Mayan Calendar

The Mayans were an ancient civilization that lived on and around the Yucatan Peninsula. No one is sure when the civilization began, though we know it is older than the Aztecs, another ancient civilization who lived in the central part of what is now Mexico. The two civilizations had many similarities, though there were large differences as well. On March 4, 1519 the explorer Hernan Cortes arrived on the coast of Mexico with 11 ships, 600 foot soldiers, 16 horses, and some artillery. By 1522 Cortes had completely destroyed and conquered the Aztec Empire.

Much of the Mayans culture is still shrouded in mystery. What I will tell you is how this remarkable civilization kept time. The Mayans had three different calendars: the tzolkin, the haab, and the Long Count.

Each day in the tzolkin, or divine year, had a name. Each day had a word name as well as a number. The day names are as follows:

Imix

Akbal

Kan

Chiccan

Cimi

Manik

Lamat

Muluc

Chuen

Ben

Men

Cib

Caban

Eznab

Cauac

Ahau

Each day was numbered 1 through 13. The first day of the calendar was 1 Imix, the next day 2 Ik, the next 3 Akbal, and so on. The next time Imix would come around it would instead be 8 Imix. With this system the name of a day would not reappear for 52 years.

The second calendar system was the haab, or common year. The haab was divided into 18 months of 20 days each. There were also 5 extra days at the end of the year that do not belong to a month and are extremely unlucky. The names of the months are listed here.

Pop

Zip

Zotz

Tzec

Xul

Yaxkin

Mol

Chen

Yax

Zac

Ceh

Mac

Kankin

Muan

Pax

Kayab

Cumhu

Uayeb

In the Mayan culture the date of your birth was an extremely important thing. It could determine what you were to be in life, how successful you are, or even how lucky you are. If you were born in one of the 5 "extra" days, or Uayeb, you would be considered extremely unlucky.

The final Mayan calendar system is the Long Count. This highly sophisticated calendar is considered by modern researchers to be a unique achievement of the Mayans which set them apart from the Aztecs and other cultures.

Today we use the Gregorian calendar, which records all dates in relationship to one event, the birth of Christ, which happened in AD 0. All dates before this are labeled BC and all dates after it are labeled AD.

The Long Count also showed dates in reference to a certain event. This event was the birth of Venus. No, I dont mean the beautiful goddess of love from Roman mythology, I mean the first rising, or "birth," of the planet Venus.

The Mayans added up days differently than we do (7-day week, rough 30-day month, 365-day year, 10-year decade, and so on). They divided time into uinals, tuns, katuns, and baktuns. There system worked like this:

20 kins (days) = 1 uinal (20-day "month")

18 uinals = 1 tun (360-day "year")

20 tuns = 1 katun (7,200 days)

20 katuns = 1 baktun (144,000 days)

The Mayans also believed that the world went through different "ages," each ending with catastrophes such as earthquakes. Each age was inhabited by a different dominant species. The Mayans believed that they were living in the sixth and final age. The date of the end of the age can be translated into December 21, 2012, although some say it is the 22. Will our world end in December 2012? We will have to wait and find out.

Bibliography:

The Mayan Prophecies by Adrian G. Gilbert & Maurice M. Cauterell