The Importance Of The Mayan Calendar

Time was important to the Maya because it made it possible to create order in daily events, remember the past, and predict the future. The Maya believed history was repeated in cycles, so they maintained a detailed history which was based off of the specific calendars they developed. The detailed records and calendars the Maya kept proved to be beneficial in choosing the best seasons to plant crops, and determining ceremonial dates, especially for the ruling party.
From the Dresden Codex, it can be seen that the Maya used their advanced system of mathematics and precise astronomical system to conduct calculations which allowed them to create their calendrical system. These mathematical and astronomical systems allowed the Maya to calculate

the length of one year as 365.2420 days which only varies from modern calculations by about 0.0002 of a day, which is about seventeen seconds. Tables in the Dresden Codex also indicate that the Maya were able to specifically calculate the average period between new moons as 29.5 days which only varies from the modern calculation by .0302 days. This information was important to the Maya because they noticed that the universe functioned in a cyclic pattern. Night always followed day, the moon always went through certain phases, and the sun always moved in a regular pattern across the sky. The Maya diligently measured these natural cycles in the world. A naming system was developed, similar to the naming system in early society in the United States, so these cycles could be referred to. A single rotation of Earth in respect to the sun was called a k’in. One single rotation of the moon around the Earth was called a winal. A single rotation of the Earth around the sun was called a tun. A k’atun was a period of twenty tuns and a baktun was a period of twenty k’atuns. Names that mean the same thing as these names were used in colonial America. The names were, respectfully, day, month, year, decade, and century.
Based on the periodicity recognized by the Maya, three sophisticated calendrical systems were developed by the Maya.

There was a two-hundred and sixty k’in calendar, a three hundred and sixty-five k’in calendar, and a fifty-two tun calendar. The fifty-two tun calendar, or Long Count Calendar recorded the time elapsed since the beginning of time, or the year zero, which the Maya decided was August 11, 3114 B.C.E. This system of dating is similar to the system of dating that was used by American colonists where each specific date could be written in the format of “month, day, year” signifying the amount of time that has passed since the year zero. Of the three Mayan calendars, the three hundred and sixty-five day calendar called the Haab’ was most similar to the one used by American colonists. The Haab’ contained eighteen winals which were each twenty tuns and one five day period at the start of each new year. It was almost the complete length of a solar year and was used by the Maya population to guide daily

lives.
Like the Maya, American colonists utilized a specific calendar, the Gregorian calendar, to regulate their daily lives. The Gregorian calendar was created by the Italian astronomer Luigi Lilio and used by Great Britain and America, along with most other countries. The Gregorian calendar is extremely similar to the Haab’. The Gregorian calendar is a three hundred and sixty-five day year divided into twelve months of lengths of twenty-eight, thirty, or thirty-one days. Although the number of months and number of days in each month of the Gregorian calendar are different than that of the Haab’, both the Gregorian calendar and the Haab’ were three hundred and sixty-five day calendars and they were both divided into month and days.
Maize
Maya civilization was founded on agriculture.

The earliest Maya settlers followed rivers into the lowlands and discovered the land was fertile and could sustain them, so they planted crops such as seeds, squash, avocado, manioc, pineapple and various tropical fruits. The most important crop the Maya planted was maize. Maize first appeared around 3,000 B.C.E and was developed from teosinte, a type of seeded grass. Remnants of domesticated maize have been found, causing speculation that maize originated in valley and river regions of Mexico. The Maya spent thousands of years domesticating and improving maize. The domesticated maize was adapted into a staple of the Mayan diet which later became an essential food in the daily diet of colonial

Americans.
Naturally, maize is deficient in amino acids and the vitamin B complex, niacin, which are essential to the human body. The Maya and American colonists both implemented a process to treat the maize, improving its functionality. The Maya boiled ripe corn kernels in a lime and water mixture which produced nixtamal, a kind of hominy, which was ground into dough that was used in food production. Although the Maya planted several types of maize at different times throughout the year, it was not always in abundance. To compensate for this, the Maya developed a way to manipulate the genetic makeup of maize so it would be more productive when planted and keep better in storage.
The genetically altered maize proved to be very beneficial and popular in colonial America. Colonists from Europe brought their own grains to cultivate, like wheat and barley, but began to produce less of those crops when they discovered the productivity of maize from the Native Americans. Although maize was actually harder to cultivate than wheat, maize was easier to harvest, lasted longer in storage, and produced more product per acre. American colonists had a less complicated method for preparing maize than the methods of the Maya. Colonists simply removed the maize kernels from the cob and stored the shelled kernels in barrels. This could be done by hand or in a tub that was attached to an iron scraper. The contributions The Maya made to the productivity and techniques for consumption of maize were frequently utilized by American colonists. Because the Maya had altered the productivity and feasibility of storage of the maize, American colonists were able to benefit from this essential crop and develop their own simple method of consumption.
Maize was essential to the sustenance and growth of the Maya population. For Maya society to develop, it needed efficient ways to produce food because the non elite class had to produce enough food for themselves, while additionally producing enough food to support the elite class. For the Maya, food production originated from maize, because it was the most productive domesticated crop. Using the technique that produced nixtamal, the Maya made a dough that could be turned into tamales or tortillas. Balls of ground maize were produced, along with a type of gruel made from corn-meal, called saca, that was commonly consumed as a breakfast food. Posol, a Maya beverage made from maize that has been crushed, boiled, and dissolved in water, was also a very common use of the crop. Maize became a stable source of food, creating the food surplus necessary for Maya civilization to survive, grow, and prosper.
In the eighteenth century, maize was the most commonly consumed grain in Virginia due to its productivity and ease of harvest. Maize had many essential uses in colonial America. It was the main ingredient in common foods like bread, grits, porridge, gruel, and hominy and it was frequently fed to slaves and livestock. Similar to Maya society, maize was a primary food source that helped sustain the population of colonial America, allowing colonies to grow and prosper.