Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs - Wayeb

Kettunen & Helmke 2011
Appendices
TZOLK’IN AND HAAB
The Tzolk’in is a cycle of 260 days, made up of the
permutation of 13 numbers with twenty
named days.
The
Haab is a (vague) solar
year of 365 days, made up of 18 named “months” of 20 days each, with 5 extra days added
on at the end of the year. The first day of the Tzolk’in is “1 Imix”. The next day is “2 Ik’”, the next “3 Ak’ ’bal”, and
so on, until after 260 different combinations “1 Imix” occurs again. 51
…
…
1 Imix
2 Ik’
3 Ak’bal
4 K’an
… 12 Eb
13 Ben
1 Ix
2 Men
…
imix
ik’
ak’bal
k’an
chikchan
kimi
manik’
lamat
muluk
ok
chuwen
eb
ben
ix
men
kib
kaban
etz’nab
kawak
ajaw
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
4
4 11 5
5 12 6
6 13 7
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
9 3
10 4
11 5
12 6
13 7
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
9 3
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
9 3
10 4
11 5
12 6
13 7
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
9 3
10 4
5 12 6
6 13 7
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
4
4 11 5
5 12 6
6 13 7
7
8
9
10
11
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
13 7
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
7 1
8 2
9 3
10 4
11 5
12 6
13 7
1 8
2 9
3 10
4 11
5 12
6 13
Table VIII: Organization of successive Tzolk’in dates
In the Haab calendar each “month” stays in place
for twenty days. The first Maya month is Pop, the day after “1
Pop” is “ 2 Pop”, then “3 Pop”, and so on, until after 365 days “1 Pop” reoccurs. The beginning of the month was
called the
“seating” of the month, and after 19 days Pop is completed and the
next month (Wo) is “seated”. 52
CALENDAR ROUND
The Calendar Round ( CR) date records a specificc date by giving both its Tzolk'in and its Haab positions, e.g. “6
Etz’nab 11 Yax” (whichh follows by “7 Kawak 12 Yax”, “8 Ajaw
13 Yax”, “9 Imix 14 Yax” ”, etc. Since 260 and 365
have a common factor of 5, the minimal time it takes for a particular Calendar Round date
to repeat is (260 x 365)
/ 5, or 18980 days, or 52
x 365 days (=
approximately 52 years).
LONG COUNT
The Long
Count is a linear 53 calendar with a (mythological)
starting point in year 3114 BC in the Gregorian
calendar (13 th of August, according to the modified GMT [Goodman-Martínez-Thompson] correlation
constant
[584285]). The Long Count calendar resembles our linear calendar with the exception
that in the Christian
calendar time is computed in years whereas in the Maya Long
Count time is reckoned in
days. The Long Count
51
See
Day Names (Tzolk’in Calendar) below.
52
See Month Names (Haab Calendar) below.
53
Even though the Long Count calendar of 13 bak’tuns (pih or pik) is a linear calendar, the Maya probably perceived time as being cyclical in
nature. Furthermore, the Long Count calendar
can be regardedd as a continuationn or a recurrence of the previous calendar (or creation), and thus
cyclical in nature.
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