MAYAN CALENDAR

dating system of the ancient Mayan civilization of Meso-America. The calendar was based on a ritual cycle (tzolkin) of 260 named and numbered days running concurrently with a 365-day civil year (haab). The Maya divided the tzolkin into 13 periods of 20 days each and the haab into 18 months (uinals) of 20 days plus one month of 5 nameless days. The nameless days were considered extremely unlucky, causing the Maya to observe them with fasting and sacrifices to deities. Each ordinary day had a fourfold designationday name and day number in the 260-day cycle and month name and month number within the month. Every 52 years the interlocked 260-day and 365-day cycles returned to the same positions relative to each other. Modern scholars call this period of more than half a century the Calendar Round. Every one of the 18,980 days in the Calendar Round had a different combination of day number, day name, month number, and month name (e.g., 12 Caban 15 Ceh). The Maya erected stelaei.e., stone slabs or pillarson which they carved representative figures and important dates and events in their rulers' lives. To describe accurately a given date, the Maya instituted the Long Count, a continuous marking of time from a base date. The base date, 4 Ahau 8 Cumku (3113 BC), was considered by them to be the beginning of the Mayan era.