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The Maya calendar is a system of complex and highly developed calendars created by the Maya Civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This series of calendars, includes a sacred 260-day calendar, called the Tzolkin or Tzolk'in, a 365-day calendar called the Haab, and a 52-Haab cycle called the Calendar Round, which synchronised the Tzolkin and Haab cycles. The Maya are people of southern Mexico and northern Central America (Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and El Salvador) with some 3,000 years of history. ...
Mesoamerica is the region extending from central Mexico south to the northwestern border of Costa Rica that gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before the European discovery of the New World by Columbus. ...
A calendar is a system for naming periods of time, typically days. ...
Tzolkin is the 260-day sacred calendar of the Maya. ...
Haab is the 365-day calendar of the Maya civilization. ...
In the Mesoamerican calendars, Calendar Round dates are composed by interlacing the dates of the Tzolkin 260 day period (eg the Tzolkin) with that of the 365 day period (known in the Maya language as the Haab). ...
Importance of time in the Maya culture
The Maya believed that time was cyclical instead of the western conception of linear time. This means that they thought that time repeated itself, so therefore, if they knew the past they could predict the future. This concept of was embodied by what is termed Najt, or the concept of time and space consisting a single entity represented in a spiral format. By understanding time, the Maya believed they could gain power over their world. 8:17 am, August 6, 1945, Japanese time. ...
Tzolkin The Tzolkin calendar combines twenty day names with thirteen numbers to produce 260 unique days. It was used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events and for divination. Each successive day was numbered from 1 up to 13 and then starting again at 1. Separately from this, each day was given a name in sequence from a list of 20 day names: - Imix
- Ik
- Akbal
- Kan
- Chicchan
- Cimi
- Manik
- Lamat
- Muluc
- Oc
- Chuen
- Eb
- Ben
- Ix
- Men
- Cib
- Caban
- Etznab
- Caunac
- Ahau
The system started with 1 Imix, which was followed by 2 Ik, 3 Akbal and so on up to 13 Ben. The day numbers then started again at 1, so there were 1 Ix, 2 Men, 3 Cib, 4 Caban, 5 Etznap, 6 Caunac, and 7 Ahau. The day names then started again, so the next day was 8 Imix. The full cycle of every possible day number with every possible day name took 260 days.
Divination The Maya believed that each day of the Tzolkin had a character that influenced events. The Maya had a shaman-priest, whose name meant day keeper, that read the Tzolkin to predict the future. When a child was born, the day keeper would interpret the Tzolkin cycle to predict the baby’s destiny. For example, a child born on the day of Akabal was thought to be feminine, wealthy, verbally skillful, and possibly a liar, cheat or complainer. The birthday of Ak’abal was also thought to give the child the ability to communicate with the supernatural world, so he or she might become a shaman-priest or a marriage spokesman. In the Maya highlands, babies were even named after the day on which they were born. The shaman is an intellectual and spiritual figure who is regarded as possessing power and influence on other peoples in the tribe and performs several functions, primarily that of a healer ( medicine man). The shaman provides medical care, and serves other community needs during crisis times, via supernatural means (means...
Origin of the Tzolkin The exact origin of the Tzolkin is not known, but there are several theories. One theory is that the calendar came from mathematical operations based on the numbers thirteen and twenty, which were important numbers to the Maya. The number twenty was the basis of the Maya counting system, taken from the number of human fingers and toes. (See Maya numerals). Thirteen symbolized the number of levels in the Upperworld where the gods lived. The numbers multiplied together equal 260. Another theory is that the 260-day period came from the length of human pregnancy. It is postulated that midwives originally developed the calendar to predict babies’ expected birth dates. The Pre-Columbian Maya civilization used a vigesimal (base-20) numeral system. ...
A pregnant woman Pregnancy is the process by which a mammalian female carries a live offspring from conception until it develops to the point where the offspring is capable of living outside the womb. ...
Haab The Haab was the Maya solar calendar made up of eighteen months of twenty days each and a five day month at the end of the year known as Wayeb or Uayeb that was called "the nameless days." Victoria Bricker estimates that the Haab was first used around 550 BC with the starting point of the winter solstice. The Haab was the foundation of the agrarian calendar and the month names are based on the seasons and agricultural events. For example the thirteenth month, Mac, may refer to the end of the rainy season and the fourteenth month, Kankin, may refer to ripe crops in the fall. Illumination of Earth by Sun on the day of winter solstice on northern hemisphere In astronomy, the winter solstice is the moment when the earth is in a point of its orbit at which the northern or southern hemisphere is most inclined away from the sun. ...
In Yucatec Maya, the eighteen months had the following names:
- Pop
- Uo
- Zip
- Zotz
- Tzec
- Xul
- Yaxkin
- Mol
- Chen
- Yax
- Zac
- Ceh
- Mac
- Kankin
- Muan
- Pax
- Kayab
- Cumku
Each day was identified by a day number within the month followed by the name of the month. Day numbers began with a glyph translated as the "seating of" a named month, which is usually regarded as day 0 of that month, although a minority treat it as day 20 of the month preceding the named month. In the latter case, the seating of Pop is day 5 of Wayeb. For the majority, the first day of the year was 0 Pop (the seating of Pop). This was followed by 1 Pop, 2 Pop ... 19 Pop, 0 Uo, 1 Uo and so on.
