Maya 2012 - The Mayan days of the week

The Mayans planned their days according to a period of time somewhat equal to two of our weeks. Their work week was twice as long as ours. The days cycled through a combination of 13 and 20 day names to constitute a Tzolkin* or a 20 day "two week" period called a Uinal. The Uinal is roughly one of our months. Eighteen Uinal (360 days) plus 5 "dead" days equal one solar year of 365 days.

This sounds very hard for us to understand as we think in periods of seven days constituting one week and a two week period would be 14 days, not 20 days.

The Maya, however, consider 10 days to be equal to one of our weeks. A two week period would therefore equal 20 days to them. The twenty day Tzolkin is the way they understand time and how to apply the day names.

*Tzolkin = count of days (any count at all, could be a week, month, year, or century)

A Tzolkin or "count of days" is more akin to our days/months/year. The Maya had a Haab, or common civil calendar year that went by a count of 18 "months" consisting of 20 days each. This left 5 days at the end of each solar year. The Maya considered these 5 days unlucky, perhaps even "dead" days.

Inside of the Tzolkin or 20 day cycle are 13 numbered days. These days are not named, they are just the numbers zero through 13.

But the Tzolkin has 20 days! Not 13. How does this work?

The Maya had actual names and not just numbers for 20 of the days! Now why they only counted to 13 is a mystery. They had twenty names and they knew how to count to 20, so what was the problem?

The problem was that neither the 10 day week nor the 20 day month accounted for the 365 day year. The Maya knew about the 365 day solar year and the changing of the seasons. They also knew that the 365 day solar calendar was still off by a quarter of a day. The Mayans actually observed three very distinct and separate (but meshed) calendars! They observed a solar, lunar, as well as a celestial calendar!

In fact the Mayan calendars called for a special designation for every day during a long count. The long count will be explained in a later hub and is the basis of the so-called Mayan 2012 "end of the world" prediction.

The Mayan Long Count will start again on 13.0.0.0.0 and will be designated in the Haab calendar and Tzolkin as 3 Kankin 4 Ahau (December 21, 2012) The winter solstice will be on the 21st or the 23rd of 2012.

Experts and even Mayans disagree with the actual beginning of the current Long Count. The current thinking is that this period started (13.0.0.0.0) during the summer of 11 Aug 3114 B.C.E. (Gregorian) or 13 Aug 3114 B.C.E. (Gregorian). [B.C.E. = Before the common era or Before the Christian era}