From 1000 BCE, most of Central America used similar types of calendars. The two most common calendars were the 260-day festival calendar and the 365-day solar calendar. The correlation between the two occurs every 52 years when both begin their new years. This is called the “Calendar Round” and the number 52 became important in Central American cultures.
The 260-day calendar, called a tzolkin, consists of two wheels, a larger one of twenty days and a smaller one with the numbers one through thirteen (shown above). The number twenty was based on the digits of a “whole man” (i.e., twenty fingers and toes) and the thirteen numbers represented their philosophy of thirteen directions in space. Each rotation through the thirteen numbers represents one “week” in this system. The first, sixth, eleventh, and sixteenth weeks were special and very important; they created the four divisions of their year. Each of the twenty “days” was associated with tangible objects or animals and a deity. This created a sort of permanent fortune-telling machine, based on the combination of the day and the number and the objects, animals, and deity associated with each.
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