Mayan calendar

The Spaniards, who first began to "master" Central America, estimated that there were about 40,000 stone pyramids, some of them reaching a height of 60 m( ie, the height of the 20-storey building).Yes, there were original civilizations on the American continent, after which there were pyramids, crowned with temples and sites for astronomical observations. These civilizations did not know domestic animals, did not know wheels, iron, copper, bronze. And yet, in their ability, they are not far behind the masters from the banks of the Nile.

The descendants of the people who built the pyramids in Central America, mainly on the Yucatan Peninsula( Mexico) in the 1st and 2nd millennia BC.E., and now live in Mexico, Guatemala and British Honduras. This is Maya, which has 2.6 million people. However, little is known about today's Maya about its majestic past, which began at any rate for 1000 years BC.e.and ended in the mid-fifteenth century, when the Maya cities weakened by internecine strife became the prey of their Aztec neighbors.

But most of all in the death of the Mayan culture, the Spanish conquerors, the conquistadors, are guilty, who during the 16th century.enslaved this freedom-loving people, destroying its monuments of architecture, burning manuscripts written with peculiar hieroglyphic signs. The conquistadors were extremely cruel. It is known that the governor of the Yucatan, who started the conquest of this peninsula in 1526, had the custom of feeding his dogs with the meat of killed Indians. .. The Mayan culture and priests, led by the first archbishop of Mexico, don Juan de Sumaraga, were destroyed. By order of Diego de Landa, who later became the second archbishop of this country, in 1562 all the collected Mayan manuscripts were burned during the solemn auto-da-fe, as Landa himself wrote: "We found a large number of books with these letters. And since they did not have anything, in which there were no superstitions and lies of the demon, we burned them all. "

Over time, it seems that Monseigneur da Landa has a conscience awakened and in his book "Reports about affairs in Yucatan" he gave a lot of information about the culture and history of the Maya, described the elements of their writing, brought a few hieroglyphs and gave them a translation.

By chance, only three Maya manuscripts, apparently presented by the first conquerors to the Spanish King Charles V, were accidentally preserved. One of them is in the Dresden Library, the second in Paris, the third in Madrid. As a result of archaeological excavations, about 150 Mayan cities were discovered. It turned out that Maya, on this or that occasion, installed stelae - stone pillars, dotted with hieroglyphs( about 1500 of them were found).Hieroglyphic inscriptions are also found on columns, on the walls of buildings, vessels and objects of applied art. More than 5000 such inscriptions are already known. Only one "ladder of hieroglyphs" in Kopan captures more than 2000 characters.

Months and years of the Maya

Like the other peoples of the world, the Maya needed a calendar to determine the timing of their agricultural work, especially the sowing, on the timeliness of which the harvest depended. It is known that in the beginning Maya divided the year into two parts - the drought season( which was ruled by the sun god) and the rainy season( which was "ruled" by the rain god).The Maya was waiting for the full moon in May( and according to our calendar), and when clouds of dark clouds foreshadowed the rain, they started sowing, mainly corn: a hole was made with a pointed stick, into which several seeds were thrown. For four years, the soil was depleted, so it was necessary to drop old land lots and look for new ones, often at a great distance from the former place of residence.

At the heart of the calendar account of Maya lies Daykin. They were united in "blocks" and there were several such "blocks":

1) a nine-day event, each day of which had its own name;

2) thirteen days - a "week" of 13 kines;every day of the "week" was designated by its ordinal number in it;

3) twenty-day, or winal - "month" of 20 kin. The word "vinal" also meant "man."Thus, when the Mayans wanted to say "twenty", they said - "one person"( having 20 fingers and toes).Every day in the month had its name( Fig.).

Fig. Hieroglyphs of the names of the Maya days

In addition, the days were designated by numbers from 0 to 19. As will be seen from the following, when counting the days of the year there was a gap between the day's serial number( number) in the month and its name. Therefore, we can actually talk about the existence of two 20-day months, that is, an independent account of the days by the "twenty"( with numbers from 0 to 19) and a continuous change of 20 names in the transition from one year to another( similar to howin our calendar there is a continuous change of the names of seven days in weeks).

