the ancient Maya migrated north to escape whatever was bringing their civilisation to a close, and made it to the US southern state of Georgia, where they began rebuilding a new society among the peaches.

Seriously, when we first heard the reports our ears did pick up and we began digging deeper before mentioning it here and elsewhere. The initial reports were vaguely plausible, so with that necessary condiment, our ever-present grain of salt at hand, we went to work.

Here’s how it unfolded:

Reports began coming in that on December 21 2011, Richard Thornton, an architect and Maya researcher announced that an archaeological site near Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak, could well house the remnants of ancient Maya habitation. The furore, both for and against this claim was predictable; serious archaeologists almost immediately debunked the claim while other people began quoting it as an exciting new explanation for the sudden demise of the Maya empire.

This 3D virtual reality image was made from the Johannes Loubser site plan. There may be many other hidden structures in the ancient site. Credit: VR Image by Richard Thornton

Thornton also claimed that “like most Georgia and South Carolina Creeks, I carry a trace of Maya DNA,” and said that his ancestors came to North America fleeing “volcanic eruptions, wars, and drought.” This was all news to us.

Mark Williams, who led the team of geologists from the University of Georgia working at Brasstown Bald, was less than impressed by the claims, retorting that, “The Maya connection to legitimate Georgia archaeology is a wild and unsubstantiated guess on the part of the Thornton fellow. No archaeologists will defend this flight of fancy.”

In some of the reports, Williams was linked to the Thornton claims, so his pique is understandable.

Our own suspicions about the claims were raised by a few details. The reports were dated 21 December 2011, exactly one year before the pivotal Winter Solstice of 2012, and a time when many Maya tourism promotions and other attention-grabbers were launched. Another clue was the writing style of some of the earlier reports – sorry, they just didn’t have the sound of credibility one sees from, say, professional researchers or academics, and sources were sketchy at best.

But we persevered.

We carefully reviewed the arguments for the Maya migration to Georgia: linguistic similarities between the Maya and local US Native Americans, the arrival of corn in Florida, and other “evidence”. Sometimes the information was in a tidy layout, but the substance was a bit thin.

For example, here’s what one  website had to say:

When the Spanish first reached the Yucatan in Mexico they encountered a tribe called Maia (Maya) living in a province called Maiam. Could the Maya have been responsible for bringing corn to Florida?

The migration legend of one Native American tribe, the Hitchiti, suggests this is the case.

The Hitchiti migration legend reference to their ancestors coming from “reeds” suggests they were Maya who left a major city in Mexico and then arrived on the coast of Florida and temporarily settled near Lake Okeechobee before heading upstream and settling in Georgia “for a permanency.”

OK, the fact that the site carries advertising for “Dating Aztec Girls (Beautiful Blond. Short Skirt. High Heels. Discover Aztec Dating Now)” should have stopped us in our tracks, but it was one of the more presentable sites. Honestly.

So why do we mention this at all, you may ask?

As a cautionary tale. In the months to come, there is going to be more and more Maya news and features in the media, and while we are hoping – and expecting – that some new information will come to light, we are asking readers with a genuine interest in this fascinating history and civilisation to summon your inner sceptic when presented with information, ideas, theories and evidence throughout 2012. It may save you some embarrassment at the next cocktail party or gathering (Wow! Did you know that the ancient Maya…”) and, as we’ve always maintained, the true facts about the real Maya civilisation are much more fascinating than the fiction.

We’re not completely discounting that there may well be some connections between the Maya and North American indigenous tribes – far from it. We just hate to see real, credible research being overwhelmed by pet theories presented as fact.

Also, we’ve developed tremendous respect for this amazing civilisation and feel that the Maya name, history and culture has been misrepresented enough. That’s why we will be devoting so much time throughout 2012 to presenting some of the findings and theories coming out of the renewed interest in Maya culture, and this is why Chaa Creek will be hosting more workshops, seminars and lectures throughout the year while continuing to sponsor legitimate research.

So don’t worry – we’ll be posting some amazing, true stories that will be interesting, captivating and will hopefully kindle an interest in people to learn more about the amazing Maya civilisation and their impressive achievements.

We hope you look forward to it all as much as we do.

The Belize Maya Project was established as an online clearinghouse of credible information about the ancient Maya civilisation and to foster rational discussion and debate about Maya cosmology and how it relates to contemporary global society. We hope to show that the facts of the Maya are far more fascinating than the fiction surrounding this highly evolved, rich and enigmatic civilisation. 

Students, scholars, teachers, researchers, journalists, writers, Mayanists, amateurs and professionals in a variety of fields, and anyone who wishes to learn more and contribute towards understanding this fascinating, enigmatic culture.

The face of the Belize Maya Project is this website. It contains static pages dealing with topics such as history, culture, civilisation, and is further broken down into areas designed to grow with specific focuses such as agriculture, medicinal plants and healing, arts, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, empire and trade and other areas. We expect that, over time and with contributions from our colleagues in various disciplines, this site will grow into a valuable and dynamic resource.

While we welcome contributions, resource constraints demand that we adhere to a strict editorial policy (to be posted). Given the growing interest in Maya studies, and the fact that it is a subject attracting a wide range of thought, interpretations and theories, we can only post contributions from sources with accepted credentials in their fields. However, our forum pages will be open to, and welcome, a wide range of viewpoints and discussions, and our news and feature pages will adhere to our motto, “all the Maya news that fits” (with apologies to the New York Times).

In short, we welcome your contributions, expect lively debate, won’t shy away from the contentious and colourful, but will always operate under the banner of informative, credible, accurate and accountable.

A vital part of the Belize Maya Project is the exchange of information and ideas about the ancient Maya civilisation and the relevance of their worldview and cosmology to our contemporary society.

To bring some immediacy to the project, encourage new ideas and spark what we expect will be lively discussions, we will be hosting an online forum and blogging platform to be launched soon after the new year. While adhering to a straightforward editorial policy, we will welcome a variety of viewpoints and, at times, conflicting theories and debate.

If you have something to say on Maya issues, especially as they relate to 2012, and can say it clearly, concisely and without resorting to innuendo, offensive statements, defamation, or profanity, this is the place for you.

We’ll let you know when our moderator is back at the desk and ready. In the meantime, enjoy the site, and we look forward to hearing from you.

