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Question for Fatman, since he seems to be the official XPT expert on calenders. How do the Mayans fit into all of this?

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My mom did her thesis on the Aztec and Mayan calenders!!




The Mayan used 2 intersecting calendars, a solar calender and a calendar based upon the length of a human preganancy.

Their months were 20 days long since they counted in 20s - the way we count in 10s and the Sumarians counted in 60s.

The shorter calendar based on human gestation was 13 months or 260 days.





The longer one was made of 18 months with a short "month" of 5 extra days. Since this didn't fit with their counting of 20s, they felt the universe was out of balance during this week and would go a bit nutso during this "period of evil".

Apparantly they didn't adjust for "leap year", which some use as support that they got this calendar, and more importantly their pyramids, from the Egyptians whose solar calendar drifted, too. [the "Ra" voyages were real big when Mom was studying this].





Every 52 solar years the new years of the two calendars coincide [which is every 73 years of the shorter calendar]. Thus, they believed that 52 solar years represented the ideal human life span.

Surprisingly this intersection was NOT celebrated. In fact, much like the extra 5 days, it was DREADED.





They believed that the world will come to an end during such an intersection. So, those last extra 5 days just before the intersection of the calendars must have been madness.




But, once into the new 52 year cycle, they would take solace into the fact that the world got another 52 year reprieve.




We used to have an Aztec calendar in our house my mom picked up in Mexico.