Maya calendar: Encyclopedia II - Maya calendar - Tzolk'in

Maya calendar - Tzolk'in

Mayanists have bestowed the name tzolkin (or tzolk'in, in the revised orthography which is now preferred) on the Maya version of the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar. The word was coined based on the Yucatec language, with an intended meaning of "count of days". The actual names of this calendar as used by the pre-Columbian Maya are not known. The Aztec calendar equivalent was called by them tonalpohualli, in the Nahuatl language.

The Tzolkin calendar combines twenty day names with the thirteen numbers of the trecena cycle to produce 260 unique days. It was used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events and for divination. Each successive day was numbered from 1 up to 13 and then starting again at 1. Separately from this, each day was given a name in sequence from a list of 20 day names:

NOTES:
1. the sequence number of the named day in the Tzolk'in calendar
2. Day name, in the standardised and revised orthography of the Guatemalan Academia de Lenguas Mayas
3. An example glyph (logogram) for the named day. Note that for most of these several different forms are recorded; the ones shown here are typical of carved monumental inscriptions (these are "cartouche" versions)
4. Day name, as recorded from 16th century Yucatec language accounts, principally Diego de Landa; this orthography has (until recently) been widely used
5. In most cases, the actual day name as spoken in the time of the Classic Period (c. 200-900) when most inscriptions were made is not known. The versions given here (in Classic Maya, the main language of the inscriptions) are reconstructed based on phonological evidence, if available; a '?' symbol indicates the reconstruction is tentative.

The system started with 1 Imix, which was followed by 2 Ik, 3 Akbal and so on up to 13 Ben. The day numbers then started again at 1, so there were 1 Ix, 2 Men, 3 Cib, 4 Caban, 5 Etznap, 6 Caunac, and 7 Ahau. The day names then started again, so the next day was 8 Imix. The full cycle of every possible day number with every possible day name took 260 days.

Maya calendar - Divination

The Maya believed that each day of the Tzolkin had a character that influenced events. The Maya had a shaman-priest, whose name meant day keeper, and who read the Tzolkin to predict the future. When a child was born, the day keeper would interpret the Tzolkin cycle to predict the baby’s destiny. For example, a child born on the day of Akabal was thought to be feminine, wealthy, and verbally skillful. The birthday of Ak’abal was also thought to give the child the ability to communicate with the supernatural world, so he or she might become a shaman-priest or a marriage spokesman. In the Maya highlands, babies were even named after the day on which they were born to apprise the community of that child's purpose in life.

Maya calendar - Origin of the Tzolkin

The exact origin of the Tzolkin is not known, but there are several theories. One theory is that the calendar came from mathematical operations based on the numbers thirteen and twenty, which were important numbers to the Maya. The number twenty was the basis of the Maya counting system, taken from the number of human fingers and toes. (See Maya numerals). Thirteen symbolized the number of levels in the Upperworld where the gods lived. The numbers multiplied together equal 260. Another theory is that the 260-day period came from the length of human pregnancy. It is postulated that midwives originally developed the calendar to predict babies’ expected birth dates.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Tzolk'in", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki