The Mayan Calendar

In the technological discovery of the Mayan Calendar; which has been in use since the 1st Century BC and is still in use today, the coding and de-coding of key dates and times from Gregorian to Mayan, or vice versa, and how theses dates are coded are all obstacles that have been faced. Although, the process does impose quite a few restrictions upon whoever is trying to decipher it. With this being said, the Mayan’s created a very technical and in-depth process for figuring out the day, month and year; something that we take for granted in this vast and ever-growing technological age.

The Mayan Calendar, which originated from ancient Maya (now Mexico and Central America) helped create the building blocks for many of the calendars used around
[www.timeanddate.com/calendar/mayan.html, accessed 15th August] It is clear almost immediately the restrictions that this type of coding and deciphering has upon the people who have to de-code it. The system is very intricate and detailed, and one wrong move may ‘throw off’ the calendar, allowing for the dates to ‘drift’ and become less reliable. This system of date telling was adopted by many other civilisations, and the basis of the Gregorian calendar systems. We can relate this progression to Neil Postman’s 5 principles of technological change, especially points 1 and 5, [www.students.cs.waterloo.ca/~cs494/papers/neil=postman-five-things.html, accessed 16th August] as well as a quote spoken by him about the subject in an essay entitled Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change, written in 1998. In summary, Postman theorised that humanity witnessed technological change like ‘sleep walkers’ and that we have made us susceptible “to
The forever-changing industrial scene has seen constant change in the fabric of what we call ‘modern’. Through coding, codification and deciphering of different forms of technology, be it modern or otherwise, we are able to understand how language and different forms of communication are decoded, including the Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar is also a prime example of humanity’s need to make everything as simple as possible, so it is easily digested by a large group of people; i.e. modern people simplifying the Mayan calendar to the Gregorian method. The desired use of the Gregorian calendar instead of the Mayan also shows humanity’s keen ability towards creating media that is best suited to them, and can be consumed in the easiest form. The evolution of the calendar is a great example of how different codes are translated into what we digest every