What Terms Are Used to Represent 1 Month and 1 Year on the Mayan Calendar?

El Castillo. Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico.

This Mesoamerican step pyramid'south platform, along with its four stairways of 91 steps, totals 365, or the number of days in a calendar year.

Aztec Agenda.

The Aztec calendar was an accommodation of the Mayan calendar. It consisted of a 365-day agronomical calendar, besides as a 260-day sacred agenda. (This is a digital blended. Color added for visibility.)

Among their other accomplishments, the ancient Mayas invented a calendar of remarkable accuracy and complexity. At correct is the ancient Mayan Pyramid Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, constructed circa 1050 was built during the tardily Mayan period, when Toltecs from Tula became politically powerful. The pyramid was used every bit a calendar: four stairways, each with 91 steps and a platform at the elevation, making a full of 365, equivalent to the number of days in a calendar year.

The Maya calendar was adopted by the other Mesoamerican nations, such every bit the Aztecs and the Toltec, which adopted the mechanics of the calendar unaltered but changed the names of the days of the calendar week and the months. An Aztec calendar stone is shown above right.

The Maya agenda uses three different dating systems in parallel, the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar), and the Haab (civil calendar). Of these, only the Haab has a direct relationship to the length of the year.

A typical Mayan appointment looks similar this: 12.18.sixteen.two.6, 3 Cimi 4 Zotz.

12.18.16.2.six is the Long Count date.

3 Cimi is the Tzolkin appointment.

4 Zotz is the Haab date.

• What is the Long Count?
• When did the Long Count Offset?
• What is the Tzolkin?
• When did the Tzolkin Start?
• What is the Haab?
• When did the Haab Kickoff?
• Did the Mayas Think a Year Was 365 Days?

What is the Long Count?

The Long Count is really a mixed base-20/base-18 representation of a number, representing the number of days since the start of the Mayan era. Information technology is thus akin to the Julian Day Number.

The basic unit is the kin (24-hour interval), which is the last component of the Long Count. Going from right to left the remaining components are:

uinal	(ane uinal = 20 kin = 20 days)
tun	(i tun = xviii uinal = 360 days = approx. one year)
katun	(1 katun = xx tun = 7,200 days = approx. 20 years)
baktun	(1 baktun = 20 katun = 144,000 days = approx. 394 years)

The kin, tun, and katun are numbered from 0 to 19.

The uinal are numbered from 0 to 17.

The baktun are numbered from 1 to 13.

Although they are not function of the Long Count, the Mayas had names for larger time spans. The post-obit names are sometimes quoted, although they are not ancient Maya terms:

1 pictun = 20 baktun = 2,880,000 days = approx. 7885 years

one calabtun = xx pictun = 57,600,000 days = approx. 158,000 years

ane kinchiltun = 20 calabtun = 1,152,000,000 days = approx. 3 1000000 years

1 alautun = 20 kinchiltun = 23,040,000,000 days = approx. 63 1000000 years

The alautun is probably the longest named period in whatever agenda.

When did the Long Count Commencement?

Logically, the outset date in the Long Count should be 0.0.0.0.0, only as the baktun (the kickoff component) are numbered from 1 to thirteen rather than 0 to 12, this start date is actually written 13.0.0.0.0.

The regime disagree on what thirteen.0.0.0.0 corresponds to in our calendar. I have come across three possible equivalences:

13.0.0.0.0 = 8 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = 13 Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian)

13.0.0.0.0 = 6 Sep 3114 BC (Julian) = eleven Aug 3114 BC (Gregorian)

thirteen.0.0.0.0 = xi Nov 3374 BC (Julian) = 15 October 3374 BC (Gregorian)

Assuming ane of the first two equivalences, the Long Count will again reach xiii.0.0.0.0 on 21 or 23 December Advert 2012 - a not too distant futurity.

The date thirteen.0.0.0.0 may accept been the Mayas' idea of the date of the creation of the world.

What is the Tzolkin?

The Tzolkin date is a combination of ii "week" lengths.

While our calendar uses a unmarried week of 7 days, the Mayan agenda used 2 different lengths of calendar week:

• a numbered week of 13 days, in which the days were numbered from 1 to 13
• a named week of 20 days, in which the names of the days were:

0. Ahau	i. Imix	ii. Ik	iii. Akbal	4. Kan
5. Chicchan	half dozen. Cimi	7. Manik	8. Lamat	ix. Muluc
10. Oc	11. Chuen	12. Eb	13. Ben	14. Ix
xv. Men	xvi. Cib	17. Caban	18. Etznab	19. Caunac

The diagram at left shows the twenty-four hour period symbols, in the aforementioned guild as the table above.