The Mesoamerica Maya team

The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Belize’s first eco resort and home of the Belize Natural History Centre, will be keeping thousands of years of local Maya culture and ritual alive when it hosts the 2012 Summer Solstice celebrations this week, marketing administrator Larry Waight said today.

“Chaa Creek is located in the centre of the Heartland of the Maya, and the Summer Solstice, which was a very important date, would have been celebrated at the ceremonial centres of nearby Xunantunich, Cahal Pech, Caracol and in Guatemala at Tikal, as well as at the Maya temple of Tunichilen in the Chaa Creek nature reserve. So our celebrations on June 20 represent a continuum encompassing thousands of years,” Mr Waight said.

The Summer Solstice, also considered to be the first day of summer, falls on June 20 in the northern hemisphere, making it the longest day of the year. Conversely June 20 in the southern hemisphere is the winter solstice, with the shortest day of the year.

While many cultures mark and celebrate the solstices, the ancient Maya, the most accomplished astronomers of ancient time, pin pointed it and other celestial events with astounding accuracy and charted the positions of planets and other celestial bodies well into the future.

“They would have had a very good idea of what our sky will look like on the evening of June 20 2012,” Mr Waight said and added that while any summer solstice would have been important to the ancient Maya, all celestial events during 2012 would have taken on an added significance.

“This would have been the last summer solstice of that cycle of the Maya Long Count, an event thousands of years in the making, so we can be certain that the Maya celebrations would have been extra exuberant, and we want to capture the respect and the excitement that would have been shown right here at Chaa Creek,” he said.

Mr Waight said the day would be marked with traditional Maya feasting featuring food from the Maya Organic farm, and activities including a wide-ranging presentation by Chaa Creek’s resident Mayanist and Belizean anthropologist Joe Awe.

Mr Awe said he will discuss the summer solstice in context of the Maya cosmology, spiritual beliefs and social structure so as to present a comprehensive picture of ancient Maya civilization while explaining the significance of the summer solstice.

“It’s a great opportunity to talk about all aspects of the ancient Maya culture and if the last presentation was anything to go by, we expect a lively Q and A session and audience participation,” Mr Awe said, “It’s an event I personally, along with many Maya people in Belize and the region, have been looking forward to, especially as it leads up to the huge Winter Solstice of December 21, 2012, he said.

As reported here earlier, members of Belizean Maya villages have raising concerns in the international community over what they see as yet another serious threat to their culture and livelihood through the illegal logging of rosewood from rainforests in Belize’s Toledo District.

And this time we’re happy to report some good news – The Belizean Government earlier this month banned the harvesting and export of rosewood with immediate effect from March 16, 2012.

A government statement said that the moratorium would go into effect immediately “to carry out an orderly assessment of the situation on the ground and as a first response to regulate the timber trade occurring in southern Belize.”

The statement added that the moratorium was the first step in instituting “a rigorous regulatory framework throughout the country.” To protect this endangered and highly sought after hardwood.

Rosewood has been integral to the life of the Maya of Belize for thousands of years. The beautiful timber has a range of traditional uses, from ceremonial marimbas and other musical instruments, day-to-day implements and for the sturdy posts that literally support their homes. Through sustainable harvesting methods developed over millennia and the practice of the unique Maya Forest Garden, the Maya have been able to make use of this rainforest resource while ensuring its long term survival.

However, global demand combined with problems in enforcing Belize’s commendable environmental protection legislation has put the timber under serious threat.

The international trade of Brazilian rosewood is now banned under the  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and with traditional suppliers such as Brazil no longer supplying the market, there is increasing pressure on Belizean, or  Honduran Rosewood (Dalbergia stevensonii), especially for the manufacture of guitars and other instruments.

Given this scenario, some overseas companies have intensified efforts to stay one step ahead of environmental protection in a bid to secure as much of the precious timber as possible while they can. This has led to logging in prohibited areas and the harvesting of undersized trees.

As we reported last July 2011, tensions came to a head in Belize’s Toledo district, leading to a meeting on August 4, 2011, between the Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), Belize’s Chief Forest Officer and other Forest Department staff.

At that time, the forestry department reported that some 60,000 board feet of rosewood had been legally extracted over the past 18 months, largely for exportation to China, and acknowledged that illegal logging remains a growing problem.

Southern Belize is the home of the very last Belizean stocks of rosewood, and it is here that the battle for the timber’s survival is being waged.  High incidences of both legal and illicit logging combined with slash and burn agriculture, usually conducted by illegal settlers who freely cross the porous border, continue to erode the remaining stocks of timber.  Belize now has the third highest rate of deforestation in Central America.

In addition to rosewood, other endangered tree species such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), cedar (Cedrela odorata) and fiddlewood (Vitex gaumeri) are also in greater demand and being logged legally and illegally.

The problem of rosewood extraction has been compounded by grey areas in Maya communal land ownership in Belize. On one hand, Belize’s Supreme Court has identified certain lands as being Maya communal property. On the other hand, the current government of Belize is appealing that ruling. This has led to a situation where Forest Department officials are reluctant to monitor and enforce logging laws on Maya land, while Maya leaders, with no clear legal title to their land, are powerless to stop what they see as the degradation of their traditional rainforest resources.

On March 13th 2012 Belizean conservationist Lisel Alamilla was appointed by the newly elected Belize Government as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Sustainable Development.

Ms Alamilla was formerly Director of the southern Belize-based Ya’axché Conservation Trust, which had been lobbying for such a moratorium. The Trust has also been alerting the public to the widespread harvesting of immature trees which it said was one more indication that rosewood numbers had fallen to a critical level.

While MLA spokespeople were unavailable for comment after the announcement of the moratorium, Gregory Ch’oc, director of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) said,” We recognize this as the first positive and assertive step in mitigating the environmental crisis caused by the unregulated harvesting of rosewood in Toledo, which has threatened the survival of the hardwood species in Belize and potentially increases the negative impacts of climate change on our region. It is important that we jointly put into place rigorous and long-term measures that will ensure a healthy forest and the sustainable continuity of our forest resources.”

In light of the uncertainty of Maya communal land ownership, the moratorium seems to represent the best defence of Belize’s remaining rosewood trees until an inventory of existing stocks, projected rates of regrowth, community consultation and other factors are compiled.

