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THE MAYAN CALENDAR 43
does not correspond to any of the cyclic motions of either the sun,
the moon, or any known planet or comet.
When the radiocarbon dating method was introduced, the archaeologists
were sure that in no time all the mysteries of the
Mayan calendar would be solved. Carbon dating seemed tailormade
for this purpose because all Mayan temples had heavy
wooden beams made from a tree called "sapodilla," which has a
rich latex content and does not rot. Also insects do not affect this
evergreen which is now cultivated to produce chicle, the main
ingredient of chewing gum. Furthermore, all inscriptions on
Mayan temples mark the exact date according to Mayan calendar
when they were built. The Mayas used the vigesimal counting
by 20, with a dash and dot system. The numbers were
represented by an eye that had the value of zero, a dot that
counted for i, and a dash that counted for 5. As the carbon-dating
system was thought to be at that time very reliable, all that
supposedly had to be done to bring our calendar and the unknown
Mayan calendar into accord was to take a sliver of
sapodilla wood from the beam of the temple, find out by its radioactive
carbon content how old it was, and then compare its age
with the inscribed Mayan date on the lintel of the temple.
In the middle of the tropical jungle of Guatemala stands the
magnificent Mayan temple of Tikal built in year indicated thus:
one dash, four dots, three dashes, two dashes, one eye, and one
more eye—which in our numbers would mean 9 15 10 00 or the
Mayan year nine baktuns, fifteen katuns, ten tuns, zero months,
zero days, or about 3,900 of our years since the last start of the
Mayan long calendar.
The Spinden team estimated this date to be a.d. 481, but the
Thompson team insisted that it was the year a.d. 741. Carbon
dating was to resolve the dispute and everybody went down to
Tikal to obtain fresh samples of the old temple lintel for the laboratory
where it was to be tested by the newest, most precise
methods of radiocarbon dating.
The first results obtained from burning the Tikal sapodilla
slivers indicated that the Spinden group was right, but later tests
with a greater number of samples proved finally that the Thompson
group was the winner. All were satisfied because each team
had won one set of the match, but the mystery of the Mayan cal-