maya-map3

The Mayan culture was complex, and its pantheon of deities were illustratively detailed anthrophic zoomorphs who controlled various elementary forces on earth, such as the bat-god, the god of rain, the god of death, etc. Their calendrical method was capable of measuring extraordinarily long durations of time, such that their calculations could easily exceed not only the age of the planet earth, but the galaxy and possibly even the currently known cosmos itself. This system, while elaborate in appearance and application, is simple in its basic component units. A day is called a Kin. A Uinal, the Mayan month, is 20 Kin. A Tun is the Mayan solar year of 360 Kin. A Katun is the square of a Tun. A Baktun the square of the Katun, and so forth on unendingly. Each Unial in a Tun has its own glyph-name, and each Kin in a Uninal has its own unique glyph-name. Thus there are 18 Uinals in a Tun, with an extra 7 "xaba kaba" or unlucky Kin. The method of calculating any given day's relation to any other day, regardless of how far apart they may be on a calendar, was thus a simple string of numbers of which kin of which uinal of which tun of which katun, of which baktun, and so on unendingly. The 19 Mayan months in a solar year work as a cogged gear in this calendrical system's machinery. The 13 days of a mayan week, the 20 days of the mayan month, the 19 months of the mayan year, and so forth, all combine to form the overall mayan calendrical model.