Feb 26, 2025

One advantage of being in Social Media groups … is that we get to see what people are concerned about & thinking about from their questions … like :

What was the Maya Calendar ?
Seriously … there were & are at least 7 different Maya Calendars**
.… Just like we have multiple calenders today, like our solar calendar of 365 days in a year … plus our 7 named days of the week calendar (Sun Day, Moon Day, Thor’s Day, Friya’s day) to match the Jewish 7 day cycle … plus our Zodiac calendar (you know your Zodiac sign right?) … along with the named months of the year … with our 2-faced Janus (January) looking backward at the old year and forward to the new year … Mars- (March) God of War for marching to start new military campaigns … Maia (May) Roman God of Spring & new growth … etc.

**Similarly to all of our “modern” Calendars … The Maya have/had a Haab 365 day solar calendar of 18 months of 20 days per month +plus 5 extra days with no names. (but no leap day corrections – so this calendar gets way off from the sun’s actual day lengths & positions).

**The Maya also have/had a Tzolk’in Calendar 260 day religious(?) calendar of 13 months of 20 days per month,

**Next the Maya have the “Calendar Round” calendric system, which is a combination of the Tzolk’in day name with the Haab day name … where the Calendar Round has an overall 52 yr cycle, before the two day-name pairs repeats …
Credit and thanks to Sidney “Calman” Hollander for his Calendar Round image.

Continuing with the Calendar Round pairs of Tzolk’in Date Day Names +plus Haab Date Day Names, in one prominent example, when the LONG COUNT Calender (see below) for the new 0.0.0.0.1 starting Date when the Long Count finished it’s finished it’s last 2,880,000 day cycle… the NEW cycle’ s first 0.0.0.0.1 Long Count number … the corresponding CALENDAR ROUND day names were: 4-Ajau, 3-Kank’in … as the Tzolk’in Date name, followed by its Haab Date name … followed by its Lord of that Night = God 9 …



**Then the Maya had/have a 28 day LUNAR CALENDAR … that allows a person who knows their full Maya Birthdate, to also simultaneously know the phase of the moon on that night …

**AND the Maya have a running count of days … since Day 1 … named “Day 0.0.0.0.1” … (which was called 4-Ajau, 8-Kumku in Calendar Round dates) … The Maya LONG COUNT calendar counts the dayss linearly … which is the calendric cycle that ended on Dec. 21, 2012 when it hit 13.0.0.0.0

Here’s an example of a pair of glyphs from one Long Count date, from Palenque:
(Courtesy of FAMSI)

The best understanding is that Day 0 (or Day 1) of the Long Count started on August 11, 3114 BCE… So, the Maya’s Long Count Calendar cycle lasts 2,880,000 days, which Maya traditionalists consider a universal cycle. In modern terms, the Long Count cycle is equivalent to roughly 7,885 solar years … And yes, using the Maya Long Count calendar, you can quickly determine how many days you have been married to your spouse … by subtracting your Long Count Wedding Date number, from today’s Long Count number. 😉

… Yet, seriously, even our modern calendar systems don’t work well to determine: “How many days have I been alive?” … or “How many days until my birthday next year?” … while a sharp Maya priest could quickly answer these question.

AND
The Maya Calendar ALSO included a system of Days 0 – 9 for the “Lords of the NIGHT”

The 9 Lords of the Night glyphs are often called the “G’ Series”. Further note that every tun, k’atun and bak’tun since creation has ended with G9, the aged god of darkness and ‘night sun’, which are fitting ends to each block of time … Courtesy of Revista MesoAmerica.





AND
The Maya Calendar ALSO included a system of the visible cycles of Venus … which follow a 584 to 586 day cycle … where Venus spends roughly 263 days as the Evening Star … 50 days absent from our skies … followed by roughly another 263 days as the Morning Star …

SO
When a Mayan Shaman told a person their Birth Date … It started with the Calendar Round date (as the combination of the two Calendar dates of the Haab Calendar Day Name plus the Tzolkien Calendar Day name), followed by their Long Count Calendar Date … followed by which Day Number of the 9 Lords of the Night the person was born on … followed by the phase of the moon as your Lunar Date when born … Followed by the phase of Venus as the Day number of the 584 day Venus Calendar of your birth date. … as shown in this example

and Yes, full credit on most of this goes to the fine mathematician, Sidney Hollander, who wrote the first computer program in the world to convert modern Gregorian Dates to full Mayan Dates back in the 1980’s … who is also the same professional “Calman” who worked at Chichen Itza from 1991 – 2004 as THE Maya Calendar expert for INAH

Credit & Thanks to Revista Mesoamerica




… and additional credit to Dr. Peter Schmid for some technical details in this report – as Peter was Regional Director for decades at INAH … for Yucatec Maya sites across the Yucatan Peninsula.





Our Dear Friend “Calman” Sid Hollander:
https://yucalandia.com/2022/05/30/sid-hollander-yucatans-loss-heavens-gain/

and our the delightful twinkly-eyed German friend … Dr. Peter Schmid

https://yucalandia.com/2023/09/03/chichen-viejo-finally-opens-after-6-years/

Descansa en Paz mis buen amigos …

Dr. Steven M. Fry


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