The twenty-day month is, apparently, a period of time from sowing to weeding the crops. And the names of his days, as Yu. V. Knorozov remarked, seem to remind us of the most important thing at that time. These names and their meanings are given in Table.

Table. The name of the Mayan calendar month

number	name	His	number	name	His
day	day of the month	value	day	day of the month	value
1	Imish	seeds	11	Chuan	product
2	Ik	wind	12	Ab	fog
3	Akbal	rain	13	Ben	shoots(weed)
4	Kan	food
5	Chikchan	cloudy snake	14	Ish	jaguar
	15	Mine	work
6	Kimi	killing	16	Kib	peck
7	Manic	eating	17	Boar	earthquake( from thunderstorm)
8	Lamate	shining star
	18	Esanab	flint knife
9	Muluk	water
10	Oak	dog	19	Kawak	bad weather
20	Ahau	lord

Years	name	Numbers 13-day week
I	day
II	III	IV	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
17	12	7	2	Imish	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7
18	13	8	3	Ik	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8
19	14	9	4	Akbal	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9
0	15	10	5	Kan	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10
1	16	11	6	Chikchan	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11
2	17	12	7	Kimi	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12
3	18	13	8	Manik	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13
4	19	14	9	Lamat	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1
5	0	15	10	Muluk	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2
6	1	16	11	Oak	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3
7	2	17	12	Chuen	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4
8	3	18	13	Eb	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5
9	4	19	14	Ben	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6
10	5	0	15	Ish	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7
11	6	1	16	Mines	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8
12	7	2	17	Kib	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9
13	8	3	18	Boar	4	11	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10
14	9	4	19	Esanab	5	12	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11
15	10	5	0	Kawak	6	13	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12
16	11	6	1	Ahau	7	1	8	2	9	3	10	4	11	5	12	6	13

It's surprising that Maya used not one, but several calendars at once, closely intertwining their dates. They had a year lasting 260 days( its conventional name is "tsol-kin"), a year of 360 days( "tun") and a year of 365 days( "haab").According to Mayan culture researchers, the 260-day period was initially a period of time from sowing to harvesting. It consisted of thirteen 20-day "months" and. .. twenty 13-day "weeks".Therefore, in such a year, the numbers of the week and the names of the days are repeated in a certain pattern, forming a complete cycle. In the distant past in the spring, day 1 Imish( this designation says: on the first day of the 13-day week, on the first day of the 20-day month) was a holiday that marked the beginning of the agricultural season. Later, after the reform of the calendar, the account of the days for the 260-day cycle began to be conducted continuously, and the related holidays lost their relevance to the seasonal change of fieldwork.

The year of the tun consisted of eighteen 20-day months( 360 = 18 * 20).It is possible that such an ancient Maya imagined the duration of the solar year. And even if in time they had to make sure that this was not so, from the tuna as a unit of time account, because of its exceptional convenience, the Maya already refused to give up. On the contrary, as we shall see later, this year became the basis for counting the days from the original date, the basic unit of the Mayan chronology.

Almost every month name of the Maya contains a certain hint of a specific agricultural season, for one or the other work to be done this season. So, in the calendar of the Maya there were months of Pop - the "mat of the ruler", Va - the "frog", Sip - "sin( shedding blood on the hunt)", Sots - "bat", Sek - "bending the cobs( corn)"Shul - "end", yashkin - "new sun", Mole - "harvesting", Chen - "well", Nash - "new( preparation for new crops?)", Sak - "white( field after harvest?), Keh - "deer( hunting season?)", Mac - "termination( burning trees on new sites?)", Kankin - "yellow sun( through the smoke of forest fires?)", Muan - "cloudy", Pash -"Drum", Kayab - "greatozhd "Kumho -" storm noise. "

Unfortunately, it is difficult to establish when, according to our calendar, in one or another century the New Year of Maya began - the zero Popa. Diego de Landa, giving in his book the names of the months and their images with hieroglyphic signs, reports that by the time of the conquest of Yucatan by the Spaniards, the beginning of the Mayan year was on July 16.

