Creation of the Maya World
Initial Series
Long Count
Calendar Round
Tzolk'in
Haab'
Year Bearer
Supplementary Series
Lords of the Night
Lunar Series
819 Day Count
Archaeoastromomy
Venus Cycle
Eclipses
Solstices and Equinoxes
Zenith Passage Days
I recommend that you refer to an inscription in Chac while reading this part of the help book.
The "Maya" calendar is actually a Mesoamerican calendar. The earliest calendar inscriptions were written by the Olmecs during the epi-Olmec period. All of the Mesoamerican cultures used some version of this calendar. Nevertheless it is known as the Maya calendar because so many excellent calendar inscriptions are found on Mayan monuments.
Mayan languages were first spelled phonetically into Spanish. The vowels and consonants are the same phonemes as Spanish so the pronunciation is approximately the same as Spanish except that the emphasis is on the last syllable. The apostrophe character is a glottal stop. Spelling is based on the standardized and revised orthography of the Guatemalan Academia de Lenguas Mayas. There are many Mayan languages which are broadly divided into Cholan (highlands) and Yucatecan (lowland) dialects. The Mayan names are based on colonial Yucatec because that's when scholars first recorded their names and meanings. You can find the names and meanings of the days in Nahuatl in Aveni, Anthony F. (2001).
The people of Mesoamerica used a vigidecimal (base twenty) number system numbered zero through 19. They used several symbols for zero. In the Haab' (described below) they used a different zero glyph which is generally translated as "seating". For ones they used dots and for fives they used bars. These are usually placed to the left of the glyphs in the Maya calendar.
The Maya calendar is not a single calendar but a group of calendars.
The people of Mesoamerica thought that the world had been created and destroyed three or four times before this one and that we live in either the Fourth or Fifth Sun, which started on Long Count ...13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Kumk'u - Monday, September 6, -3113 (Julian, astronomical dating). The Popul Vuh and other Mayan sources use three previous creations and post-classic cultures like the Mexicans use four. An example of this is depicted on Stone of the Fifth Sun ("Aztec Calendar Stone"). The four rectangular glyphs around the center of the stone depict the four previous creations.
The main part of a maya calendar inscription is called an initial series. It consists of:
Mayan inscriptions are written in a series of rows and columns. Rows are two columns wide. A two glyph wide row is read from left to right and then the next row down of two glyphs is read, etc. When a calendar date is written it is often preceded by a large glyph that is as wide as two columns. This is an Introductory Series Introductory Glyph. In the center of the ISIG is a smaller glyph which represents the patron deity of the current month in the Haab'.
Particularly during the post-classic period, inscriptions only contained a calendar round (described below) but this was only sufficient to specify when a date occurred within a period of approximately 52 years. In order to place a date in a vast empire of time a complete inscription contained a count of days since the creation of the current world. This is a Long Count. Long Counts can use either head-variant or symbolic glyphs. You can choose to use either type of Long Count glyphs in the Chac preferences panel.
A Long Count inscription consists of the following five glyphs:
Bak'tuns: A Bak'tun is a period of 144,000 days. A Bak'tun glyph has a coefficient of zero to 19.
K'atuns: A K'atun is a period of 7,200 days. There are 20 K'atuns in a Bak'tun. A K'atun glyph has a coefficient of zero to 19.
Tuns: A Tun is a period of 360 days. There are 20 Tuns in a K'atun. A Tun glyph has a coefficient of zero to 19.
Winals: A Winal is a period of 20 days. There are 18 Winals in a Tun. A Winal glyph has a coefficient of zero to 17.
K'ins: A K'in is a single day. There are 20 K'ins in a Winal. A K'in glyph has a coefficient of zero to 19.
Long Count calculations are done using modular arithmetic in which the first Bak'tun is calculated as zero. However all inscriptions that refer to the creation date use 13, not zero as the number of the first Bakt'un.
There are cycles greater than a Bak'tun. Each one contains 20 of the smaller cycles. The four next greater cycles are a Pictun, Kalabtun, K'inchiltun, and Alautun. There are many inscriptions are like Coba, Stela 1 with its Long Count of 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajau 8 Kumk'u. This is the date of the start of the current world. The Maya recorded dates far into the past and future. The most common way to record great dates was to use a base date, and add or subtract a distance number to get a resulting date. An example of this is at the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque:
base date 9.8.9.13.0
distance number 10.11.10.5.8
result 1.0.0.0.0.8.
This works if there are 20 Bak'tuns in a Piktun, not 13 Bak'tuns as stated by some sources who gave this as evidence that the world would end at the completion of the 13th Bak'tun in 2012. As one can see from the long inscription above, distance calculations that result in a Long Count before the current creation are counted from a base date of 13.0.0.0.0. For example an inscription at the temple of the Cross at Palenque:
base date 13.0.0.0.0
subtract 6.14.0
result 12.19.13.4.0 8 Ahau 18 Sec.
