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Tzolk’in is the divine one and the oldest one among the Mayan calendars. It is not typically what you'd think of when you think "calendar". You couldn't hang it on the wall, or carry it around as a day planner. It is amazing that Mayas never used the wheel to move stone but they did use the great wheel of time to order every detail of their lives. Tzolk’in is the hub of Maya time. It looks like a round-within-a-round... a wheel-within-a-wheel.
Continuously renewing, it has cycled through seasons and thousands of years, through Maya Kings and Spanish conquerors, democracy and dictators, two World Wars, man’s walk on the moon and right now the dawn of the 21st Century.
Literally, Tzolk’in means recitation of days. Tzolk’in calendar is a ritual calendar having 260 days. It is formed into 13 months of 20days each.
At first, experts could not match the 260 day cycle to any astronomical thing. Many theories were put forward:
It could be the result of multiplying 20 (days) and 13 (months). The 260 days period can be critical, with 20 and 13 chosen. These numbers are the smallest common denominators. And also 20 and 13 are two important numbers for Mayas. There are different theories as with all things Maya.
Another idea was that 20 is a human based number for example the number of our fingers and toes. Literally 20 is “a person full of days”. In Maya Language “Unial” means 20days and it comes from the same root as “Uinic”, the word for man. “Hun Uinic” means 20. Additionally, the 13 of the Tzolk’in is for the 13 major gestures that you can make with your legs and arms, or articulations. When we put together this numbers, 13:20 is the time of the Tzolk’in links each of us human beings to the cycles of the planets of our solar system. It describes the energies of creation moving through cycles within cycles, based on a 13:20 ratio.
Also, each of the 20days has a corresponding direction and in this way 260 unites time with space. The number of 260 has several significant cycles. About 266 days before birth, a human baby is in the womb. About 263 days Venus is the morning star. During the summer growing season the Sun at noon is north of overhead for 260 days at 15 degrees latitude. 13 consecutive Jupiter-Saturn cycles of 20 years is 260 years. But with all these correlations, the 260 day cycle of the Tzolk’in has yet to be proven to relate to any natural phenomenon. Each day in the Tzolkin Round is unique, and has a new also unique energetic characteristic.
After some time, experts realized that it had something to do with the sun and the earth’s changeable magnetic fields at the equator and the poles. However, certainty came only after mankind’s progress in astronautics, space researches and space travels. It is hard to think of how the Mayans were aware of those magnetic fields thousands years ago.
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TZOLK’IN Calendar -
Chichen Itza |
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