Of course, the solar year is more than 360-day tuna. Consequently, the names of the months could correctly reflect the seasonal changes in nature, if they are used not in 360-, but in the 365-day year. It was this year - the Haab - and used the Maya in their daily lives. To this end, at the end of the year, at the end of the year, in the 18 months to 20 days, five days were added, which were called "Waajeb Haab," ie, the "spirit of [the sign] of the year," or "Ishma kaba kin" - "days without a name."During these holidays, the ruler was changed and, according to the Maya beliefs, in the sky also the authority for a whole year passed to another god.

Mayan Calendar Circuit

Every four years, the Haab( i.e., every 365X4 = 1460 days) the days of the month were repeated again, i.e., had the same number of the month. Therefore, the New Year began on one of four days: Kahn, Muluk, Ish or Kavak, after which the four-year cycle was repeated at first.

In the Mayan calendar there was also another very important cycle-the 52-year-old. In fact, 365 X 52 = 18 980 days. In this period of time, 73 tzolkin also fit, as 73X260 = 18,980. Thus, after 52 years, the haabs are completely repeated as days and numbers of the month, and the numbers of the 13-day week. This allows you to build a kind of eternal Mayan calendar, which is called the "calendar circle"( Table).

Table. Maya calendar cycle

In it, the numbers of the 13-day week are counted from the top down, columns 1 to 13 correspond to the thirteen 20-day months of the tzolkin cycle. To account for the days in the year, the Haab should once again use the first five columns( from 1 to 5).By the way, in order to start the New Year in one of the four days mentioned above( Kan, Muluk, Ish and Kavak), the numbers in the columns "Years" of the table are moved in comparison with their position in the table from SI Seleshnikov's book "History of the calendar andchronology".

Let's check the effectiveness of this unique calendar-calendar. Let 0( date) of the month Pop( ie New Year) be on the day of Kan( at the beginning of the 4-year cycle) and on the 4th day of the 13-day week. According to the Mayan tradition, this date was recorded as follows: 4 Kan 0 Pop. The column "Years I" can be used to date all 18 months of the year, since they all have 20 days each. However, the day's designation in the 13-day week is constantly changing from month to month. Therefore, for the second month of V0, we use the second column of "numbers of the 13-day week", etc., for the 14th month( Kan-kina), the first is for the first and for the 18th month Kumhu is the fifth. This month ends with the 19th number in the column "Years I", and in the sixth column-the 12th day of the week, Akbal, which will be written like this: 12 Akbal 19 Kumhu. Further in the year of Haab, there is a five-day Waaeb. These five days, and count down, moving farther down, but already in the column "Years II", to the number 0 corresponding to the day of Muluk and the date 5 in the same column of the numbers of the 13-day week. Thus, the New Year( 0 Pop) will come at a date of 5 Muluk 0 Pop. The third New Year is found in the column "Years III" - 6 Ish 0 Pop;the fourth - in the column "Years IV" - 7 Kavak 0 Pop, the fifth - 8 Kan 0 Pop. As you can see, the name of the day was repeated, but the day of the week coincides with the name of the day and the date of the month only 52 years later.

Chronology of the Maya

First of all, it is necessary to note that three figures were used to represent the Maya figures: a point for a unit, a dash for five, and a shell image for zero. Like the Europeans, the Maya used a positional system of image numbers, but on a twenty-base basis, and wrote them from the bottom up. On the first from the bottom of the "shelf" of this "shelf" were written units( from 1 to 19), on the second - 20( numbers from 20 to 359), on the third - from 360 to 360 * 19, the number 360 * 20 = 7200 takes itsplace on the fourth "shelf" as the initial number of the 4th order, etc. Accordingly, for the account of large time intervals, a year of tun in 360 days and higher order cycles were used:

1 katun = 20 tones = 7200 days,

1baktun = 20 katunas = 144,000 days,

1 pectune = 20 baktuns = 2,880,000 days.

The very names "baktun", "piktun"( as well as the subsequent units - kalabtun, kinkiltun and alautun) were created artificially by researchers of Mayan culture.

The inscriptions made by the Maya on stelae, columns and walls of buildings usually start with a date. According to Yu. V. Knorozov, the classical Maya date includes the following components:

1. An introductory block, the meaning of which is still unknown.

2. The block inscribed in the middle of the opening block( the so-called "patron of the month").Each of the 18 months corresponds to one block.