As a calendar for keeping track of the seasons, the Haab was crude and inaccurate, since it treated the year as having 365 days, and ignored the extra quarter day (approximately) in the actual tropical year. This meant that the seasons moved with respect to the calendar year by a quarter day each year, so that the calendar months named after particular seasons no longer corresponded to these seasons after a few centuries. The Haab is equivalent to the wandering 365-day year of the ancient Egyptians. Some argue that the Maya knew about and compensated for the quarter day error, even though their calendar did not include anything comparable to a leap year, a method first implemented by the Romans. Map of Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was the civilization of the Nile Valley between about 3000 BC and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. As a civilization based on irrigation it is the quintessential example of an hydraulic empire. ...
A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. ...
Wayeb The five nameless days at the end of the calendar called Wayeb were thought to be a dangerous time. Lynn Foster writes that, "During Wayeb, portals between the mortal realm and the Underworld dissolved. No boundaries prevented the ill-intending deities from causing disasters." To ward off these evil spirits, the Maya had customs and rituals they practiced during Wayeb. For example, people avoided leaving their houses or washing or combing their hair.
Calendar Round Neither the Tzolkin nor the Haab system numbered the years. The combination of a Tzolkin date and a Haab date was enough to identify a date to most people's satisfaction, as such a combination didn't occur again for another 52 years.
Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years.
Long Count Since neither the Haab nor the Tzolkin recorded year numbers, something else was needed for the recording of dates. There was also a Long Count which started at 13.0.0.0.0 on August 11, 3114 BC according to the "Goodman, Martinez-Hernandez, Thompson" correlation (nicknamed "GMT"), the most widely accepted correlation between the Maya and Gregorian calendar. The baktuns progress 13, 1, 2, ..., 12. Because of this progression, many start the Long Count at 0.0.0.0.0 rather than 13.0.0.0.0, even though the Maya glyph for their epoch literally means "the completion of 13 baktuns". This cycle is 1,872,000 days in length, terminating on the Winter Solstice of (December 21) 2012 and is designated 13.0.0.0.0, since the Maya believed that time is periodic. Another widely-used correlation, that of Lounsbury, correlates the start-day to August 13, 3114 BC and the terminal date to December 23, 2012. The Maya Long Count Calendar is a subset of the Maya calendar used by the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization. ...
August 11 is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
(33rd century BC - 32nd century BC - 31st century BC - other centuries) (5th millennium BC - 4th millennium BC - 3rd millennium BC) Events Ancient Egypt: Earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphs Crete: Rise of Minoan civilization Neolithic settlement built at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, Scotland New Stone Age people in Ireland build...
John Eric Sidney Thompson (31 December 1898 - 9 September 1975) was an English archeologist and epigrapher, perhaps the most eminent student of pre-Columbian Maya civilization of the mid 20th century. ...
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar widely used in the Western world. ...
A day is any of several different units of time. ...
Illumination of Earth by Sun on the day of winter solstice on northern hemisphere In astronomy, the winter solstice is the moment when the earth is in a point of its orbit at which the northern or southern hemisphere is most inclined away from the sun. ...
December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
2012 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
8:17 am, August 6, 1945, Japanese time. ...
August 13 is the 225th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (226th in leap years), with 140 days remaining. ...
(33rd century BC - 32nd century BC - 31st century BC - other centuries) (5th millennium BC - 4th millennium BC - 3rd millennium BC) Events Ancient Egypt: Earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphs Crete: Rise of Minoan civilization Neolithic settlement built at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, Scotland New Stone Age people in Ireland build...
December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ...
2012 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
End of the world? The turn of the great cycle is conjectured to have been of great significance to the Maya, but does not necessarily mark the end of the world. According to the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Maya, they were living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three worlds that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. The Maya believed that the fourth world would end in catastrophe and the fifth and final world would be created that would signal the end of mankind. The Popol Vuh (Council Book or Book of the Community; Popol Wuj in modern Quiché spelling) is the book of scripture of the Quiché, a Kingdom of the Maya civilization in Guatemala. ...
Venus cycle Another important calendar for the Maya was the Venus cycle. The Maya were excellent astronomers, and could calculate the Venus cycle with only a two-hour margin of error. The Maya were able to achieve such accuracy by careful observation over many years. The Venus cycle was especially important because the Maya believed it was associated with war and used it to divine good times for coronations and war. Maya rulers planned for wars to begin when Venus rose. The Maya also tracked other planets’ movements, including those of Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 9. ...
An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ...
See also The Aztec calendar was the calendar of the Aztec people of Pre-Columbian Mexico. ...
The Pre-Columbian people of Mesoamerica kept track of time with calendars which had ritual and religious meaning. ...
References - Bricker, Victoria. (1982). The Origin of the Maya Solar Calendar. Current Anthropology. 23 (1), 101-103.
- Foster, Lynn V. (2002). Handbook to Life in the Ancient Mayan World. New York: Facts on File.
- Ivanoff, Pierre. (1968). Mayan Enigma: The Search for a Lost Civilization. Elaine P. Halperin, trans. New York: Delacorte Press.
- Tedlock, Barbara. (1982). Time and the Highland Maya. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
- Tedlock,Dennis, trans. (1985). Popol Vuh: the Difinitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Robinson, Andrew. (2000) The Story of Writing Thames and Hudson.
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