Keeping calendar is not a new thing. Oldest calendar in the world is about 10,000 old. People are using calendar to remember days, time and events in their history. It is true that the whole world is following AD calendar today but that was not the case few hundred years ago. Every civilization had their own calendar and they were following their calendars to remember their historical events. In this article we will talk about Mayan Calendar.
HISTORY OF MAYAN CALENDAR:
Mayan calendar is one of the oldest calendar. It is around 3000 years old. The first year of Mayan calendar was in the 1st century BC. The origin of this calendar is found in Olmec civilization. This calendar is one of the most important calendars in the world. The Olmec Priest were so accurate in their calculation that even modern calendar is 1000 days less accurate that this calendar. Still people are using this calendar to check the accuracy of modern calendars. This calendar is more complex calendar than any calendar in the world. This calendar is still used in some cities of Mexico like Cancun. Hence, next time you visit Cancun with some Cancun cheap flights then you can ask some locals about it.
HOW THIS CALENDAR WORKS?
There calendar is not like an ordinary calendar. The month of a Maya calendar is shown in a circle of 20 days. They have two years conceding with each other. Their 365 days are called haab. 260th day of the year is a Sacred round for them. In our calendar, we call 100 years a century, but their century is 52 years and they call it bundle. They have complete twenty names for each day in a 20th day month meaning they don’t have any concept of weeks. Many of their day’s name are inspired by their animal Gods. Their days are called:
- Imix
- Ik
- Akbal
- Kan
- Chicchan
- Cimi
- Manik
- Lamat
- Muluc
- Oc
- Chuen
- Eb
- Ben
- Ix
- Men
- Cib
- Caban
- Eiznab
- Cauac
- Ahau
EVENTS RELATED TO THIS CALENDAR:
This calendar is full of surprises. No one knows how this calendar came into being. This is highly possible that this calendar may tie some events like configuration of mars and appearance of Venus. This calendar even explains the interval between conception and birth of a human body.
WHY THIS CALENDAR IS IMPORTANT?
Mayan calendar is no doubt the highest achievement of Maya civilization. This calendar is very important even today. This is 1000 days more accurate than our modern calendar. This was the calendar that predicted the end of time back in 2012. Still people use it to predict many things in the future.
Every civilization has their achievements and Maya had Mayan calendar as their achievement. This calendar is still used by many people in Mexico. They set their events and cultural festivals according to this calendar.