There is a second way in which dates preceding 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajau 8 Kumk'u are written. These are dates in the prior era which are not explicitly stated as long counts but which are implied by a Ring Number — a distance number with the K'in coefficient (sometimes also a Winal) enclosed in a red loop tied at the top. These are referred to as "Long Reckonings". Long Reckonings are distance numbers which are based on a date in the preceding creation to give a date in the current one. Long Reckonings are not written on monuments but many are in the Dresden Codex. Thompson uses the last example from the Dresden Codex:
Ring number (12) 12.12.17.3.1 13 Imix 9 Wo (7.2.14.19 before (13) 13.0.0.0.0)
distance number (0) 10.13.13.3.2
Long Count 10.6.10.6.3 13 Ak'bal 1 Kank'in
A series of "Serpent Numbers" in the Dresden Codex p.p. 61-69 has Long Reckonings from a date 34,000 years in the past to classical Maya Long Counts.
Chac can calculate both distance numbers and Long Reckonings
Chac can calculate and display dates through 20 Bakt'uns. The distance number panel will calculate Long Counts as great as 20 + 20 Bak'tuns and as far back as minus 20 Bak'tuns but you can only set an inscription to the calculated date if it's in the range of 13.0.0.0.0 to 19.19.19.17.19. The Long Reckonings panel will only calculate dates in the range of 13.0.0.0.0 to 19.19.19.17.19.
Did the World end on 13.0.0.0.0, December 21, 2012? Contrary to massive dis-information in the news media, there was never any evidence that the Maya thought that the Long Count would end at the completion of the 13th Bak'tun. There are inscriptions that give dates after 13.0.0.0.0. and they use 20 Bak'tuns in a Pictun.There won't be another Pictun Completion until 1.0.0.0.0.0, Friday, October 13, 4772. This doesn't mean that the current creation will end on this date. There was never any historic basis for any "Mayan doomsday prophesy". It was a complete hoax. If 13.0.0.0.0 was such an important date one would think that there would be a lot of inscriptions that include it but there are only three. One is the above mentioned use as a base date in a distance date and the other is the partially effaced Tortugero monument 6. For the Maya, period endings were important and they erected stelae to commemorate them, so the completion of the thirteenth Bak'tun was an important event, like the millennium in our western calendars.
The Calendar Round is two interlocking calendars called the Tzolk'in and Haab'. The Calendar Round is still in use in many communities in the Guatemalan highlands and in Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico - see Tedlock (1982).
The Tzolk'in is the most universal calendar for all of the pre-Columbian people of Mesoamerica. It's a divinatory almanac of 260 days which consists of a coefficient of 1 through 13 and one of 20 symbols.
The Haab' is a 365 day vague solar year of 18 months of 20 days numbered zero (often translated as "seating") through 19 and five unlucky days at the end of the year numbered zero through four. Unlike our western calendar it has no leap year to make it closer to the tropical year of 365.2422 days.
Not every possible combination of Tzolk'in and Haab can occur. For Tzolk'in symbols Imix, Kimi, Chwen and Kib' the Haab' coefficient can only be 4, 9, 14 or 19. For Tzolk'in symbols Ik', Manik', Eb' and Kab'an the Haab' coefficient can only be 0, 5, 10 or 15. For Tzolk'in symbols Akb'al', Lamat, B'en and Etz'nab' the Haab' coefficient can only be 1, 6, 11 or 16. For Tzolk'in symbols K'an, Muluk, Ix and Kawak the Haab' coefficient can only be 2, 7, 12 or 17. And for Tzolk'in symbols Chikchan, Ok, Men and Ajaw the Haab' coefficient can only be 3, 8, 13 or 18.
A year bearer is a Tzolk'in day name that occurs on the first day of the Haab'. If the first day of the Haab' is 0 Pop then each 0 Pop will coincide with a Tzolk'in date, for example, 1 Ik' 0 Pop. Since there are twenty Tzolk'in day names and the Haab' year has 365 days, the Tzolk'in name for each succeeding Haab' zero day will be incremented by 5 in the cycle of day names like this:
| 1 Ik' | 0 Pop |
| 2 Manik' | 0 Pop |
| 3 Eb' | 0 Pop |
| 4 Kab'an | 0 Pop |
| 5 Ik' | 0 Pop ... |
Only these four of the Tzolk'in day names can coincide with 0 Pop, and these four are called "year bearers". The same year bearer and coefficient will recur every 52 Haab' years. This is the classic system. It is found at Tikal and in the Dresden Codex. During the late classic period a different set of year bearers was used in Campeche. In this system the year bearers were the Tzolk'in that coincided with 1 Pop. These were Ak'b'al, Lamat, B'en and Edz'nab. This is the Campeche system. During the post-classic period in Yucatan a third system was used. In this system the year bearers were the days that coincided with 2 Pop: K'an, Muluc, Ix and Kawak. This system is found in the Chronicle of Oxkutzcab. In addition, just before the Spanish conquest in Mayapan the Maya began to number the days of the Haab' from 1 to 20. In this system the year bearers are the same as in the Campeche system but the coefficient is one greater. This is the Mayapan system. Chac allows one to use any of these systems by changing the year bearer system option in the preferences panel.
