The Maya calendar is a set of interlocking calendars and ritual almanacs developed by the Maya people of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Elements of this calendrical system remain in use today among some Maya communities in the highlands of Guatemala.
Structure and purpose
The system combines cycles of different lengths to schedule religious ceremonies, agricultural activities and to record historical dates. Two principal recurring counts are commonly described: a 260-day ritual cycle and a 365-day solar cycle. These interlock to produce a larger repeating pattern, and the Maya also used a linear count for tracking extended spans of time and dating events across centuries.
Origins and cultural context
Many components of the Maya calendrical practice were shared with other Mesoamerican societies. Earlier and neighboring cultures such as the Zapotec and the Olmec show related calendrical ideas, and later groups including the Mixtec and Aztec continued similar traditions. The basic Mesoamerican calendrical framework did not originate with the Maya, but they developed detailed refinements and mathematical expressions that made their version among the most elaborate.
Documentation and legacy
Because of extensive inscriptions, codices, and later colonial records, the Maya calendars are among the best-documented of the region. Scholars have reconstructed their structure and uses more completely than for many other ancient systems, allowing continued study and a revived cultural role in some modern Maya communities.