Complicated Calendars

The Mayans have a complex system of calendars, and each calendar has a different purpose. Some of the more commonly known Mayan calendars are:

• The Tzolk'in Calendar. Used primarily in crop rotation, this calendar allows one 260-day period to ready the land and one 260-day period to grow and harvest the corn. It was also considered a sacred calendar by the Mayans and determined when their rituals occurred. The Tzolk'in uses 20-day signs coupled with 13 number signs to produce the 260 uniquely identified days.
• The Haab Calendar. This calendar lasts 360 days and breaks down into eighteen 20-day months, with a five-day waiting period at the end that was considered extremely unlucky called the wayeb (also sometimes spelled uayeb). Similar to the Gregorian calendar we use today, the Haab calendar follows the cycle of the sun.
• The Calendar Round. Every 52 years, the same combination of days would occur in the Tzolk'in calendar and the Haab calendar. This was the basis for the Calendar Round, a 52-year cycle that gave the Mayans a way to record history in longer increments.
• The Long Count Calendar. It's unclear whether the Mayans created or simply adopted the Long Count calendar, a system that allowed them to uniquely record 1,872,000 consecutive days. They called this period a Great Cycle, which lasts approximately 5,125 years [source: Malmström]. The idea that the world will end in 2012 is based on the Long Count calendar and its concept of Great Cycles.

Use of the Long Count calendar dwindled after the Mayan Classical period (A.D. 250 to 900) and ended soon after the Spanish arrived. However, researchers have used historical texts and ancient inscriptions to draw direct correlations between the Long Count calendar and our modern calendar. Through this work, they determined that the beginning of the current Great Cycle likely fell on Aug. 11, 3114 B.C., making the end of the current Great Cycle land on -- you guessed it -- Dec. 21, 2012 (or potentially Aug. 13 and Dec. 23, depending on which scholar you ask). Apocalypse aficionados seem to be especially set on designating Dec. 21 as the big day since that date is also the winter solstice.

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