leap years in the mayan calendar

did the mayans count in leap years into there calculations.
if not could this effect the end dates of 20/12/2012.

Originally posted by zteam2012
did the mayans count in leap years into there calculations.
if not could this effect the end dates of 20/12/2012.

The Maya used Leap Days.

20 sacred days

twenty stations in life
the day in this 20 cycle count determined one's job ... for life
each named after a natural thing like puma or house or crocodile

13 sacred months

combine with 20 sacred days to generate unique day for each year, like 13 puma

combined we get 20 x 13 = 260

260 = the approximate gestation period of a human birth
so it was a fair guess that one was concieved on the day they were born

They also used 18 cycles of sacred days to record the year.
20 x 18 = 360
This is [color=gold]close but not an accurate full 365 days.

To solve this the remaining 5 days were declared "evil" and were not recorded. And since records were not kept on those days, everything was fair game. The settling of ancient blood fueds, vengence on rival families, or just plain old acting out and predatory behaviour. Most Aztecs wouldn't leave their homes for the entire 5 days.

So the Maya, and later the Aztec, had to skip 5 days every year.

The western calendar only skips one day every 4 years. And in our case, we actually remove a day from the calendar to make the year come out right. We don't just ignore days cause our sacred numbers are more important that reality.

The only nice thing I can say about the Maya system is that the concept of leaping a day turned out to be quite useful when lifted out of the indigenous blood soaked mysticism and applied to making a calendar that drifts less over the centuries.


David Grouchy

Originally posted by zteam2012
did the mayans count in leap years into there calculations.
if not could this effect the end dates of 20/12/2012.

The translation of Aztec dates into our calendar is problematic at best.
Of the few surviving codex the observations of mars and venus
were used to "find a fit" with known orbital periods.
The date of 2012 is just one such fit.

There is another day that fits.
It's the day Cortez landed.
And the Aztec world did
come to an end.


David Grouchy

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Great reply.

Well thought out.

I only have one disagreement and that's with this bit here...

To solve this the remaining 5 days were declared "evil" and were not recorded. And since records were not kept on those days, everything was fair game. The settling of ancient blood fueds, vengence on rival families, or just plain old acting out and predatory behaviour.

The "Mayans" wrote down many aspects of their lives and civilization. The had folding books "Codices" Made of paper which was on-par with Papyrus. The destruction of the Codices was a crime against Human history. We have no way of knowing all that was lost.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cd3c54c81127.jpg[/atsimg]

Maya codices

There were many such books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century, but they were destroyed in bulk by the Conquistadors and priests soon after. In particular, all those in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July of 1562. Such codices were primary written records of Maya civilization

Huh, I didn't think that the famous Mayan calendar had any regard for the annual year. I thought their long-count calendar was solely a holy one, for determining days of birth and astrological whatchamacallits.

Thanks, grouchy!

-- Wait. The Aztecs and the Maya are completely different cultures. You can't just confuse them and their calendars like that. Although the Aztec culture did largely descend from the Mayan culture, they are as different of civilizations as the Roman Empire and modern Italy.

Both Solasis and Slayer69,
are correct.

In sumarizing I confabulated both Maya and Aztec culture
together in one answer ... intentionally failing to distigush them.

Not that any particular thing I said was false,
and what I said was far more precise than
say "All Mexican Food is Mexican."

But I wanted to give a precise
technical answer that could
be read in under 3 min.

Give me an audience with longer ears
and I have much much more to say on the subjects.


David Grouchy

Originally posted by SLAYER69

I only have one disagreement and that's with this bit here...

To solve this the remaining 5 days were declared "evil" and were not recorded. And since records were not kept on those days, everything was fair game. The settling of ancient blood fueds, vengence on rival families, or just plain old acting out and predatory behaviour.

The "Mayans" wrote down many aspects of their lives and civilization. The had folding books "Codices" Made of paper which was on-par with Papyrus. The destruction of the Codices was a crime against Human history. We have no way of knowing all that was lost.

Yes,
thank you for pointing that out.

I only meant no records in specific case of the 5 so-called "evil" days.
as, yes, the Aztec and Maya were both literate and kept copious records.

Imagine, if you will, the US where the year is actually 370 days long,
and you commit a crime on December 32'nd.
After failing to be able to enter it into the data base, the police just give up and ignore it.
The banks neither pay interest nor allow transactions.
And all the TV's play static.

It is in that sence that I meant they didn't keep records on the "evil" days.

But as to the missing codex, as well as the untold number of burnt ones,
I find it interesting that our calendar was "improved" and we moved off
of the Julian calendar and onto the Gregorian Calendar (with leap year)
in 1582, but Cortez was personally governing Mexico in 1521.

That's 61 years for someone to learn a bit of
Aztec Calendar math.

That's the real missing story.


David Grouchy