Maya Calendar Essay

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The Maya calendar system consisted of three main calendars: The Tzolk'in Calendar, the Haab Calendar, and the Long Count Calendar. Dates were also expressed through the Calendar Round, a combination of the Haab and Tzolk’in calendars. The Tzolk’in, or Sacred Round calendar operated on a 260-day cycle, which is based upon the two most important Maya numbers: 13 and 20. The calendar is made up of 20 day names (glyphs) and 13 numerals (tones). The first day consists the first glyph as well as the numeral for “one.” The days then move forward with the second glyph as well as the second tone. Once all 13 tones are used, the calendar continues with the 14th glyph but goes back to the first tone. Therefore, the calendar contains a total of 260 unique combinations of a day and a number. The Maya put great significance upon specific dates of this cyclical calendar in order to mark religious and ceremonial events as well as dates that would be the most lucky or prosperous. While the Tzolk’in Calendar was very useful, it could not measure an entire solar year. The Haab calendar comes in to fill that gap by using 18 numerals in addition to the 20 day names, giving a total of 360 days. While this still doesn’t cover an entire solar year, the Maya wanted to keep it simple by sticking to increments of 20, just like their mathematical system. The 5 remaining days were placed into their own month and considered the most dangerous time because the Maya believed the gods rested during this time. Therefore, the earth would be left unprotected for disastrous events. The Maya performed many ceremonies and rituals during these 5 days to ask the gods to return. The Haab calendar was longer than the Tzolk’in, but the Maya created the Calendar Round system by combining the two calendars in order to record even more time. By combining the 260 days and 360 days of the two calendars, the

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