Tzolkin

Days in a 13-cycle are numbered. In a cycle of 20 each day has its own name and graphic designation - glyph . When moving to the next day, its number increases by 1 (up to 13 and further cyclically) and at the same time its name changes in accordance with the order of names in a cycle of length 20 (until the twentieth and further cyclically). Thus, two consecutive dates always differ in both number and name. Repeating dates starts after the smallest total multiple of cycle lengths is reached - 260. Below is the tzolkin in tabular form with the modern name of the days (the name of the day in the Yucatec language of the 16th century). Dates are counted line by line.

Some similarities with the Tzolkin calendar in the European calendar are designated by the date of the month and the day of the week, with the difference that Maya had “20 days” in the week, and 13 in all “months”, and the months were not named. In ancient times, the days of the European week also had a sacred meaning, and Saturday and Sunday in some religious communities retained this meaning today.

In a cycle of length 20, every day had a name, several graphic images - logograms or glyphs and a sacred meaning.

Archaeological sites suggest that this calendar arose in Mesoamerica no later than the 5th century BC and was used by other peoples in parallel, and possibly before Maya. ^{[9] [10]} There are several versions regarding its origin, none of which are generally accepted today.

1. It is known that the number 20 is the basis of the Mayan positional number system , which is used for a long calendar count, and the number 13 is the first and only non-zero digit in the “long” record of the date of the mythical creation of the world - 13.0.0.0.0. It can be assumed that the number 20 and the number 13 in Maya had a sacred meaning. Multiplying these numbers, we get 260.
2. Vincent Malstrom, based on the ideas of offers an astronomical version. ^[11] At the latitude of Maya, the sun is at its zenith around April 30 and August 12. A longer interval between these dates is 260, and a smaller one 105. This hypothesis is met with a number of objections ^[12] And today, Mayans plant corn in late April - early May, and harvest in early August, but this is due to seasonal changes in precipitation, not the height of the sun at noon. In addition, Maya had a solar haab calendar for organizing agricultural work.
3. Finally, there is even a hypothesis that the number 260 is chosen, because it coincides with the duration of pregnancy in humans. ^[13]