The Maya and Time-Keeping
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No other people in history made of time so great a fetish as the Maya (Coggins, 1979; von Hagen, 1961). Without doubt, time - and man's perception of it - has played an important role in the development of civilizations throughout the world (Thompson, 1966). The pre-Columbian Mayan civilization was no exception to the general rule. Instead, it raised the science of time-keeping via the calendar to a level of accomplishment that was as accurate as the sophisticated, verified calculations of today. The question immediately raised, of course, is: Why? Why such a preoccupation with time? With record-keeping? With such single-minded attention to accuracy that the Mayans devised not one but three calendar systems? The answer, not surprisingly for a civilization that never progressed technologically into the post-Stone Age, lies in agriculture. Mayan civilization can roughly be divided into three periods: Preclassic (circa 1000 BC-250 AD), Classic (250-900 AD), and Postclassic (900-1697 AD). Mayan culture exists today in the same geographical areas of southern Mexico and northern Central America in which it predominated in pre-Columbian days, a combination of temperate highlands and lowland rain forests. 1697 is marked as the official end of the Mayan civilization, for that is the year in which the last Maya kingdom, Tayasal, was taken by the Spanish conquistadors. In reality, in the highland regions of Mexico the Mayan political influence had been overshadowed by the
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ields.
On what dates in 'un?
On 5 'un and 10 'un.
Mayan calendar chant "For A Hot Country" (Gossen, 1972)
On the simplest level, the Mayan calendar performed the basic function required from it by an agricultural culture: it identified the best times for planting and harvesting the crops. In order to identify those times, the Mayans utilized three separate methods of judging time; it was a compromise among the advocates of the original Olmec model, the Mayan observed time frame, and influences from later, rising Mesoamerican cultures (Coggins). The basis of each calendar was the vigesimal (20-unit) counting system of the Mayas, a sophisticated numerology that incorporated the placeholder zero (0) into their writing centuries before Western culture was to develop that important mathematical tool. The haab was the Mayan solar year, consisting of 18 twenty-day months (360 days), plus a terminal period of five "empty" or "unlucky" days. Simultaneously, the tzolkin year was also employed, a 260-day ritual cycle consisting of 13 twenty-day months, with references to lunar movement and the synodical revolution of Venus. Together, haab and tzolkin intermeshed to form the 52-year Calendar Round (Gossen). Finally, as a divisi
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1991
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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