The second pyramid of time is a nine-level one. This one complements the first pyramid by describing a process of increasing acceleration in time that runs parallel to the wave of history. It is constructed by equating nine different sized cycles of the calendar with each of the nine stories. This is more ambitious than the description of just the thirteen-baktun cycle contained in the previous pyramid.

This pyramid represents, according to Calleman, nothing less than a description of time from the beginning of the universe. The bottom level is a vast cycle of time equal to thirteen hablatuns. Each hablatun is 1.26 billion years, so this cycle is 16.4 billion years long. As the pyramid is climbed, both the length of the cycles and the size of the steps become progressively smaller. At the same time, each step also represents a stage in evolution, so that as evolution progresses, it happens in increasingly smaller periods of time.

The closer we come to the end of the calendar, the quicker the shifts happen. For example, the first level establishes the material elements of the universe. The second level of 820 million years marks the beginning of life. The start of the thirteenth baktun, on the sixth level, sees the establishment of written language. The seventh evolutionary leap, the era of industrialization, happens in just thirteen katuns, or 256 years. We have now reached the eighth level of the pyramid. This corresponds to the last thirteen tuns of the calendar. This is the period of just 12.8 years that we are now living in. The last cycle before we reach the top happens in the final 260 days and equates to the 260-day cycle of the Tzolkin.

In Mayan mythology, in addition to the gods of the Thirteen Heavens, there are also the nine gods of the underworld. Each level corresponds to a Lord of the underworld, so Calleman calls them underworlds. We are currently in the eighth or galactic underworld, in which Calleman sees the advent of telepathy and a transcending of the material framework of life. This will be followed by the brief universal underworld of 260 days that represents the evolution of cosmic consciousness and transcendence into timelessness. In this structure, all levels of the pyramid are added cumulatively until the highest level of creation is reached.

The nine-level pyramid of the underworlds

Back to the Big Bang

The inspiration for the pyramid of time comes from a remarkable Mayan inscription found at the site of Coba. The carving on this monument records a huge number of cycles, all of which are numbered thirteen. It goes beyond the thirteen-baktun count to include numbers hundreds of millions of times bigger than the known age of the universe. From this, Calleman speculates that we are seeing a temporal scale with increasing stages of acceleration.

Calleman's model uses the nine time cycles within this inscription that have been given names. The total time span of these cycles adds up to 16.4 billion years. This is approximately the current age of the universe, according to the big bang theory. Most estimates suggest this happened about 13.7 billion years ago. This, Calleman suggests, means the Maya actually knew about the big bang and that the monument records this fact. This, unfortunately, ignores the fact that the names of the cycles are not actually from the Maya, but conventions that have been suggested by modern academic researchers.

Critiques of the Theory

It seems much more likely that the monument at Coba was intended to express the idea of a number so vast that it was beyond comprehension. The sheer size of the inscription is definitely suggestive of the idea that the Maya recognized infinite cycles of time beyond the ability to count. It's an enlightening insight into the Mayan philosophy of time, but not really proof that the Maya calendar refers explicitly to the big bang.

The appeal of Calleman's pyramid is that it shows a model of how time may be accelerating. This gives a framework for interpreting the trends of history in a way that may prove insightful. There are, however, further complications in the detail of this theory.

It ignores the fact that the cycles of the Mayan calendar are very much based around the 360-day unit of the tun. This is very significant because Mayan numbers usually jump by a factor of twenty. However, when the tuns in the Mayan calendar are counted, this rule is broken. This is almost certainly because of a desire to capture the 360-day cycle of the sacred year in the count of days. At this point, it jumps eighteen — the number of the uinals of the year — rather than the usual twenty. This would make a pyramid with one different sized step.

Outside of Astronomical Time

The tun is very inconvenient for Calleman's theory that the Mayan calendar is specifically measuring something other than a physical measure of time. It is very much associated with a year and it is a fundamental unit of the calendar. In spite of this, Calleman claims that the Long Count does not measure astronomical time at all, but the spiritual evolution of humanity in its path toward enlightenment. He even goes as far as to say that it is not really a physical calendar at all. For him, the loss of the Long Count and its replacement by the calendar round in the postclassic period was responsible for a fall into materialistic consciousness. In his view, it is the Mayan calendar alone that has the true cosmic blueprint encoded in it.