The Importance Of The Mayan Calendar

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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