Current Mayan Date

Book Id: WPLBN0003467366
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 57.07 MB
Reproduction Date: 2014

Title:	Current Mayan Date
Author:
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Sacred Texts, Sacred Calendars, Islamic Date
Collections:	Sacred Texts
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA)


Citation APA MLA Chicago Current Mayan Date. (n.d.). Current Mayan Date. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.us/

Description
Description: The Mayans had an elaborate calendrical system, no longer in use, which obviously evolved in complete isolation from those of the old world. This system ended with the fall of the Mayan civilization. Most of the remaining knowledge of it was destroyed by the Spanish during the conquest. It was not until very recently, during the 1990s, that archeologists have finally been able to fill in many of the gaps in our knowledge of Mayan civilization, including the calendrical system. The Mayans were skilled mathematicians, and this shows in their calendar; besides having a concept of zero, they also had a firm grasp of modular arithmetic; they also worked extensively in base 20. However, despite their great skill at observing the heavens, their calendar has no relationship to lunar or seasonal cycles, and is only synchronized with the solar cycle year approximately. The Mayans were aware of this discrepancy; they simply didn't feel the compelling need to synchronize their calendar with the sun that Old World civilizations did. The Mayans used three separate calendars. The Long Count was pricipally used for historical purposes, since it can define any date for millenia in the past and future. The Haab was a civil calendar based on a year of 360 days consisting of 18 periods of 20 days. Five days were added at the end of the Haab year to approximately synchronize it with the solar year. The Tzolkin calendar was used for ceremonial purposes, which had 20 periods of 13 days. The Tzolkin calendar went through a complete cycle every 260 days. The signficance of this cycle is unknown; it may be connected with the orbit of Venus, which has a period of 263 days. The Haab and Tzolkin dates did not have a year component; however, a combined Haab and Tzolkin date specify a unique day within a 52 year cycle.