However, there are Maya communities that did gain legal recognition of their traditional lands in previous court cases, and they are actively working towards rosewood sustainability.

The Maya village of Conejo, for example, has established an internationally recognised program of community-based sustainable forest management that holds promise for other villages.

Conejo villagers conducted an inventory of rosewood within their communal territory and have identified a specific number of trees large enough for harvesting each year. This strategy provides some needed income for the village while sustaining the forest cover and continued viability of the species.

However – and it is a big however – due to the decimation of rosewood elsewhere, other villages may not have enough trees left to institute and maintain such a strategy, at least not for the hundred years or so  it will take for the slow growing rosewood stocks to be re-established.

So while there are fears that the moratorium may be a case of too little too late, the move has been widely welcomed by local and international environmental organisations including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

We will continue to monitor the situation in southern Belize, and look forward to seeing continued cooperation between the government, NGOs, private sector and concerned individuals to protect Belize’s incredibly diverse yet fragile ecosystem while ensuring that Belize’s earliest inhabitants and longest serving land stewards, the Maya, continue to have their voices heard.

Findings from new research into the dramatic collapse of the ancient Maya Empire that covered Belize and much of the neighbouring region pose warnings we should heed now, Chaa Creek owner and environmental studies coordinator Mick Fleming said today.

The recent report prepared by researchers from the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research and the UK’s University of Southampton ,and published in the journal Science suggest that the drought widely considered to play a significant role in the sudden decline of the ancient Maya civilisation was more moderate than previously thought.

And the findings may have relevance for us today, with predictions that even drier conditions worldwide are expected in the coming years due to climate change, the scientists said last week.

The study led by Martín Medina-Elizalde and Eelco Rohling examined lake and cave sediments to gauge past rainfall and found that a 40% drop in rainfall occurred in the Maya region in Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan from about 800 to 1,000 AD – less of a decline than previously thought.

“What seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems … Today, we have the benefit of awareness, and we should act accordingly,” Mr Medina-Elizalde said, and added, “Let’s imagine that today, from one year to another, major cities can no longer supply fresh water to a third of their populations. “

Medina-Elizalde said that current models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that there could be annual rainfall reductions of up to 50% in the Yucatan Peninsula by the end of this century.

“Some climate models suggest that local vegetation does contribute to increase rainfall significantly … which would suggest that by preserving the forests, we are mitigating the impacts of climate change,” he said. “Definitely, local governments need to start making serious efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change in light of the forecast for the next decades.”

Mr Fleming said that such findings were important for Belize, where forest cover, estimated at over 75% in the 1980 and then 62% in 2010, is disappearing at a rate of 0.6% a year, according to NASA and other studies. “In the coming years, there will be increasing pressure to log these areas, and we already have a major problem with illegal logging practices. Here at Chaa Creek we maintain a 365 acre private nature reserve and strive to make people aware that our rainforest resources are not something that should be exploited for short term gain by a few, but are a vital part of the world’s ecosystem that must be safeguarded for everyone’s benefit.

“Rather than people being worried about unsubstantiated and frankly harebrained Maya predictions about the end of the world, this sort of legitimate research shows that there are some very real lessons to be learned from the ancient Maya, and we ignore them at our peril,” Mr Fleming said.

###

The Maya were remarkable mathematicians and astrologers, and certainly some of history’s most proficient, accurate keepers of time. To appreciate the Maya concept of time, It is important to understand the different calendar systems they developed and how they were used.

The Tzolk’in or Sacred Round calendar consists of a 260 day cycle. This calendar is composed of 20 day names, each represented by a distinctive symbol, or glyph, and thirteen “tones”, arranged in sequential numerical order from one to thirteen.

The Tzolk’in calendar cycle begins with the first day name, Imix’ and tone number one. The days then continue with a combination of the next day name, Ik’ and the number two, and then the day name Ak’b'al combined with the number three and so on, the day names and tones continuing to combine in that order until 13 tones are used.

After the arrival of day 13, denoted as Bén and aligned to the number 13, the days begin again with the 14th glyph, Ix’ and the number one. The rotation through the series of the tones and glyphs in this manner results in 260 unique combinations of a day name and tone – hence the 260 day cycle.

It is useful to think of the Tzolk’in as two intermeshing gears, one inside the other, with the 13 numerals marked at intervals around the smaller gear set inside a larger one that is marked with day names denoted by glyphs. If you arrange those gears together at the number one and the day name Imix’, and then rotate them, continuing around to the number one and Imix’ again, you will produce 260 combinations of unique days. The “teeth” of the gears revolve and mesh until the final combination clicks into place at 13 Ajaw, marking the end of the year.

It is safe to say, and with no pun intended, that Maya life revolved around the Tzolk’in calendar. As with modern belief in astrology, the Maya believed that a person’s birth date determines their personal and spiritual characteristics as well as their place in society. The Tzolk’in calendar was also of primary importance in determining the most auspicious dates for every aspect of Maya life and to determine the specific dates for when important events, sacrifices and ceremonies would take place.

At the beginning of each uinal (period of 20 days), day keepers and other members of the sacred elite would count forward to determine when religious and ceremonial events would occur. They would select the dates that would be the most effective for communion with the gods and propitious for sacred rites and activities.

The Tzolk’in calendar has essential spiritual, esoteric and social functions but it does not measure a solar year – the time it takes for the sun to complete a cycle. Instead, the Maya used another calendar, the Haab, to track the length of time that we consider to be a full year.

The Haab Calendar and the Calendar Round

The Haab calendar is based on the cycle of the sun and was used for civil, agricultural, accounting and administrative purposes. Like the Tzolk’in calendar, it’s also composed of uinals (periods of 20 days), and each day has its own glyph and number. However, instead of using 13 uinals for 260 days, the Haab calendar has 18 uinals, resulting in 360 days.

In the Haab calendar, the names of the month are:

Instead of every day, as with Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names change every 20 days: the day after 4 Zotz is 5 Zotz, followed by 6 Zotz … and so on up to 19 Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.

However, as 360 days does not represent a complete solar cycle, Maya astrologers and mathematicians added five “nameless days” known as the Wayeb. Sometimes referred to as a separate “month”, Wayeb is an inauspicious time with a reputation for bad luck and calamity. Also referred to as “days without souls” they were a time for prayer and mourning, with many daily activities, such as making fires and eating hot food curtailed.

