past
The Maya peoples reached a highly sophisticated civilization between 250 and 900 CE. Among the great feats of their society are a fully developed written language, spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems.
Maya civilization extended throughout the northern Central American region, including the present-day nations of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, as well as the southern Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán.
The classic Maya produced extremely accurate astronomical observations. In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya utilized a highly accurate measure of the length of the solar year, far more accurate than that used in Europe.
Maya calendar
The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE. Long Count days are written in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus day 0.0.0.1.5 refers to day 25 after the starting date. However, since the second digit (from the right) only counts to 18 before resetting to zero, 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, but rather only 360 days.
The Tzolk'in is a calendar with a period of 260 days. It is of great antiquity. The Tzolk'in combined with the Haab', a 365-day calendar, to form a synchronised cycle lasting for 52 Haabs, called the Calendar Round.
The 5th digit in the Long Count represents a period called b'ak'tun. According to the Maya, there will be a b'ak'tun ending December 21, 2012. For the Maya, this is an utmost significant event. The very nature of this event has become a topic of wild speculation, ranging from apocalyptic visions of the end of the world, to predictions of humankind reaching a higher spiritual level. See for example the movie The Shift of the Ages (movie trailer).
Stay in sync
Stay in sync with the Maya calendar by adding it to your Google Personalized Home:
or to your Mac OS X Dashbord
Maya Calendar Dashbord Widget (version 1.0, Mac OS X 10.4.3 or higher).
