Tales of the Maya Skies

Grammy Award winner and Oscar nominee, Lila Downs, narrates, as Tales of the Maya Skies brings us back to the ancient jungles of Mexico, where the Maya built cities and temples aligned to movements of the Sun, Moon and planets. Over many years they observed and documented astronomical events with great accuracy. The Maya made sense of an ever-changing world by observing, recording and predicting natural events such as solstices, solar eclipses, weather patterns, and planetary movements. These observations, in combination with a sophisticated mathematical system, allowed them to develop a precise calendar system; their measurements of the length of the solar year were more accurate than measurements the Europeans used as the basis of the Gregorian calendar. The Maya also predicted eclipses, were able to forecast seasonal change and developed the concept of mathematical zero, enabling them to predict events into the future.