Mayan Calendar: FA23 ART-104-4467 World Art -ONLINE-

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• most accurate calendar systems in human history.

• most commonly known Maya cyclical calendars are the Haab, the Tzolk’in, and the Calendar Round.

• also developed the Long Count calendar to chronologically date mythical and historical events.

• Haab cycle is 365 days, and approximates the solar year. The Haab is a nineteen month calendar. The Haab is composed of 18 months made of 20 days, and one month, made of 5 days. (Our Gregorian Calendar-the calendar we use to count time- makes up for that short month by having leap year every 4 years.)

• Maya sacred calendar is called Tzolk’in. This calendar is not divided into months. Instead, it is made from a succession of 20 day glyphs in combination with the numbers 1 to 13, and produces 260 unique days.

• Calendar Round is made from the interweaving of the Tzolk’in and Haab calendars. In the Calendar Round, any given combination of a Tzolk’in day with a Haab day will not repeat itself, until 52 periods of 365 days have passed. The Maya believe that when a person reaches 52 years of age, they attain the special wisdom of an elder.

• Any historical or mythical event spanning more than 52 years required the ancient Maya to use an additional calendar, the Long Count. The Long Count calendar is a system that counts 5 cycles of time. The Maya Long Count calendar also counts days in chronological order, beginning with the Mayan mythical creation date. This date corresponds to August 11, 3114 BCE on our Gregorian calendar. (We start counting time from the date it is said that Jesus was born. This date is zero on our calendar.)

• still observed in some parts of Meso America today

• sophisticated they were as a culture- in observing astrological events and recording time.