Another important source of information on the Mayans is the writings of Father Diego de Landa, who went to Mexico as a missionary in 1549. In fact, much of what we know about this culture comes from their calendar records and astronomy data. The calendar, and calculations related to it, were thus very important to the ritual life of the priestly class, and hence the Mayan people. This class of priests developed a philosophy with time as divine and eternal. The Mayans had a sophisticated ritual system that was overseen by a priestly class. The Yucatan Peninsula (see figure 16 ) in Mexico was the scene for the development of one of the most advanced civilizations of the ancient world. The Mayan civilization is generally dated from 1500 BCE to 1700 CE. In this chapter, we wrap up with a specific example of a civilization that actually used a base system other than 10. The Babylonians used a base-sixty (sexigesimal) system. For example, the Natives of Queensland used a base-two system, counting as follows: “one, two, two and one, two two’s, much.” Some Modern South American Tribes have a base-five system counting in this way: “one, two, three, four, hand, hand and one, hand and two,” and so on. However, other civilizations have had a variety of bases other than ten. Our own base-ten system probably arose from the fact that we have 10 fingers (including thumbs) on two hands.
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