The Calendar Round

The length of the Tzolk’in year was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that can be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Round. If a day is, for example, “4 Ahau 8 Cumku,” the next day falling on “4 Ahau 8 Cumku” would be 18,980 days or about 52 years later. A Calendar Round was roughly one lifetime.

The Long Count Calendar

As we see, Calendar Round dates record time in 52 solar days, or 18,980 day cycles. To measure, record and predict events over longer periods of time, the Mesoamericans developed the Long Count. Long Count dates are the ones usually recorded on monuments and stellae.

The basic unit of measurement in the Long Count is the day, or k’in. Twenty k’ins make a uinal, and eighteen uinals make a tun. Twenty tuns then make a k’tun, and twenty k’tuns are known as a b’ak’tun.

k’in = 1 day

uinal or winal = 20 k’in = 20 days (~month)

tun = 18 uinal = 360 days (~1 year)

k’atun = 20 tun = 7200 days (~20 years)

baktun = 20 k’atun = 144,000 days (~400 years)

The Long Count begins with a Maya creation date of 4 Ahaw, 8Kumkú, which translates as August 11, 3114 BC in the Georgian Calendar or September 6 of the same year in the Julian Calendar. But rather than employing a decimal, base-10 system as in western numbering, the Long Count uses a mixed base-20/base-18 scheme.

It is widely accepted that the Long Count’s “zero”, or creation date was August 11 3114BC, and that this marked the end of a previous world and the beginning of the current one, and it is further conjectured that the end of this current thirteenth b’ak’tun will fall on the Maya date 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21 2012.

This event has been given much attention in recent times and unfortunately has been subject to gross misinterpretations of Maya history and cosmology. Sensational films, television shows, internet exposure and other media present the end of the 13th b’ak’tun as “proof” of an impending apocalypse and global destruction. In fact, most serious Maya scholars and contemporary Maya daykeepers and other accepted spiritual and village leaders consider it to be simply the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another.

It is unknown what significance the classic Maya gave the 13th b’ak’tun, and most references to it in surviving inscriptions are simply historical markers, with no deep prophesies or predictions. However, we do know that the Maya had a profound regard for cosmological cycles and went to great pains to meticulously record and predict them. It can be supposed that the winter solstice of 2012 did have great import for the Maya, but many people feel it would be celebrated as a time of renewal and the beginning of a new era – much as we celebrate New Year’s, but with the significance and reverence for an event that occurs only once every 52,000 years.

The scramble to ride on the 2012 coattails is now officially on, and we’re being inundated with “new” Maya news each day when we open our internet browser.

As predicted, so-called experts, pundits and armchair archaeologists are now coming out of the woodwork to make the most of the 2012 phenomenon. Some of it is well intentioned, some of it is blather, and frankly some of it falls under the category of, “I blog, therefore I exist”.

While the flood of Maya information makes our job more enjoyable, it also increases the workload as we wade through an increasing amount of unsubstantiated reports. Because you never know – there may be a gem hidden among the dross and dreck.  But be prepared to waste some of your time.

One recent example is the much publicised “discovery” that the ancient Maya migrated north to escape whatever was bringing their civilisation to a close, and made it to the US southern state of Georgia, where they began rebuilding a new society among the peaches.

Seriously, when we first heard the reports our ears did pick up and we began digging deeper before mentioning it here and elsewhere. The initial reports were vaguely plausible, so with that necessary condiment, our ever-present grain of salt at hand, we went to work.

Here’s how it unfolded:

Reports began coming in that on December 21 2011, Richard Thornton, an architect and Maya researcher announced that an archaeological site near Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak, could well house the remnants of ancient Maya habitation. The furore, both for and against this claim was predictable; serious archaeologists almost immediately debunked the claim while other people began quoting it as an exciting new explanation for the sudden demise of the Maya empire.

This 3D virtual reality image was made from the Johannes Loubser site plan. There may be many other hidden structures in the ancient site. Credit: VR Image by Richard Thornton

Thornton also claimed that “like most Georgia and South Carolina Creeks, I carry a trace of Maya DNA,” and said that his ancestors came to North America fleeing “volcanic eruptions, wars, and drought.” This was all news to us.

Mark Williams, who led the team of geologists from the University of Georgia working at Brasstown Bald, was less than impressed by the claims, retorting that, “The Maya connection to legitimate Georgia archaeology is a wild and unsubstantiated guess on the part of the Thornton fellow. No archaeologists will defend this flight of fancy.”

In some of the reports, Williams was linked to the Thornton claims, so his pique is understandable.

Our own suspicions about the claims were raised by a few details. The reports were dated 21 December 2011, exactly one year before the pivotal Winter Solstice of 2012, and a time when many Maya tourism promotions and other attention-grabbers were launched. Another clue was the writing style of some of the earlier reports – sorry, they just didn’t have the sound of credibility one sees from, say, professional researchers or academics, and sources were sketchy at best.

But we persevered.

We carefully reviewed the arguments for the Maya migration to Georgia: linguistic similarities between the Maya and local US Native Americans, the arrival of corn in Florida, and other “evidence”. Sometimes the information was in a tidy layout, but the substance was a bit thin.

For example, here’s what one  website had to say:

When the Spanish first reached the Yucatan in Mexico they encountered a tribe called Maia (Maya) living in a province called Maiam. Could the Maya have been responsible for bringing corn to Florida?

The migration legend of one Native American tribe, the Hitchiti, suggests this is the case.

The Hitchiti migration legend reference to their ancestors coming from “reeds” suggests they were Maya who left a major city in Mexico and then arrived on the coast of Florida and temporarily settled near Lake Okeechobee before heading upstream and settling in Georgia “for a permanency.”

OK, the fact that the site carries advertising for “Dating Aztec Girls (Beautiful Blond. Short Skirt. High Heels. Discover Aztec Dating Now)” should have stopped us in our tracks, but it was one of the more presentable sites. Honestly.

So why do we mention this at all, you may ask?

As a cautionary tale. In the months to come, there is going to be more and more Maya news and features in the media, and while we are hoping – and expecting – that some new information will come to light, we are asking readers with a genuine interest in this fascinating history and civilisation to summon your inner sceptic when presented with information, ideas, theories and evidence throughout 2012. It may save you some embarrassment at the next cocktail party or gathering (Wow! Did you know that the ancient Maya…”) and, as we’ve always maintained, the true facts about the real Maya civilisation are much more fascinating than the fiction.

