Today Im going to explain the Mayan numeration, the system of the Mayan
The three symbols are the snail, the point and the line. The snail
represents the zero. The point value is 1 and the line is 5.
The Mayan numeration is a positional system, and the numbers
after 19 were written vertically in powers of twenty. For example, thirtythree would be written as one dot above three dots, which are in turn atop
two lines.
The dot on the top represents "one twenty" or "120", which is added to
three dots and two bars, or thirteen. Therefore, (120) + 13 = 33. This table
reproduce what I explain,very well:
For the numbers, int
the third level they
multiply by 400 but
this changes for the
dates.
When
the
Mayan
write
dates
they multiply by 360.
The addition and the
subtraction
with
Mayan number is very easy and If five or more dots result from the
combination, five dots are removed and replaced by a bar. If four or more
bars result, four bars are removed and a dot is added to the above row. I
And
a
very
interesting thing is that the Mayan merchants write in the ground with cocoa
beans to do some operations.
I have been playing a great game about Mayan numeration on the Internet.
You can play with it in this URL:
https://maya.nmai.si.edu/maya-sun/maya-math-game?
game=game-1
In the game you can do additions and subtractions of Mayan number.
In the Mayan calendar are different ways to count the time. One of this is
the Sacred Calendar o Tzolkin because is used for the religious ceremony. It
counts 260 days divided in 13 months of 20 days. You can see it in the next
picture:
The
20
sign in the first circle are the mayan days. In the second circle
they are 13 numbers, they are the mayan months.
One possible reason to use 260 days is because is similar to the
human gestation period.
The mayan combined the tzolkn with the Haab calendar. The
Haab has 365 days divided in 18 months (uinales). Each month
The third part of the Mayan calendar is the long count. The Long
Count, for which we do not know the Maya name, is the Maya's
linear count of days. In truth it is yet another cycle, but its great
length of at least 5126 years makes it essentially a linear count
through all of Maya history.
To make one date the Mayan write five numbers one for each of
the next concepts: