How the Maya measured time — History, 7–10

The Maya used several calendars for farming, ceremonies and recording events. Their systems show that people in the past could organise time in precise and inventive ways.

Several calendars for different jobs

The Maya did not use just one calendar. One followed a 260-day cycle for ceremonies, another followed the Sun and seasons with 365 days, and a longer count recorded dates across many years.

Why have more than one calendar?

Different jobs need different kinds of time. Farmers needed to notice seasons, priests needed dates for ceremonies, and rulers wanted to record when important events happened, so one calendar could not do everything well.

Counting a Maya year

In the Maya Haab calendar, 18 months had 20 days each: 18 × 20 = 360 days. Five extra days made 365, close to the time Earth takes to go around the Sun, so the calendar could follow the seasons.

The trap: one Maya calendar

It is easy to imagine that every society has one calendar like the one on your wall. That seems sensible because our calendar does many jobs, but the Maya combined different cycles instead of forcing ceremonies, farming and history into one simple system.

Calendars still organise life

You use different time systems too: a school timetable, a birthday calendar and a clock each answer a different question. When you compare them, you are doing something similar to the Maya: choosing the measure that fits the job.

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