We’re not completely discounting that there may well be some connections between the Maya and North American indigenous tribes – far from it. We just hate to see real, credible research being overwhelmed by pet theories presented as fact.

Also, we’ve developed tremendous respect for this amazing civilisation and feel that the Maya name, history and culture has been misrepresented enough. That’s why we will be devoting so much time throughout 2012 to presenting some of the findings and theories coming out of the renewed interest in Maya culture, and this is why Chaa Creek will be hosting more workshops, seminars and lectures throughout the year while continuing to sponsor legitimate research.

So don’t worry – we’ll be posting some amazing, true stories that will be interesting, captivating and will hopefully kindle an interest in people to learn more about the amazing Maya civilisation and their impressive achievements.

We hope you look forward to it all as much as we do.

The Belize Maya Project was established as an online clearinghouse of credible information about the ancient Maya civilisation and to foster rational discussion and debate about Maya cosmology and how it relates to contemporary global society. We hope to show that the facts of the Maya are far more fascinating than the fiction surrounding this highly evolved, rich and enigmatic civilisation. 

Students, scholars, teachers, researchers, journalists, writers, Mayanists, amateurs and professionals in a variety of fields, and anyone who wishes to learn more and contribute towards understanding this fascinating, enigmatic culture.

The face of the Belize Maya Project is this website. It contains static pages dealing with topics such as history, culture, civilisation, and is further broken down into areas designed to grow with specific focuses such as agriculture, medicinal plants and healing, arts, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, empire and trade and other areas. We expect that, over time and with contributions from our colleagues in various disciplines, this site will grow into a valuable and dynamic resource.

While we welcome contributions, resource constraints demand that we adhere to a strict editorial policy (to be posted). Given the growing interest in Maya studies, and the fact that it is a subject attracting a wide range of thought, interpretations and theories, we can only post contributions from sources with accepted credentials in their fields. However, our forum pages will be open to, and welcome, a wide range of viewpoints and discussions, and our news and feature pages will adhere to our motto, “all the Maya news that fits” (with apologies to the New York Times).

In short, we welcome your contributions, expect lively debate, won’t shy away from the contentious and colourful, but will always operate under the banner of informative, credible, accurate and accountable.

A vital part of the Belize Maya Project is the exchange of information and ideas about the ancient Maya civilisation and the relevance of their worldview and cosmology to our contemporary society.

To bring some immediacy to the project, encourage new ideas and spark what we expect will be lively discussions, we will be hosting an online forum and blogging platform to be launched soon after the new year. While adhering to a straightforward editorial policy, we will welcome a variety of viewpoints and, at times, conflicting theories and debate.

If you have something to say on Maya issues, especially as they relate to 2012, and can say it clearly, concisely and without resorting to innuendo, offensive statements, defamation, or profanity, this is the place for you.

We’ll let you know when our moderator is back at the desk and ready. In the meantime, enjoy the site, and we look forward to hearing from you.

The Mesoamerica Maya team

The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Belize’s first eco resort and home of the Belize Natural History Centre, will be keeping thousands of years of local Maya culture and ritual alive when it hosts the 2012 Summer Solstice celebrations this week, marketing administrator Larry Waight said today.

“Chaa Creek is located in the centre of the Heartland of the Maya, and the Summer Solstice, which was a very important date, would have been celebrated at the ceremonial centres of nearby Xunantunich, Cahal Pech, Caracol and in Guatemala at Tikal, as well as at the Maya temple of Tunichilen in the Chaa Creek nature reserve. So our celebrations on June 20 represent a continuum encompassing thousands of years,” Mr Waight said.

The Summer Solstice, also considered to be the first day of summer, falls on June 20 in the northern hemisphere, making it the longest day of the year. Conversely June 20 in the southern hemisphere is the winter solstice, with the shortest day of the year.

While many cultures mark and celebrate the solstices, the ancient Maya, the most accomplished astronomers of ancient time, pin pointed it and other celestial events with astounding accuracy and charted the positions of planets and other celestial bodies well into the future.

“They would have had a very good idea of what our sky will look like on the evening of June 20 2012,” Mr Waight said and added that while any summer solstice would have been important to the ancient Maya, all celestial events during 2012 would have taken on an added significance.

“This would have been the last summer solstice of that cycle of the Maya Long Count, an event thousands of years in the making, so we can be certain that the Maya celebrations would have been extra exuberant, and we want to capture the respect and the excitement that would have been shown right here at Chaa Creek,” he said.

Mr Waight said the day would be marked with traditional Maya feasting featuring food from the Maya Organic farm, and activities including a wide-ranging presentation by Chaa Creek’s resident Mayanist and Belizean anthropologist Joe Awe.

Mr Awe said he will discuss the summer solstice in context of the Maya cosmology, spiritual beliefs and social structure so as to present a comprehensive picture of ancient Maya civilization while explaining the significance of the summer solstice.

“It’s a great opportunity to talk about all aspects of the ancient Maya culture and if the last presentation was anything to go by, we expect a lively Q and A session and audience participation,” Mr Awe said, “It’s an event I personally, along with many Maya people in Belize and the region, have been looking forward to, especially as it leads up to the huge Winter Solstice of December 21, 2012, he said.

As reported here earlier, members of Belizean Maya villages have raising concerns in the international community over what they see as yet another serious threat to their culture and livelihood through the illegal logging of rosewood from rainforests in Belize’s Toledo District.

And this time we’re happy to report some good news – The Belizean Government earlier this month banned the harvesting and export of rosewood with immediate effect from March 16, 2012.

A government statement said that the moratorium would go into effect immediately “to carry out an orderly assessment of the situation on the ground and as a first response to regulate the timber trade occurring in southern Belize.”

The statement added that the moratorium was the first step in instituting “a rigorous regulatory framework throughout the country.” To protect this endangered and highly sought after hardwood.

Rosewood has been integral to the life of the Maya of Belize for thousands of years. The beautiful timber has a range of traditional uses, from ceremonial marimbas and other musical instruments, day-to-day implements and for the sturdy posts that literally support their homes. Through sustainable harvesting methods developed over millennia and the practice of the unique Maya Forest Garden, the Maya have been able to make use of this rainforest resource while ensuring its long term survival.

