MAYAN calendar: signs and meaning

The calendars They are a very important element in any culture, being essential for any civilization to have a system for measuring time to a greater or lesser extent. The Mayans were a people far ahead of their time, so it is evident that they had a very special calendar, being the reason why in this lesson of a Teacher we are going to talk about the signs and meaning of the Mayan calendar.

The Mayan calendar is a system of time calculation, being considered one of the most complex and precise in the history of mankind. It has a huge variety of systems, but all of them allow, thanks to the astronomical studies and from the universe of the Mayans, a almost perfect calculation of the passage of time.

The Mayan calendar has not been used only for this pre-Columbian town, but its enormous precision has made more modern peoples have taken it as their own. An example of this are some of the villages in the mountainous areas of Mexico and Guatemala. The union of concepts from earlier and later peoples has meant that even cultures far removed from the Maya, but located in the pre-Columbian area, have used this system due to its enormous relevance.

The importance of the Mayan calendar it was because it was essential for all sectors of society, being the basis of both civil and political life. The Mayans needed the calendar to organize your time, It must vary by events of gods or rituals, being essential to understand at what time of the year they were to perform their tasks in one way or another.

One of the most interesting values ​​of the Mayan calendar is that had different systems and calendars, some with smaller accounts and some with larger accounts. These served for different types of measurement within the enormous system on which the Mayan calendar is based. Due to the variety of Mayan calendars, in this lesson we must talk about the main calendar systems that exist.

Tzolkin

It is the Mayan religious calendar that has a 260-day cyclical period. Contrary to the usual calendars, this one does not have months as such, but rather has groups of 20 days represented. with glyphs, for example day 1 being represented by a glyph of an alligator or day 12 marked with a symbol of something similar to Herb. Together with the cycles of the Moon, this calendar was used for religious ceremonies, periods of rain and sometimes to show the destiny of people.

Haab

More like the usual calendars the Haab was a 365 day cycle, serving to measure the solar year. The calendar was divided into 18 months with 20 days each and on the other hand for a month of only 5 days that was known as Wayeb, being a kind of evil days in which it was better not to get up. It was the main calendar of the Mayans, serving to be the spiritual calendar of the entire population, and marking the days on which the rituals were performed.

The Calendar Round

It is a kind of union between the Haab and Tzolkin calendars, serving to create a 52-year cycle that when it happened it was celebrated as a kind of new century with an enormous fire ritual.

Long count or initial series

The long count was a system used to give names to certain periods of time, being essential to mark historical moments of Mayan society, since although the rest of the calendars were cyclical this was not the case, having a beginning and an origin from the beginning of the calendar and fixing dates since then, allowing to fix more exact figures in the weather. The distribution of the days in the long count was as follows:

• Kin: Every single day.
• Uinal: Twenty days or 20 kin.
• Tun: 360 days or 18 uinal.
• Katún: 7200 days, 20 tun or 360 uinals.
• Baktun: 144,000 days, 7,200 uinals, 400 tunes, or 20 katuns.

To conclude this lesson on the Mayan calendar signs and meaning, we must talk about the main calendar symbols to understand some of these texts. Some of the most important symbols used in the Mayan calendars to represent elements such as days, especially in the tzolkin system, are the following:

• Imix: A crocodile used to represent 1 on the calendar.
• Ik: Wind that symbolizes the number 2.
• Akb´al: Night that symbolizes the number 3.
• K'at: Corn that symbolizes the number 4.
• Kan: Snake that symbolizes the number 5.
• Kimi: The death that the number 6 symbolizes.
• Manik: A deer used to symbolize the number 7
• Lamat: A rabbit that represents the number 8.
• Muluk: Water that represents the number 9.
• Tz'i: Dog that represents the number 10.
• Chuen: A monkey used to represent 11.
• Eb´: Grass representing 12.
• B'en: A reed that represents 13.
• I´x: A jaguar or tiger that is used to represent 14.
• Men: An eagle that represents the 15th.
• Kib´: Owl that is attached to the number 16.
• Kab'an: Earth associated with 17.
• Etz´nab´: Knife representing 18.
• Kawak: Storm that symbolizes the 19.
• Ajaw: God of the Sun that represents the 20.