Maya, group of related Native American nations of the Mayan linguistic stock, living in Mexico, in the states of Veracruz, Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas, and also in the greater part of Guatemala and in parts of Belize and Honduras. The best-known people, the Maya proper, after whom the entire group is named, occupy the Yucatán Peninsula. Among the other politically significant peoples are the Huastec of northern Veracruz; the Tzental of Tabasco and Chiapas; the Chol of Chiapas; the Quiché, Cakchiquel, Pokonchi, and Pokomam of the Guatemalan highlands; and the Chortí of eastern Guatemala and western Honduras. With the exception of the Huastec, these peoples occupy contiguous territory. They were all part of a common civilization, which in many respects achieved the most complex level of development among the original inhabitants of the whole of the western hemisphere.
"Maya," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The Maya Calendar
Chronology among the Maya was determined
by an elaborate calendar system. The year began when the sun
crossed the zenith on July 16 and consisted
of 365 days; 364 of the days were grouped into 28 weeks of 13 days each,
the new year beginning on the 365th day. In addition, 360 days of the year
were divided into 18 months of 20 days each. The series of weeks and the
series of months both ran consecutively and independently of each other;
however, once every 260 days, that is, the multiple of 13 and 20, the week
and the month began on the same day. The Mayan calendar, although highly
complex, was the most accurate known to human beings until the introduction
of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century.
"Maya," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia.
(c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
My personal
representation
Based on this information and an image published by National Goegraphic which consisted of three rings to represent the Maya calendar, I made a graphical representation of the Maya calendar. It consists on four rings of different sizes. The first ring has twenty (20) glyphs, one for every day. The second ring has thirteen (13) numbers in maya writing. The third ring is numbered from 0 to 19. And the last ring has the 18 glyphs for the months. This calendar is currently showind in the center the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, which is the date the Maya selected as the first day of their calendar. From then on they began to use the calendar to keep track of the time.
For this calendar to
hypothetically work it would have to do the following: each day the smallest
ring would rotate to the next number and therefore move the first and third
ring one segment each (the first ring has 20 segments as well as the third
ring). On the other hand, the fourth and final ring would move one segment
each time the third ring completes a cycle. In this way thi fourth ring
moves once every 20 days.
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