However, global demand combined with problems in enforcing Belize’s commendable environmental protection legislation has put the timber under serious threat.

The international trade of Brazilian rosewood is now banned under the  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and with traditional suppliers such as Brazil no longer supplying the market, there is increasing pressure on Belizean, or  Honduran Rosewood (Dalbergia stevensonii), especially for the manufacture of guitars and other instruments.

Given this scenario, some overseas companies have intensified efforts to stay one step ahead of environmental protection in a bid to secure as much of the precious timber as possible while they can. This has led to logging in prohibited areas and the harvesting of undersized trees.

As we reported last July 2011, tensions came to a head in Belize’s Toledo district, leading to a meeting on August 4, 2011, between the Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), Belize’s Chief Forest Officer and other Forest Department staff.

At that time, the forestry department reported that some 60,000 board feet of rosewood had been legally extracted over the past 18 months, largely for exportation to China, and acknowledged that illegal logging remains a growing problem.

Southern Belize is the home of the very last Belizean stocks of rosewood, and it is here that the battle for the timber’s survival is being waged.  High incidences of both legal and illicit logging combined with slash and burn agriculture, usually conducted by illegal settlers who freely cross the porous border, continue to erode the remaining stocks of timber.  Belize now has the third highest rate of deforestation in Central America.

In addition to rosewood, other endangered tree species such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), cedar (Cedrela odorata) and fiddlewood (Vitex gaumeri) are also in greater demand and being logged legally and illegally.

The problem of rosewood extraction has been compounded by grey areas in Maya communal land ownership in Belize. On one hand, Belize’s Supreme Court has identified certain lands as being Maya communal property. On the other hand, the current government of Belize is appealing that ruling. This has led to a situation where Forest Department officials are reluctant to monitor and enforce logging laws on Maya land, while Maya leaders, with no clear legal title to their land, are powerless to stop what they see as the degradation of their traditional rainforest resources.

On March 13th 2012 Belizean conservationist Lisel Alamilla was appointed by the newly elected Belize Government as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Sustainable Development.

Ms Alamilla was formerly Director of the southern Belize-based Ya’axché Conservation Trust, which had been lobbying for such a moratorium. The Trust has also been alerting the public to the widespread harvesting of immature trees which it said was one more indication that rosewood numbers had fallen to a critical level.

While MLA spokespeople were unavailable for comment after the announcement of the moratorium, Gregory Ch’oc, director of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) said,” We recognize this as the first positive and assertive step in mitigating the environmental crisis caused by the unregulated harvesting of rosewood in Toledo, which has threatened the survival of the hardwood species in Belize and potentially increases the negative impacts of climate change on our region. It is important that we jointly put into place rigorous and long-term measures that will ensure a healthy forest and the sustainable continuity of our forest resources.”

In light of the uncertainty of Maya communal land ownership, the moratorium seems to represent the best defence of Belize’s remaining rosewood trees until an inventory of existing stocks, projected rates of regrowth, community consultation and other factors are compiled.

However, there are Maya communities that did gain legal recognition of their traditional lands in previous court cases, and they are actively working towards rosewood sustainability.

The Maya village of Conejo, for example, has established an internationally recognised program of community-based sustainable forest management that holds promise for other villages.

Conejo villagers conducted an inventory of rosewood within their communal territory and have identified a specific number of trees large enough for harvesting each year. This strategy provides some needed income for the village while sustaining the forest cover and continued viability of the species.

However – and it is a big however – due to the decimation of rosewood elsewhere, other villages may not have enough trees left to institute and maintain such a strategy, at least not for the hundred years or so  it will take for the slow growing rosewood stocks to be re-established.

So while there are fears that the moratorium may be a case of too little too late, the move has been widely welcomed by local and international environmental organisations including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

We will continue to monitor the situation in southern Belize, and look forward to seeing continued cooperation between the government, NGOs, private sector and concerned individuals to protect Belize’s incredibly diverse yet fragile ecosystem while ensuring that Belize’s earliest inhabitants and longest serving land stewards, the Maya, continue to have their voices heard.

Findings from new research into the dramatic collapse of the ancient Maya Empire that covered Belize and much of the neighbouring region pose warnings we should heed now, Chaa Creek owner and environmental studies coordinator Mick Fleming said today.

The recent report prepared by researchers from the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research and the UK’s University of Southampton ,and published in the journal Science suggest that the drought widely considered to play a significant role in the sudden decline of the ancient Maya civilisation was more moderate than previously thought.

And the findings may have relevance for us today, with predictions that even drier conditions worldwide are expected in the coming years due to climate change, the scientists said last week.

The study led by Martín Medina-Elizalde and Eelco Rohling examined lake and cave sediments to gauge past rainfall and found that a 40% drop in rainfall occurred in the Maya region in Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan from about 800 to 1,000 AD – less of a decline than previously thought.

“What seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems … Today, we have the benefit of awareness, and we should act accordingly,” Mr Medina-Elizalde said, and added, “Let’s imagine that today, from one year to another, major cities can no longer supply fresh water to a third of their populations. “

Medina-Elizalde said that current models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that there could be annual rainfall reductions of up to 50% in the Yucatan Peninsula by the end of this century.

“Some climate models suggest that local vegetation does contribute to increase rainfall significantly … which would suggest that by preserving the forests, we are mitigating the impacts of climate change,” he said. “Definitely, local governments need to start making serious efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change in light of the forecast for the next decades.”

Mr Fleming said that such findings were important for Belize, where forest cover, estimated at over 75% in the 1980 and then 62% in 2010, is disappearing at a rate of 0.6% a year, according to NASA and other studies. “In the coming years, there will be increasing pressure to log these areas, and we already have a major problem with illegal logging practices. Here at Chaa Creek we maintain a 365 acre private nature reserve and strive to make people aware that our rainforest resources are not something that should be exploited for short term gain by a few, but are a vital part of the world’s ecosystem that must be safeguarded for everyone’s benefit.

“Rather than people being worried about unsubstantiated and frankly harebrained Maya predictions about the end of the world, this sort of legitimate research shows that there are some very real lessons to be learned from the ancient Maya, and we ignore them at our peril,” Mr Fleming said.

