Mayan Calendar

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The Mayans created an elegant system in which events were recorded in a linear relationship to one another. They had a total of twenty calendars that were written on stone monuments or even pottery that date back to as far as the fifth century BCE. The Mayans created three calendars that overlap. They are the Long Count calendar, the Haab Calendar, and the Tzolk’in calendar. Math, Astronomy, religion, culture, and architecture are all a part of the Mayan calendar systems.
The first calendar the Mayans used was the Tzolk’in. It is made up of the numbers twenty and thirteen and operates on a 260-day cycle. The Tzolk’in first day on the calendar is called Imix’ and starts with the number one. The days go on in sequence until it reaches the thirteenth day. After the thirteenth day the calendar goes back to one but the names of the days move forward with the fourteenth glyph, 1x. Rotating like this, the two sets form 260 combinations of a day name and a number. It is written in vertical bars and dots. The Tzolk’in calendar wasn’t accurate enough to measure a solar year so they came up with the Haab Calendar.
The Haab Calendar is similar to the calendar we use today. It has eighteen uinals (months) which give us 360-days along with five “nameless days” called the Wayeb. These five days were thought to be a Dangerous time. Even though the Haab lasted 365-days it still didn’t have an extra quarter day for the earth to revolve around the sun. We have leap years every four years, adding a day to February, to do so. The Mayans wanted to create a calendar that would hold more time so they combined the Tzolk’in and the Haab calendars together to form the Calendar Round.
In the Calendar Round they paired the 26...

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...he prophesy that the world was going to end because they had not yet found the rest of the calendar at this time. Then others believed that it was going to be a transformation or a new beginning of this world. Others say that we are living in the most important ear of the Mayan calendar because we are not in the fourth sun but not yet in the fifth sun.
People never bought into the world ending in December 21, 2012. Some felt like there needed to be events that happened to lead up the world ending and not just happening overnight. Also the fact that it was coming from centuries old calendar was ridiculous. Anything could happen to those calendars. How do they even know if they are reading them right or if they have all the pieces, which they didn’t. People still do think what the Mayans created was amazing, especially considering what time period they were in.

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