Equally the named week is xx days and the smallest Long Count digit is 20 days, there is synchrony between the two; if, for instance, the concluding digit of today's Long Count is 0, today must be Ahau; if it is half-dozen, information technology must be Cimi. Since the numbered and the named calendar week were both "weeks," each of their name/number change daily; therefore, the day afterwards 3 Cimi is not 4 Cimi, merely 4 Manik, and the day afterwards that, 5 Lamat. The next time Cimi rolls around, 20 days later, information technology will exist 10 Cimi instead of 3 Cimi. The side by side iii Cimi will non occur until 260 (or 13 10 20) days have passed. This 260-twenty-four hours cycle also had adept-luck or bad-luck associations connected with each day, and for this reason, it became known as the "divinatory twelvemonth."

The "years" of the Tzolkin calendar are not counted.

When did the Tzolkin Start?

Long Count thirteen.0.0.0.0 corresponds to four Ahau. The authorities agree on this.

What is the Haab?

The Haab was the civil agenda of the Mayas. It consisted of xviii "months" of xx days each, followed by 5 actress days, known as Uayeb. This gives a yr length of 365 days.

The names of the month were:

1. Pop	7. Yaxkin	xiii. Mac
2. Uo	8. Mol	fourteen. Kankin
3. Zip	ix. Chen	15. Muan
four. Zotz	10. Yax	16. Pax
5. Tzec	eleven. Zac	17. Kayab
vi. Xul	12. Ceh	18. Cumku

In dissimilarity to the Tzolkin dates, the Haab month names changed every twenty days instead of daily; so the day afterwards iv Zotz would exist 5 Zotz, followed past vi Zotz ... upwards to nineteen Zotz, which is followed by 0 Tzec.

The days of the month were numbered from 0 to 19. This employ of a 0th mean solar day of the calendar month in a civil calendar is unique to the Maya organization; it is believed that the Mayas discovered the number zero, and the uses to which it could exist put, centuries before it was discovered in Europe or Asia.

The Uayeb days acquired a very derogatory reputation for bad luck; known equally "days without names" or "days without souls," and were observed equally days of prayer and mourning. Fires were extinguished and the population refrained from eating hot food. Anyone born on those days was "doomed to a miserable life."

The years of the Haab calendar are non counted.

The length of the Tzolkin yr was 260 days and the length of the Haab year was 365 days. The smallest number that tin be divided evenly by 260 and 365 is 18,980, or 365×52; this was known as the Calendar Circular. If a day is, for example, "four Ahau 8 Cumku," the next day falling on "4 Ahau eight Cumku" would exist eighteen,980 days or about 52 years subsequently. Among the Aztec, the end of a Calendar Round was a time of public panic as it was thought the world might be coming to an finish. When the Pleaides crossed the horizon on 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, they knew the earth had been granted some other 52-year extension.

When did the Haab Start?

Long Count xiii.0.0.0.0 corresponds to 8 Cumku. The regime concord on this.

Did the Mayas Retrieve a Twelvemonth Was 365 Days?

Although in that location were only 365 days in the Haab year, the Mayas were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days, and in fact, many of the month-names are associated with the seasons; Yaxkin, for case, means "new or potent sun" and, at the beginning of the Long Count, 1 Yaxkin was the day later the winter solstice, when the sun starts to shine for a longer period of time and higher in the sky. When the Long Count was put into motion, information technology was started at 7.13.0.0.0, and 0 Yaxkin corresponded with Midwinter Twenty-four hours, as it did at 13.0.0.0.0 back in 3114 B.C.E. The available evidence indicates that the Mayas estimated that a 365-mean solar day year precessed through all the seasons twice in seven.thirteen.0.0.0 or one,101,600 days.

We can therefore derive a value for the Mayan judge of the twelvemonth past dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting ii, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 by the consequence, which gives us an answer of 365.242036 days, which is slightly more authentic than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.

(This credible accuracy could, however, be a unproblematic coincidence. The Mayas estimated that a 365-mean solar day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 days. These numbers are only authentic to two-3 digits. Suppose the vii.xiii.0.0.0 days had corresponded to 2.001 cycles rather than two cycles of the 365-day year, would the Mayas have noticed?)

In aboriginal times, the Mayans had a tradition of a 360-24-hour interval twelvemonth. Simply by the 4th century B.C.East. they took a different approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different calendars at the same time. In 1 of them, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-twenty-four hour period menstruation that was part of no month. The five-day catamenia was considered to be unlucky.

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Source: http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html