How to Read the Mayan Calendar Index
| Mayan Calendar Long Count Calendar Tzolkin Calendar Haab Calendar The Mayan Constant |
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| Note:
I'm currently in contact with a graphics specialist who is
creating a "live" computer-generated Mayan calendar reflecting the
current Mayan day that each person visits this website.
I've been reading a lot about the actual Mayan calendar glyph interpretations and will learn, with you, on how to accurately read each day and how to determine the significance of that particular day. While it's almost impossible to completely break away from our Gregorian calendar, we can learn so much from a calendar that is more accurate than our own. I'll continue to add more
helpful information on this page as we learn, together.
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Mayan Calendar The Mayan Calendar represents a fascinating challenge, for it was more that just one calendar, but several.  Think of the Mayan Calendar as a series of series of interlocking gears with different ratios: a 13 pin sprocket turns inside a 20 pin cog, which itself rotates in another, and it in another and so on. The Mayans did not shy away from large numbers, and invented some rather ingenious methods to write down some extremely large numbers. But before we go into that, here's a road map of what you are seeing on any typical Mayan display month: |
Note
the bars and dots on the left hand side of the glyphs.
Each bar represents 5 years and each dot represents 1 year.
Each bar represents 5 years and each dot represents 1 year.
12 Baktuns 19 Katuns 8 Tuns 5 Uinals 14 Kins
| The Tzolkin Number The Tzolkin number comes from the sacred Mayan relgious calendar, in which each day is given a specific name . The cycle is repeated every 260 days. Counting in the Tzolkin calendar is at first a little unusual, but not difficult. The Tzolkin has 20 specific glyphs. A number from 1 to 13 is associated with each glyph. It will take 260 days to complete the Tzolkin cycle. How to read the table. The first day in the Tzolkin cycle is 1 Imix. The second day is not 2 Imix as you would think, but 2 Ik. The third day is 3 Akbal. So, read the table vertically. 7 Ahaw is the 20th day. How far is 6 Muluk into the cycle? Find the row for Muluk. Read across until you find 6. You would have had to cross 7 complete columns. Each column is 20 days. So, 6 Muluk = (7 * 20) + 9 days (149 days) into the Tzolkin 260 day cycle. |
| The Haab Calendar This is the common calendar. It consists of 18 months of 20 days each, followed by a short month of 5 days each. The Haab calendar on its own was 365 days in length, but the Mayans never used the Haab just by itself. The Haab was one common calendar in a intracate array of ever nesting and more complicated calendars. So the Haab calendar was not used by itself to determine the length of the year. The Haab Months are: |
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| The Mayan Constant As archaeologists and anthropologists come to learn more and more about the Mayan calendar, many are beginning to re-evaluate just how powerful and dynamic it really was. As explained in the section above regarding the Maya Long Count, it is possible to take a Mayan number and convert it to a modern astronomical Julian Day Number. To do so, requires knowledge of a specific event to anchor the calendar in time. The current trend is to use the offset 584283 as this will give a Mayan date of 13.0.0.0.0 on December 21, 2012. Another school of thought (although becoming increasingly less popular) was to tie the Mayan Calendar to a date that was believed to have occurred in 3114 BC. To do that requires using the constant of 584285 in the date translation. Does the Mayan calendar actually end in 2012? No, it doesn't. The Mayan LongCount 13.0.0.0.0 translates to December 21, 2012. The next day will be 13.0.0.0.1. The "13"s position (called the "Baktuns") can go as high as "19". After that, add another digit. The Mayan Age for the earth for example was extremely long. This business of the calendar "ending" is based solely on hysterical nonsense. December 20, 2012 will be 12.19.19.17.19 the next day will be 13.0.0.0.0 -- its an odometer change, nothing more. The LongCount number is a composite of Base 20 and Base 18 math and is very similar to the Julian Day Number used by astronomers today. In fact, 19.19.19.17.19 equals October 12, 4772. The next day will be first use of the "Pictuns" position and will be written as: 1.0.0.0.0.0. source: WunderMoosen.Com |
