Looking at it quickly it seems that 819 might be the number that lets the multiplier be as small as possible, since they are saying that all planets fit in a 45 year timeline I assume all mutipliers are smaller than 45..maybe that's the most handy form of optimization for their uses? Both number remain quite small, compared to 18*273.
> They noted that for Mercury, the synod period is 117 days, which, when multiplied by seven, equals 819
So for Mercury the multiplier is 1/7. Doesn't look very convenient.
It would be more natural to use 117 as the magic number.
Of course, convinience depends on their arithmetics. Looking from our decimal system perspective could be misleading.
I was thinking maybe smaller divider can produce meaningless results with some multipliers (e.g. 117 *5 predicts nothing, no planet has this period). While every multiple of 819 predicts something. But I doubt that's the case.
The authors of the hypothesis shоuld address these questions.
Maybe the Mayans didn’t know of Mercury existence.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun in our Solar System. Because it is so close to the Sun, it is only observable in the early morning, just before sunrise, or at dusk.
Most cultures choose values like this based on their aggregate interactions with observable natural phenomena over a period of some generations. It’s too bad Spanish invaders wiped out much of anything that might help discern what that might have been for this culture
