The Mayan Calendar and the Timekeepers

Add a Comment

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 11, 2009 at 11:46am

The Tzolkin is describing harmonics. The Haab is a solar year.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 11, 2009 at 11:44am

These 260 day cycles were known as the Tzolkin.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 11, 2009 at 11:42am

The Maya sacred Calendar Cycles were 260 Kin, or days in length.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 11, 2009 at 11:34am

To understand musical scales, or harmonics, is similar to understanding the Mayan Long-Count Calendar. You might recognize do, re, mi, fa, so, la ti, do. This is harmonics.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 11, 2009 at 11:28am

In the Mayan language, the word for Year, 365.24 days, is Haab 1 Year= 1 Haab.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 8, 2009 at 8:43pm

The easiest way to describe and communicate long periods of time in the society that we live in today is by how many years it is equal to. What we generally call in the English language as a year is describing how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun- 365.24 days. These periods of time that the Maya had names for had very little if anything to do with how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. If you would recall from the beginning of the discussion, we are instead ultimately describing different qualities of light being emmitted from the center of the galaxy as our solar system revolves around the center of the galaxy. I could only describe these periods of time in years by decimal numbers and approximations.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 8, 2009 at 8:05pm

There were several other periods of time that the Maya had names for also.
Vinal= 20 kin (or days)
Tun= 360 kin (or 18 Vinals)
Katun= 7200 kin (or 20 Tuns)
Baktun= 144,000 kin (or 20 Katuns)
Pictun= 2,880,000 kin (or 20 Baktuns)
Calabtun= 57,600,000 kin (or 20 Pictuns)
Kinchiltun= 1,152,000,000 kin (or 20 Calabtuns)
Alautun= 23,040,000,000 kin (or 20 Kinchiltuns)

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 8, 2009 at 7:57pm

I would like to start here by saying that what we typically in the English language call a day, 1- 24 hour period, the Maya called kin. 1 day = 1 kin.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 8, 2009 at 6:32am

next I will discuss the Maya Long Count Calendar and how it works. This is where it gets kind of complicated and hard to explain because these concepts are very abstract to the Western, city-dwelling mind. I will do as best as I can to explain it in laymans terms.

Comment by Dylan Brown on September 7, 2009 at 12:59pm

and if anybody feels that they need sources for this information, I happen to live acroos the street from a Barnes and Noble book store, have alot of the books here at my home and am on a computer that has internet access as I type!

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last