The Maya - Part 2 - Rediscovery

It was not until the 1800s that the Mayan cities were rediscovered and only recently in the 20th century that their writing was deciphered. Known as the Greeks of America after the large number of archaeological remains attributed to them, the Maya built on the knowledge of the earlier Olmec and other Mesoamerican civilisations and developed firm sciences. They had the concept of zero, an accomplished system of recording and predicting celestial events, a time keeping calendar and hieroglyphic writing. They also built many large architectural structures, pyramids, temples and mounds, and had advanced systems of irrigation and agriculture.

Calendar Number Play

The Maya used 3 cycles of 13,20 and 365 days, with the 13 and 20 daycycles running simultaneously and combined into a larger 260 day cycle called a tzolkin. The lowest common multiple of them is 18980 days, or 52 years. The cycle of 13 days was represented by a trecena indicated by a number, while the cycle of 20 days was represented by a veineta indicated by a name. There was also an obscure 819 day cycle.

Their 365 day cycle was called a haab, further divided into 18 periods called uinals, which in turn were divided into 20 named days. They believed that time was cyclic and that after a great cycle of 13 Baktuns (1 Baktun measures 144,000 days) the world would be destroyed. Most scholars agree that the current great cycle started on Wednesday, 8th September 3114 BC (Julian Calendar). The current great cycle is set to end on Sunday, 23 December 2012.

2 major methods they used to specifiy dates were the calendar round, used to specify a date within a period of 52 years, and a long count, developed later and used to relate such dates within a longer period known as a long count. The date was represented by the number of the tozolkin followed by the number of the haab, eg 4 Ahua, 8 Cumhu.