|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica developed accurate written calendars and of these, the calendar of the Maya is the most sophisticated. Its precision derives from the fact that it is based on an uninterrupted, continuous counts of days (called Kin in Mayan) reckoned from an initial zero day. The Maya counted the Kin in several independent calendarical counts that were synchronized. The two most important were the counts of 260 and 365 days. All these Maya calendarical counts are written using a combination of numbers and glyphs.  The 260 day Tzolkin calendar is the most used by the people of the Maya world. It is used to regulate the timing of their agricultural activities, their religious ceremonies and family affairs. The Tzolkin day corresponding to his/her birthday was believed to predestine the life of the Maya. It is composed of numbers 1 to 13 and 20 names for the days, which are represented by individual glyphs. On day fourteen, the day number starts again with 1 and continues in succession until 13 and so on. The day names are repeated on day 21 and so on. Both cycles continue on this manner until day 260 in unique combination of number and name, this is because 260 is the lowest common multiple of 13 and 20. After that the 260-day cycle repeats itself. Below you can see the glyphs and names of the 20 Maya days ion the Tzolkin calendar.   This calendar is based on the yearly journey of the Earth around the Sun in 365 days. The 365-day year was divided into 18 "months" or Winal of 20 days each. The overflow of five days was named Wayeb. Each date is written using a number from 0 to 19 and a Winal name represented by a glyph except for the days of the Wayeb which are numbered from 0 to 4. Below are the glyphs and names of the 19 Winal. 
|