3. The number of 360-day years( tuna) and days elapsed from the start date.

4. Date of the 260-day cycle: the 13-day number and the name of the day of the 20-day trip.

5. The name of the 9-day day and the "nine-day" block.

6. Moon date: the number of the lunar month, the number and name of the lunar month, the number of days in the lunar month( 29 or 30).

7. Date of the 365-day year: the number and name of one of the 18 twenty-day months or five additional days.

Here is one example - the inscription on the lintel 21 in Yashchilin. After the opening block and the "patron of the month Iash" there is a date, when recording which cycles of higher order in the counting of days are divided by a point: 9.0.19.2.4 2 Kahn - II day of 9 days - 27 the third lunar month of such,consisting of 29 days - 2 Yash. This means that the starting date is 0.0.0.0.0.passed 9 baktuns 0 katuns 19 tones 2 vinaly and 4 days or 9 * 144,000 + 0 * 7200 + 19 * 360 + 2 * 20 + 4 = 1,302,884 days.

As an initial date, the Maya was accepted: for a 260-day cycle - 4 Ahab, for a nine-day-1, for a 365-day year - 8 Kumhu. Thus, this start date is written as 0.0.0.0.0.4 Ahab 8 Kumhu, which corresponds to 3113 before and.e.

Let's check if the original date is recorded correctly in the 52-year cycle. For this, the number of days found is first divided into 260: 1 302 884: 260 = 5011, balance 24;24 days after 4 Ahau, as can be seen from Column 10 of Table 21, there will be 2 Kahn. Dividing 1,302,884 by 365, we find 3569 and in the remainder 199 = = 9 * 20 + 19 are 9 full months and another 19 days. To this residue it is necessary to add 12 days for the completeness of the Kumhu month, then 5 days for the five-day Vaeyeb, therefore, for the subsequent months of the

, there remain 9 full months and 2 days. From the table we find that the 10th month is Yash.

If the number of days 1 302 884 divided by 9 and add up the remainder with 1, we get also the day of the 9th division. The moon date is almost impossible to establish, because in every Maya city there was a lunar calendar.

By the way, after dividing the number 1 302 884 by 365.25, we get 3567. Therefore, the inscription considered above is made in 3567 - 3112 = 455 AD.e.

As for the question of the accuracy of the Mayan calendar, here is what Knorozov says about this: "Mayan astronomers knew that the actual duration of the solar year is longer by about a quarter of a day( in connection with which the modern Gregorian calendar adds an extra day everyfour years).However, the calendar did not provide for additional days. Without amendments, the 365-day year should have outstripped the actual solar year and gradually shifted by the seasons. Thus, according to the Mayan date, it is known exactly how many days have passed, but it is not known how many actual solar years have passed. "

But if this was the case, then for every 40 years the beginning of the New Year was shifted back by 10 days, in 400 years - by 97 days in relation to a certain astronomical moment( for example, the spring equinox).

Here is one example of how myths are created about the accuracy of the Mayan calendar. On the walls of the royal tomb in the pyramid Palenka is indicated: "81 Moon is 2392 days."The well-known Norwegian ethnographer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, dividing 2392 by 81, obtained a result that "gives them( Maya) a month of 29.53086 days, only 24 seconds different from its real length."But does this really indicate a high level of Mayan astronomical knowledge? Not at all. After all, as J. Hawkins noted, as a result of division, it is impossible to obtain more significant figures than they are in the most exact number involved in calculations, and therefore in the calculated lunar month duration only four digits can be considered accurate( i.e. 29.53days).

Almost exactly the same calendar system used by the Maya neighbors - the Aztecs. Curiously, at the end of the 52-year cycle, the Aztecs were waiting for the "end of the world".According to M. Stingl in his book "Indians without Tomahawks"( M: Progress, 1971), during the last five days of the Aztec cycle, children and pregnant women were kept locked up, all lights were extinguished, all homemade utensils were to be broken, all residents gatheredon the hills. As soon as the Pleiades reached the zenith, the high priest lit a new fire. After that, the lights broke out all over the country, the celebration of the New Year began. ..