Maya calendar may be more than 3000 years old, laser mapping reveals

In the western, volcano-ringed highlands of Guatemala, Guillermo Barreno Minera keeps watch over the skies. As an ajq’ij , a daykeeper and spiritual guide, the stars and landscape help him keep track of the 260-day calendar that has ruled the life of his Maya K’iche’ community—an Indigenous group of about 1.6 million people—in Quetzaltenango for generations. Exactly how long people have been using this timekeeping system has posed a mystery. But a new study suggests the ancient calendar used by Maya and Olmec cultures may date back as early as 1100 B.C.E., centuries earlier than previous estimates. “We know that it’s very old,” says David Stuart, an epigrapher at the University of Texas, Austin, who was not involved in the new study. “We just didn’t have any direct evidence for it.” The 260-day calendar, or cholq’ij (order of the days), has only been found in the Maya region of Mexico and Central America. Timekeepers notated the passage of time using combinations of 13 numbers and 20 symbols, always in the same sequence. (For instance, 6 January 2023, would be “6 Rabbit” according to the cholq’ij .) We now know the calendar days correspond to alignments between the stars, architectural features of buildings, and natural landmarks. This unique time span may have helped the culture guide decisions related to agriculture, religion, politics, and more. (The Maya also used another calendar, known as the ...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news