Mayan astronomy is one of the most significant in history. For this renowned civilization, the observation of the stars was an activity of great importance, since it allowed them not only to know their influence on the world, but also to develop physically and spiritually. Thanks to their cyclical conception of history, their calculations and studies of the celestial bodies, the Mayans managed to leave such valuable information for society that even today, its precision never ceases to amaze the most studious.
The Mayans were a Mesoamerican civilizationthat is to say that they were found in different regions to the south of Mexico, a large part of the Guatemalan territory, Belize, and the west of Honduras and El Salvador. At the time, the priestly class was in charge of building and protecting Mayan astronomical knowledgebut respect for this discipline was typical of the entire community, they even governed their lives with data obtained according to their predictions.
The milky way was the center of his research into the cosmos, in their dialect this is called «Wakah Chan». The celestial bodies were closely linked to the Gods, for this reason the study of the sun, the moon and the planet Venus (visible from earth) gave them a certain power, since they could calculate the days of eclipse and the movements of the planet of the system aforementioned sun.
But it is important to mention that for the Mayans the planet Venus was the most representative, For this reason, it is believed that this civilization obtained more information about this planet than any other society at the time. His studies, managed to know that it takes 584 days to coincide with the planet earth in relation to the position of the sun, in addition that it takes 2922 days for Venus, the sun and the earth to coincide in terms of their position.
Their calendars are one of the greatest treasures we have as a modern society., since this wonderful civilization managed to establish cycles, in which universal facts or events that have been recorded to date can be seen. In the same way, they managed to structure a zodiac with information taken from the passage of the sun through the different fixed constellations.
Astronomy as a tool had so much influence on them, who even came to build different structures in order to represent celestial phenomena that took place here on earth. That is why in the pyramid of Chichen Itzá the descent of Kukulkan is clearly observed, a snake formed by the shadow that is created at the vertices of the structure at the solstices. And in addition to this interesting fact, the steps of the pyramid are 365, which were built to represent the days of the year.
There is no doubt that Mayan astronomy is one of the most recognized worldwide, for his exact and wonderful contributions to current life. Even the Mayan calendar became, despite its complexity, the most specific that was known until the appearance of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century.