The_Maya_Calendar

1.

2. Calendars

What is the purpose of a calendar?
What sorts of calendars do we use today?
A calendar is a system of organising days, weeks, months and years.
The Gregorian calendar is used across
most of the world.
It splits a solar year into 365.25 days
(hence a leap year every 4 years).
It was introduced in 1582 AD.
Advent calendars are used to
mark the days from December
1st to Christmas Day.
The Liturgical calendar is used to identify
the dates of celebrations of saints and
other religious figures. It is used by
Christianity and includes celebrations
around St David, St Patrick, St George
and St Andrew, the patron saints of
Wales, Ireland, England and Scotland,
respectively.

3. Mayan Astrology

The Maya were keen astronomers. They studied the sky and tracked the movements of the sun,
moon, stars and even the planet Venus — all without telescopes!
The Maya used their skills to create calendars that helped them keep track of time.
Why do you think they thought this was important?

4. Mayan Astrology

The Maya used their skills to ensure they planted
and harvested crops at the right time of year.
The calendar helped them to decide when to
celebrate specific religious festivals. The location
of Venus helped them to decide if it was a good
time to go to war.
Maya buildings were built with astronomy in
mind. The El Caracol observatory at Chichen Itza
was designed so that the windows all gave a
perfect view of Venus as it tracked across the sky
– a process that takes the planet 584 days to
complete!

5. The Maya Calendars

The Maya actually used several different calendars.
For counting each day in a year they used two cycles of counting,
called the Tzolkin and the Haab.

6. The Tzolkin

The Tzolkin was used to decide
the date of important events.
20 day names (similar to Mon, Tue, Wed etc.)
Numbers 1 to 13
You can see from this diagram how the numbers (inner
circle) link to the day names (outer circle).
As the circles interlock and rotate, it gives 260 unique
days before the cycle begins again.
Bonus Fact: The ancient Maya did not use the ‘gears’
representation for their calendar. It is used here to help us to
understand how the cycle of days worked.

7. The Haab

365 day cycle
Splits the year into 18 months
20 days per month
A 5-day ‘short month’ of ‘nameless days’ was added to
the end of the cycle so it was equal to the solar year.
The number of the days begins with 0 and ends with 19,
rather than from 1 to 20.
(The Tzolkin)

8. The Calendar Round

When the Tzolkin and the Haab are
linked, they create a larger cycle of
days called the Calendar Round.
A unique Maya day is created with
the lining up of 1 of the 365 solar
days, 1 of the 20 ‘weekday’ names
and 1 of the 13 numbers, as shown
here in red.

9. The Calendar Round

Look at the calendar parts in red.
How long do you think it will take for
the SAME combination of Tzolkin and
Haab information to come around
again so the same unique day is
repeated?
18,980 days / 52 years.

10. The Long Count

The Maya had a third calendar called
the Long Count Calendar.
Each cycle of the Maya Long Count lasts for 5125 years!
This calendar allowed the Maya to
measure their entire history from the
point the universe was created.
It ended on 21st December 2012 AD.
It is a similar idea to the modern
numbering of years based on the birth
of Jesus Christ.
The last cycle began around August 3114 BC.

11. The Curse of 2012

Across the world, people thought the world was going to end in
2012 because the Maya had predicted it.
The problem was – the Maya had not predicted it at all!
The world did not end. On 22nd December 2012 the first day of the
new Maya long count began. It is just the same as a New Year’s
Day… although the next one won’t be until 7137 AD!