Майяның 260 күндік күнтізбесі

260 day calendar used by the pre Columbian Maya civilization

The tzolkʼin (, formerly and commonly tzolkin) is the 260 day Mesoamerican calendar used by the Maya civilization of pre Columbian Mesoamerica. The tzolkʼin, the basic cycle of the Maya calendar, is a preeminent component in the society and rituals of the ancient and the modern Maya. The tzolkʼin is still used by several Maya communities in the Guatemalan highlands. While its use has been spreading in this region, this practice is opposed by Evangelical Christian converts in some Maya communities. The word tzolkʼin, meaning "division of days", is a western coinage in Yucatec Maya. Contemporary Maya groups who have maintained an unbroken count for over 500 years in the tzolk'in use other terms in their languages. For instance, the Kʼicheʼ use the term Aj Ilabal Qʼij [aχ ilaɓal qʼiχ] or Raj Ilabal Qʼij [ɾaχ ilaɓal qʼiχ], 'the sense of the day' or 'the round of the days' and the Kaqchikel use the term Chol Qʼij [t͡ʃol qʼiχ], 'the organization of time'. The names of this calendar among the pre Columbian Maya are not widely known. The corresponding Postclassic Aztec calendar was called tonalpohualli in the Nahuatl language.

The 260 day calendar spread throughout the Mesoamerican cultural region and is regarded as the oldest and most important of the calendar systems, with an origin predating its first appearances in Maya inscriptions. The earliest evidence of this calendar comes from a possible day sign with a dot numeral coefficient in an Olmec like inscription in Oxtotitlán cave dated to 800 500 BCE. Some of the next oldest calendric inscriptions are from early strata of Zapotec in the Oaxacan highlands at sites such as Monte Albán, dating from mid 1st millennium BCE. A few earlier dated inscriptions and artifacts have what appear to be calendric glyphs, such as at San José Mogote and in the Olmec Gulf Coast region. However, either the dating method or the calendric nature of the glyphs are disputed by scholars. The earliest unequivocal written record is a 7 Deer day sign found in mural paintings at the central lowland Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala, dated to the 3rd century BCE, but it is now obvious that the origin of the 260 day is much earlier. An archaeoastronomical study has shown that a number of architectural complexes built in the late second and early first millennia BCE in the area along the southern Gulf coast in Mexico are oriented to the Sun's positions on the horizon on certain dates, separated by multiples of 13 and 20 days. Since these were elementary periods of the 260 day cycle, the orientations marking these intervals can only be explained in association with this calendar. The dating of the earliest constructions indicates that it was in use by 1100 BCE. The original purpose of such a calendar, with no obvious relation to any astronomical or geophysical cycle, is not securely known, but there are several theories. One theory is that the calendar came from mathematical operations based on the numbers thirteen and twenty, which were important numbers to the Maya, (Thompson 1950: Maya Hieroglyphic Writing:Introduction). The number twenty was the basis of the Maya counting system, taken from the total number of human digits. (See Maya numerals). Thirteen symbolized the number of levels in the Upperworld where the gods lived, and is also cited by modern daykeepers as the number of "joints" in the human body (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and neck). The numbers multiplied together equal 260. Barbara Tedlock studied this system in the contemporary Kʼiche Maya community of the municipality of Momostenango in highland Guatemala. She underwent a formal apprenticeship in calendar divination with a local adept, and was initiated as a diviner in 1976. She says: "The Momostecan calendar embraces both the 260 day cycle and the 365 day solar year, with the four Classic Maya Year bearers, or Mam, systematically linking the two. The 260 day cycle is conceived as linked firmly to worldly or earthly affairs, mirroring no astronomical period but rather the period of human gestation. Past ethnographic accounts of this cycle contain various conflicting opinions as to what its first day is, but a comparison of the present results and those of previous studies indicates that there is no fixed first day." Anthony Aveni asserts, "Once a Maya genius may have recognized that somewhere deep within the calendar system lay the miraculous union, the magical crossing point of a host of time cycles: 9 moons, 13 times 20, a birth cycle, a planting cycle, a Venus cycle, a sun cycle, an eclipse cycle. The number 260 was tailor made for the Maya". Others have observed that the "Venus Table" in the Dresden Codex, is an accurate ephemeris for predicting Venus positions. Others have also observed a basis for the 260 day cycle in the agricultural cycle of highland Guatemala, which is also about 260 days. Aveni notes that "the average duration between successive halves of the eclipse season, at 173 ½ days, fits into the tzolkin in the ratio of 3 to 2." This may seem contrived, but the Maya did employ the tzolkin to predict positions of Venus and eclipses. Another theory is that the 260 day period is the length of human pregnancy. This is close to the average number of days between the first missed menstrual period and birth, unlike Naegele's rule which is 40 weeks (280 days) between the last menstrual period and birth. It is postulated that midwives originally developed the calendar to predict babies' expected birth dates. Vincent Malmström identifies a correlation between the 260 day cycle and the 260 day gap between zenithal passages of the sun. According to this hypothesis, the 260 day cycle originated in the narrow latitudinal band (14°42′N to 15°N) in which the sun is vertically overhead about 12–13 August and again 260 days later about 30 April – 1 May (Malmström identifies the proto Classic Izapan culture as one suitable candidate at this latitude). This period may have been used for the planting schedule of maize. However, others object to this conception, noting that while the 260 day calendar runs continuously the interval between autumn spring and spring autumn positions alternates between 260 and 105 days, and that the earliest known calendric inscriptions are from considerably farther north of this zone. Consequently, this theory is not widely supported. It is also possible that the number 260 has multiple sources.

The tzolkʼin is the basis for the modern, New Age invention of the "Dreamspell" calendar, developed by the esoteric author José Argüelles. The Dreamspell calendar is sometimes mistakenly identified as an authentic interpretation or extension of the original Maya calendar, although Argüelles himself acknowledges the Dreamspell calendar is a new and syncretic creation, inspired by elements from Mesoamerican and non Mesoamerican sources. In 1987, before the Harmonic Convergence, inspired by a single paragraph of Argüelles's book "The Mayan Factor" (wherein he refers to each day as a "tone"), singer/songwriter and sound healer, Alyras (aka Mirai), translated the tzolkʼin's harmonic values into sound, with the tutelage of Barbara Hero. Eschewing extensions of the tzolkʼin, Alyras opted for strict mathematical adherence to the tzolkʼin's fundamental structure and sequences, in order to present a truly authentic sonic expression of its inner workings. In 1995, Maria von Boisse translated the mathematical matrix of the tzolkʼin to musical notes and set them into music. The final version of the work was developed in collaboration with Hubert Bognermayr in the Electronic Försterhaus in Linz, Austria. In 1998, composer Michael John Wiley discovered mathematical and aesthetic correlations between the tzolk'in vigesimal count and the naturally occurring overtone series found in music, yielding the composition Tzolkin in C Major", which was premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan, 2002, taking 3rd Prize at the prestigious Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, and subsequently developed into a Tzolkin Cultural Meditation, an audio/visual presentation of the 260 day calendar and timing matrix.