I've been googling and all I can find regarding the subject are statements like "their developments required complex measurement and calculations " and " they used two sticks in the form of a cross, viewing astronomical objects through the right angle formed by the sticks." , or just an explanation of their number system.
What confuses me is how they were able to achieve all this without using multiplication and division, as this indicates: "Mayans almost certainly did not have methods of multiplication for their numbers and definitely did not use division of numbers. Yet the Mayan number system is certainly capable of being used for the operations of multiplication and division"
My question is if there're any theorems/equations still around indicating how they were able to do, well, math, without operations we take for granted? Also if they had their own ways of calculation that might've been different from ours. For instance (this being a simple example), if they had their own way to find area/diameter/circumference of objects? What was the extent of their understanding of the subject?
If you could just point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated!
I answered a similar question a while ago which I think you should check out. The short answer is that they did absolutely have multiplication, division, and other more complex mathematics. It's hard to pin down exactly where the limit of their mathematical knowledge was since the records are so fragmentary, but we know they did have a rather complex understanding of math. I'd be happy to elaborate here on any follow-up questions you have.