Calendars Galore!

I have spoken of the Mayan calendars in several posts here,but thought a good recap was in order.

First, remember there is more than one Mayan Calendar. There are several, and sometimes they were used side by side. Imagine having 3,4,5 calendars all clicking off time independently of the each other!

For our purposes we often compare the Mayan calendar with the Gregorian calendar that is in use in much of the world. Both the Mayan and Gregorian calendars are tied to the idea of cycles, or simply a sequence that happens over and over.The Mayans used many celestial events in their calendars, as they saw movements in the sky as recurring.The Gregorian calendar uses the cycle of a week, Monday through Sunday, over and over, We also use 12 months, with days within a month. But the days of the week, and the Months/date run interdependently of each other. Say we have a Monday, January1. Tuesday January2, Wednesday January 3 and so on. When we get to Sunday, the next day the week starts over, but the date keeps counting, independently. With me so far? Good!

Mayan calendars also have independent components.running at the same time, just more of them. 3 are considered the most common. Our next few blogs will take on each of them:

Haab- 365 day calendar (18 months long each month 20 days, with 5 days added to the last month to make a solar year).
Tzolkin- 265 day calendar (actually 2 calenders, running side by side).

 These above two calendars can be combined, and are referred to as the Calendar Round, which has a cycle of 52 years.
Long Count-Just a way of writing the number of days that have gone by since a particular event, thousands of years ago.

Next up, a look at each of the three calendars listed above.


J.T. Turner, Mayanist