###

The Maya were remarkable mathematicians and astrologers, and certainly some of history’s most proficient, accurate keepers of time. To appreciate the Maya concept of time, It is important to understand the different calendar systems they developed and how they were used.

The Tzolk’in or Sacred Round calendar consists of a 260 day cycle. This calendar is composed of 20 day names, each represented by a distinctive symbol, or glyph, and thirteen “tones”, arranged in sequential numerical order from one to thirteen.

The Tzolk’in calendar cycle begins with the first day name, Imix’ and tone number one. The days then continue with a combination of the next day name, Ik’ and the number two, and then the day name Ak’b'al combined with the number three and so on, the day names and tones continuing to combine in that order until 13 tones are used.

After the arrival of day 13, denoted as Bén and aligned to the number 13, the days begin again with the 14th glyph, Ix’ and the number one. The rotation through the series of the tones and glyphs in this manner results in 260 unique combinations of a day name and tone – hence the 260 day cycle.

It is useful to think of the Tzolk’in as two intermeshing gears, one inside the other, with the 13 numerals marked at intervals around the smaller gear set inside a larger one that is marked with day names denoted by glyphs. If you arrange those gears together at the number one and the day name Imix’, and then rotate them, continuing around to the number one and Imix’ again, you will produce 260 combinations of unique days. The “teeth” of the gears revolve and mesh until the final combination clicks into place at 13 Ajaw, marking the end of the year.

It is safe to say, and with no pun intended, that Maya life revolved around the Tzolk’in calendar. As with modern belief in astrology, the Maya believed that a person’s birth date determines their personal and spiritual characteristics as well as their place in society. The Tzolk’in calendar was also of primary importance in determining the most auspicious dates for every aspect of Maya life and to determine the specific dates for when important events, sacrifices and ceremonies would take place.

At the beginning of each uinal (period of 20 days), day keepers and other members of the sacred elite would count forward to determine when religious and ceremonial events would occur. They would select the dates that would be the most effective for communion with the gods and propitious for sacred rites and activities.

The Tzolk’in calendar has essential spiritual, esoteric and social functions but it does not measure a solar year – the time it takes for the sun to complete a cycle. Instead, the Maya used another calendar, the Haab, to track the length of time that we consider to be a full year.

The Haab Calendar and the Calendar Round

The Haab calendar is based on the cycle of the sun and was used for civil, agricultural, accounting and administrative purposes. Like the Tzolk’in calendar, it’s also composed of uinals (periods of 20 days), and each day has its own glyph and number. However, instead of using 13 uinals for 260 days, the Haab calendar has 18 uinals, resulting in 360 days.

In the Haab calendar, the names of the month are:

Instead of every day, as with Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names change every 20 days: the day after 4 Zotz is 5 Zotz, followed by 6 Zotz … and so on up to 19 Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.

However, as 360 days does not represent a complete solar cycle, Maya astrologers and mathematicians added five “nameless days” known as the Wayeb. Sometimes referred to as a separate “month”, Wayeb is an inauspicious time with a reputation for bad luck and calamity. Also referred to as “days without souls” they were a time for prayer and mourning, with many daily activities, such as making fires and eating hot food curtailed.

The Calendar Round

The length of the Tzolk’in year was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that can be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Round. If a day is, for example, “4 Ahau 8 Cumku,” the next day falling on “4 Ahau 8 Cumku” would be 18,980 days or about 52 years later. A Calendar Round was roughly one lifetime.

The Long Count Calendar

As we see, Calendar Round dates record time in 52 solar days, or 18,980 day cycles. To measure, record and predict events over longer periods of time, the Mesoamericans developed the Long Count. Long Count dates are the ones usually recorded on monuments and stellae.

The basic unit of measurement in the Long Count is the day, or k’in. Twenty k’ins make a uinal, and eighteen uinals make a tun. Twenty tuns then make a k’tun, and twenty k’tuns are known as a b’ak’tun.

k’in = 1 day

uinal or winal = 20 k’in = 20 days (~month)

tun = 18 uinal = 360 days (~1 year)

k’atun = 20 tun = 7200 days (~20 years)

baktun = 20 k’atun = 144,000 days (~400 years)

The Long Count begins with a Maya creation date of 4 Ahaw, 8Kumkú, which translates as August 11, 3114 BC in the Georgian Calendar or September 6 of the same year in the Julian Calendar. But rather than employing a decimal, base-10 system as in western numbering, the Long Count uses a mixed base-20/base-18 scheme.

It is widely accepted that the Long Count’s “zero”, or creation date was August 11 3114BC, and that this marked the end of a previous world and the beginning of the current one, and it is further conjectured that the end of this current thirteenth b’ak’tun will fall on the Maya date 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21 2012.

This event has been given much attention in recent times and unfortunately has been subject to gross misinterpretations of Maya history and cosmology. Sensational films, television shows, internet exposure and other media present the end of the 13th b’ak’tun as “proof” of an impending apocalypse and global destruction. In fact, most serious Maya scholars and contemporary Maya daykeepers and other accepted spiritual and village leaders consider it to be simply the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another.

It is unknown what significance the classic Maya gave the 13th b’ak’tun, and most references to it in surviving inscriptions are simply historical markers, with no deep prophesies or predictions. However, we do know that the Maya had a profound regard for cosmological cycles and went to great pains to meticulously record and predict them. It can be supposed that the winter solstice of 2012 did have great import for the Maya, but many people feel it would be celebrated as a time of renewal and the beginning of a new era – much as we celebrate New Year’s, but with the significance and reverence for an event that occurs only once every 52,000 years.

The scramble to ride on the 2012 coattails is now officially on, and we’re being inundated with “new” Maya news each day when we open our internet browser.

As predicted, so-called experts, pundits and armchair archaeologists are now coming out of the woodwork to make the most of the 2012 phenomenon. Some of it is well intentioned, some of it is blather, and frankly some of it falls under the category of, “I blog, therefore I exist”.

While the flood of Maya information makes our job more enjoyable, it also increases the workload as we wade through an increasing amount of unsubstantiated reports. Because you never know – there may be a gem hidden among the dross and dreck.  But be prepared to waste some of your time.

