Posted by Kim on December 21, 2012, 4:48pm
Some people collect trading cards. Our Server loves trivia. But the Mayans? They loved calendars like you would not believe. Over the course of their civilization, the Mayans created and used four different calendars.For their achievements in mathematics, astronomy, super interesting astrology, numerology, and time keeping, today we give the Mayans the nerd salute.
Tzolk'in Calendar
If Mayans loved anything more than calendars, it was numbers. They had their own system of math, and believed that every single number had cultural, spiritual and magical significance.
For example, the number 20 was considered to hold special importance for human affairs, because humans have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Similiary, the number 13 represented the number of major joints in the body: one neck, two shoulder, two elbows, two wrists, two hips, two knees and two ankles -- themselves believed to be both what makes human flexible, adaptable and powerful, but also the weak points where injury and illness enter the body. Multiply 13 by 20 and you get 260, the average number of days in a pregnancy.
So it seemed natural that they would choose these three numbers to create their first calendar, the Tzolk'in, which counted time on a "human" scale.
To understand how the Tzolk'in worked, picture two wheels, a little one inside of a big one. The smaller, inner wheel has 13 glyphs on it, while the large outer wheel has 20. The two glyphs at the top of each wheel are together the name of the day.
Each day, the inner wheel would turn one glyph over. When it got all the way around to 13 and back to 1, the outer wheel would move once.
It's very much like having a calendar with 20 months, each month with 13 days. You'd end up with dates like 14-3 or 20-13.
The Tzolk'in "year" had 260 days in every cycle.
The Haab Calendar
The calendar savvy in the crowd are probably scratching their heads wondering how you could plan when to plant your crops or have a winter holiday if your calendar didn't match up with the solar year. That's why the Mayans eventually created the Haab Calendar.
The haab is extremely similar to the Gregorian calendar in many respects, containing 360 days. The Mayans were actually kick butt astronomers, and knew very well that a solar year is actually closer to 365 days, but their superstitions about numbers made them insist that a more fitting calendar would contain 360, containing 18 months of 20 days each. So the mathemeticians and the astronomers compromised, and added 5 unnamed mystery days to the end of each year.
These five days were known as the wayeb or uayeb, and was considered its own "month" of five days, and the most dangerous time of the year. It was thought that the Mayan Gods rested during this time, leaving the Earth unprotected -- but also leaving your fate unsupervised and in your own hands.
The Calendar Round
Mayan historians wanted to record their history more accurately, and these two calendars just weren't long enough. For a brief period, they had a transitional calendar that combined the 360 + 5 days of the Haab Calendar and the 260 days of the Tzolk'in calendar, with the same spinning wheels idea to meld them together, to create a calendar that had 18,890 unique days, or about 52 years.
For a civilization that spanned many thousands of years, that was tiddlywinks! It wasn't long before they created their final calendar...
The Long Count Calendar
The Long Count Calendar is designed to last approximately 5,125 years and some change -- today is the very last day on that calendar.
The Long Count has five distinct units in it:
one day - kin
20 days - uinal
360 days - tun
7,200 days - katun
144,000 days - baktun
A date in long count is written like so: 12.17.15.17.0, from largest unit of time to smallest unit of time.
The calendar was once again five interlocking wheels, with the largest one containing 13 glyphs. When you reach 20 days, you add one to the uinals column, and the kins roll back to 0.
Today's date? 13.0.0.0.0. Tomorrow? 0.0.0.0.1
The Mayans themselves made no predictions whatsoever about this meaning the end of the world. In fact, looking back at their history of calendar upgrades, the main signigance to them might have been that it was time for them to add another wheel to the calendar! Their own philosophers often recommended that the beginning of a new calendar cycle - regardless of which calendar you were using - was something that ought to be celebrated.
Comments
It's just a shame most of the Mayan records were lost. You're right Kim, it's all quite beautiful 
Thank you for spreading valuable information to the masses. There was a rather good youtube video about this that basically gives the same exact information.
I am still thanking Goku and Z-Fighters for saving the world though, so let me get back to that party
I am still thanking Goku and Z-Fighters for saving the world though, so let me get back to that party
This makes me proud of my Aztecan and Mayan ancestry.
You learn something new every day! This post was super awesome! 
Thanks for sharing Kim!
Thanks for sharing Kim!
A lot of those ideas are really beautiful, aren't they, Ben?
The Mayans worked a lot with repeating cycles. They tracked the motion of venus across the sky and the dates of eclipses and worked out the length of time it takes the cycles to repeat. The intention of their dating was to provide cycles that could be used accurately, repeating, for eternity. Still, this post taught me a few things I didn't know! Thanks Kim!
Maybe everyone in the world needs to read this..Ya know, those who are terribly worried about the world ending. Or RPR will save us. With numbers. 
I have to admit, this made my head hurt something fierce! But this information is very enlightening, thank you!
I applaud you for finding these awesome nuggets of information!!
This is absolutely fascinating, Kim! While I knew to some extent that the Mayans celebrated the end of the calender as a good thing and not some apocalypse herald, I had no idea they were so awesomely fixated on all these different ways to record dates and the passage of time and years!
I give this a thumbs up and a nerd salute for sure!
I give this a thumbs up and a nerd salute for sure!
Earendill
December 23, 2012
3:12am