Many communities in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, Mexico and the Guatemalan highlands still keep the Calendar Round today and they use the classic Year Bearer system - see Tedlock (1982)
According to Bernal Diaz de Castillo, the Aztecs reported that Cortez arrived in a 1 Reed year. This not possible using any of the year bearer systems. The year bearers reported in accounts of the conquest and post-classic codices are the year bearers of the Campeche or Mayapan systems but the coefficients don't agree with what you would get from matching them with the start of the Haab' year. Some authors claim that the Aztecs used the last day of the Haab', 19 Kumk'u, as the day of the year bearer but the year bearers would be K'ib, Imix, Kimi and Chwen. Some post-conquest scholars wrote that the the Aztecs revised the Haab' during the late-classic period for their Aztec calendar.
The same combination of Tzolk'in and Haab' dates repeats every 18,980 days or 51.9641 solar years. On the first day of the current creation the Calendar Round was 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u. When this date repeated it was called a Calendar Round completion. This was an extremely important event for the people of Mesoamerica.
Many classical Mayan monuments include a supplementary series. The supplementary series was deciphered by John E. Teeple (1874-1931). A supplementary series consists of the following:
Each night was ruled by one of the Nine Lords of the Underworld. This nine day cycle was usually written as two glyphs: a glyph that referred to the Nine Lords as a group, followed by a glyph for the lord that would rule the next night.
The Lunar Series provides information about the current lunation, the number of the lunation in a series of six, the current ruling lunar deity and the length of the current lunation.
The maya used two systems for counting the cycles of the moon. Either the first night when one could see the new moon in the evening (the Palenque system) or the first morning when one could not see the waning moon was used as the zero day of the lunar cycle. Chac allows one to select either system in the preferences panel. There was a glyph for the new moon. Then a glyph referred to as the upended frog glyph was used with a coefficient at the left for days 1 through 19. A glyph made up of two overlapping moon symbols on bundles was used for day twenty and a coefficient of 1 through 9 was put horizontally over the left one for days 21 through 29.
The Maya counted the number of lunations as a cycle of six, numbered zero through 5. Each one was ruled by one of the six Lunar Deities. This was written as two glyphs: a glyph for the completed lunation in the lunar count with a coefficient of 0 through 5 and a glyph for the one of the six lunar deities that ruled the current lunation.
Teeple found that Quirigua Stela E (9.17.0.0.0) is lunar deity 2 and that most other inscriptions use this same moon number. This Long Count is recorded on several monuments. It's an interesting date because it was a Ka'tun completion and a solar eclipse was visible in the Maya area two days later on the first unlucky day of Wayeb'. This inscription uses the first day that one couldn't see the waning moon as moon day zero. However a study of many of these inscriptions by Fuls indicates that there was no single system for this, so Chac allows one to select any of the six possible lunation numbers in the preferences panel to study this.
The length of a lunar month is 29.53059 days so if you count the number of days in a lunation it will be either 29 or 30 days. The maya wrote whether the lunar month was 29 or 30 days as two glyphs: a glyph for lunation length and either a glyph made up of a moon glyph over a bundle with a suffix of 19 for a 29 day lunation or a moon glyph with a suffix of 10 for a 30 day lunation.
The Maya maintained an 819 day count. This was written with a glyph for K'awiil (also known as God K) or one of the four Chacs. There is a K'awiil or a Chac for each of the four directions and its color — east is red, south is yellow, west is black and north is white. K'awiil or one of the four Chacs rules for 819 days in one of the four directions.
Susan Milbrath and other scholars, believe that the 819 day cycle is a count of the cycles of Jupiter and that K'awiil with the smoking mirror in his head is the god of Jupiter.
The Maya were skilled astronomers and kept track of the cycles of the Moon, the visible planets and other important astronomical phenomena.
The rising and settings of Venus were particularly important to the people of Mesoamerica. The Dresden codex contains six pages that record the heliacal phenomena of Venus.
The Dresden codex contains a table of possible eclipse dates.
The Maya codices, building alignments, and inscriptions record Solstices and Equinoxes.
In the tropics the Sun passes directly overhead twice each year. These Zenith Passage Days were very important to the people of Mesoamerica. Buildings were aligned to the azimuth of the rising or setting of the Sun on this data and there are many observatories in Mesoamerican ruins that were built to observe this phenomenon.