One recent example is the much publicised “discovery” that the ancient Maya migrated north to escape whatever was bringing their civilisation to a close, and made it to the US southern state of Georgia, where they began rebuilding a new society among the peaches.

Seriously, when we first heard the reports our ears did pick up and we began digging deeper before mentioning it here and elsewhere. The initial reports were vaguely plausible, so with that necessary condiment, our ever-present grain of salt at hand, we went to work.

Here’s how it unfolded:

Reports began coming in that on December 21 2011, Richard Thornton, an architect and Maya researcher announced that an archaeological site near Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak, could well house the remnants of ancient Maya habitation. The furore, both for and against this claim was predictable; serious archaeologists almost immediately debunked the claim while other people began quoting it as an exciting new explanation for the sudden demise of the Maya empire.

This 3D virtual reality image was made from the Johannes Loubser site plan. There may be many other hidden structures in the ancient site. Credit: VR Image by Richard Thornton

Thornton also claimed that “like most Georgia and South Carolina Creeks, I carry a trace of Maya DNA,” and said that his ancestors came to North America fleeing “volcanic eruptions, wars, and drought.” This was all news to us.

Mark Williams, who led the team of geologists from the University of Georgia working at Brasstown Bald, was less than impressed by the claims, retorting that, “The Maya connection to legitimate Georgia archaeology is a wild and unsubstantiated guess on the part of the Thornton fellow. No archaeologists will defend this flight of fancy.”

In some of the reports, Williams was linked to the Thornton claims, so his pique is understandable.

Our own suspicions about the claims were raised by a few details. The reports were dated 21 December 2011, exactly one year before the pivotal Winter Solstice of 2012, and a time when many Maya tourism promotions and other attention-grabbers were launched. Another clue was the writing style of some of the earlier reports – sorry, they just didn’t have the sound of credibility one sees from, say, professional researchers or academics, and sources were sketchy at best.

But we persevered.

We carefully reviewed the arguments for the Maya migration to Georgia: linguistic similarities between the Maya and local US Native Americans, the arrival of corn in Florida, and other “evidence”. Sometimes the information was in a tidy layout, but the substance was a bit thin.

For example, here’s what one  website had to say:

When the Spanish first reached the Yucatan in Mexico they encountered a tribe called Maia (Maya) living in a province called Maiam. Could the Maya have been responsible for bringing corn to Florida?

The migration legend of one Native American tribe, the Hitchiti, suggests this is the case.

The Hitchiti migration legend reference to their ancestors coming from “reeds” suggests they were Maya who left a major city in Mexico and then arrived on the coast of Florida and temporarily settled near Lake Okeechobee before heading upstream and settling in Georgia “for a permanency.”

OK, the fact that the site carries advertising for “Dating Aztec Girls (Beautiful Blond. Short Skirt. High Heels. Discover Aztec Dating Now)” should have stopped us in our tracks, but it was one of the more presentable sites. Honestly.

So why do we mention this at all, you may ask?

As a cautionary tale. In the months to come, there is going to be more and more Maya news and features in the media, and while we are hoping – and expecting – that some new information will come to light, we are asking readers with a genuine interest in this fascinating history and civilisation to summon your inner sceptic when presented with information, ideas, theories and evidence throughout 2012. It may save you some embarrassment at the next cocktail party or gathering (Wow! Did you know that the ancient Maya…”) and, as we’ve always maintained, the true facts about the real Maya civilisation are much more fascinating than the fiction.

We’re not completely discounting that there may well be some connections between the Maya and North American indigenous tribes – far from it. We just hate to see real, credible research being overwhelmed by pet theories presented as fact.

Also, we’ve developed tremendous respect for this amazing civilisation and feel that the Maya name, history and culture has been misrepresented enough. That’s why we will be devoting so much time throughout 2012 to presenting some of the findings and theories coming out of the renewed interest in Maya culture, and this is why Chaa Creek will be hosting more workshops, seminars and lectures throughout the year while continuing to sponsor legitimate research.

So don’t worry – we’ll be posting some amazing, true stories that will be interesting, captivating and will hopefully kindle an interest in people to learn more about the amazing Maya civilisation and their impressive achievements.

We hope you look forward to it all as much as we do.

The Belize Maya Project was established as an online clearinghouse of credible information about the ancient Maya civilisation and to foster rational discussion and debate about Maya cosmology and how it relates to contemporary global society. We hope to show that the facts of the Maya are far more fascinating than the fiction surrounding this highly evolved, rich and enigmatic civilisation. 

Students, scholars, teachers, researchers, journalists, writers, Mayanists, amateurs and professionals in a variety of fields, and anyone who wishes to learn more and contribute towards understanding this fascinating, enigmatic culture.

The face of the Belize Maya Project is this website. It contains static pages dealing with topics such as history, culture, civilisation, and is further broken down into areas designed to grow with specific focuses such as agriculture, medicinal plants and healing, arts, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, empire and trade and other areas. We expect that, over time and with contributions from our colleagues in various disciplines, this site will grow into a valuable and dynamic resource.

While we welcome contributions, resource constraints demand that we adhere to a strict editorial policy (to be posted). Given the growing interest in Maya studies, and the fact that it is a subject attracting a wide range of thought, interpretations and theories, we can only post contributions from sources with accepted credentials in their fields. However, our forum pages will be open to, and welcome, a wide range of viewpoints and discussions, and our news and feature pages will adhere to our motto, “all the Maya news that fits” (with apologies to the New York Times).

In short, we welcome your contributions, expect lively debate, won’t shy away from the contentious and colourful, but will always operate under the banner of informative, credible, accurate and accountable.

A vital part of the Belize Maya Project is the exchange of information and ideas about the ancient Maya civilisation and the relevance of their worldview and cosmology to our contemporary society.

To bring some immediacy to the project, encourage new ideas and spark what we expect will be lively discussions, we will be hosting an online forum and blogging platform to be launched soon after the new year. While adhering to a straightforward editorial policy, we will welcome a variety of viewpoints and, at times, conflicting theories and debate.

If you have something to say on Maya issues, especially as they relate to 2012, and can say it clearly, concisely and without resorting to innuendo, offensive statements, defamation, or profanity, this is the place for you.

We’ll let you know when our moderator is back at the desk and ready. In the meantime, enjoy the site, and we look forward to hearing from you.

The Mesoamerica Maya team