Ancient Calendars Essay

| The development of the calendar was based on their observations and studies of the stars, moon, and sky. They also established a number system; a year was cut into 12 months, a month into 30 days, a day into 12 hours, an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds. They also divided a circle into 360 degrees of the 60 arc minutes. Settlement patterns were based on the environment of the area and the need for a stable water supply.

Most agree though, that it offers a graphic representation of the Mexica cosmos’ (Palfrey). In The Aztecs, Smith sums up what is to be believed the thought of the Aztecs when they carved the calendar stone “The Aztec calendar stone conveyed the message that the Aztec empire covered the whole earth (territory in all four directions), and that it was founded upon the sacred principles of time, directionality, divine warfare, and the sanction of the gods” (Smith 270). Keeping the Aztec calendar is proof of ancient cultures mathematical and scientific achievements without the aid of modern technology. The study of the sun stone could lead to further advances in mathematics and acts as a road map to our celestial bodies from that era of our history.

This artifact is called the Tzolk’in or sometimes called The Master Calendar, it is one of the two calendars the Mayan people created. It has 260 days divided into 20 months of 13 days. Each day and month had a god or goddess associated with it. The Tzolk'in calendar was created after 400 BCE. The Tzolk'in was created in Veracruz, Mexico. This calendar was carefully carved in stone. This was an important item in the Mesoamerican times, it is still used by some priests in southern Mexico and has never lost its religious importance in the lives of everyone.

The Mayans, for example, were another culture that used celestial bodies in their development of their calendar. The Mayans involved the Sun, Moon and the planet Venus in their way of developing their calendars. However, the interesting part of the Mayans was that they developed two different length calendars, with them we received a 260 day and 365-day calendars. The Mayans were also a part of the contribution to the formation of the calendar we use now. A significant part of the Mayan culture was that their calendar will "keep going and keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future." (Source 3) With the Aztecs, we get what is known as a leap year, because the Aztecs, "adopted a 365 solar day calendar with a leap year occurring every fourth year." For these cultures, it was important to portray time to their people so they could keep records for future generations to

People around the world have heard about the infamous end of the world prediction made according to the Mayan Calendar. However, not many people are aware that there is an Aztec Calendar known as the Stone of Five Suns. According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, the Aztec Calendar measures about 3.6 meters in diameter, about 1.2 meter thick and weighs more than 21 metrics tons. The Stone of Five Suns can be located in the “Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City” (O’Riley, 309). According the Ancient History Encyclopedia, the Stone of Five Suns is not a functioning calendar. The Stone of Five Suns represents the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec Mythology. First we will learn more about the significance of each part of

They produced a very accurate 360 day long calendar they used to measure long periods of time. Developing an extended astronomical knowledge was not very easy because their astronomers did all their observations with the naked eye. However, they were able to do all kinds of incredibly precise astronomical measurements and calculate the seasons, the solstices and eclipses. They did all this by following the patterns of the movements of planets and stars, observing the shadows cast by the Sun, and using some rudimentary instruments. The practice of astronomy was relegated to the ilhuica tlamatilizmatini, or "wise man who studies heaven". These priest-astronomers had a great amount of power, given the fact that they could essentially 'predict' the future. (Welser-Sherrill)

They were able to compute the length of the Earth's revolution around the Sun, and were able to also predict lunar and eclipse cycles. What is more, their sites also bear the claims of what happened nearly 400,000,000 years before their civilization came into existence. They were able to do this by involving a simple mathematical system that was flexible in counting in twenty year periods. This was all done without the help of the technological instruments that are available to us today. The feat while remarkable is not enough to make the case

The Aztec calendar consisted consisted of two aspects that when combined worked towards the 52 year cycle, which in our time is equal to a century. The first aspect was a 260 day cycle meant for counting days while the second was a 365 day cycle that was for counting years, they worked together like two wheels. The 260 day cycle is used for divination and forms an almanac which is made up of 20 groups of days with names or numbers. After going through the full 260 day cycle the calendar would be reset. The numbered and named days would also be replaced with a new combination. Each combination had their own meaning which is why the 260 day aspect was used for divination and acted as an almanac. The 365 day cycle was used for the cycle of seasonal festivals and was divided up into 18 months consisted of 20 days of the 260 day cycle. Every 365 day cycle was given a name with it’s own meaning. Depending on the combination the festivals could be directed towards a multitude of things. As said by Richard F. Townsend “As mentioned above, there was an annual cycle of 18 festivals associated with the eighteen veintena “months” of the 365-day solar year. These festivals were basically of three types: those directed to mountains and water in order to ensure rain; those directed to the earth, the sun, and maize, to ensure fertility, those directed to special deities, particularly those identified as patrons of different community groups or of the community as a whole.” (The AZTECS,

In this chapter, the authors go into great detail outlining the nature of ancient Mayan numerical and calendrical systems and their concept of astronomy. Given that the text is found in The Ancient Maya, and written by established Mayan scholars such as Morely, Brainerd and Sharer, I have few doubts on the validity and trustworthiness of this reading. The text is well-researched and the authors go into meticulous detail outlining the various systems and make references to many archaeological sources such as ancient stelae and colonial accounts by Diego de Landa.

Many think the Mayan calendars solely predicted the end of the world. However, there are many other things to learn about the Mayan calendars. The Mayans of Guatemala were educated people that had many different dating systems. They used glyphs and the sky to help them tell time. Although one common interest is the long count calendar, which predicted the 2012 hysteria, the Tzolkin and Haab calendar worked together to create the Calendar Round. The Mayans also used the sky to give them the Lunar Series, and this also gave them another way to tell time. Overall, the Mayan culture uses many different types of dating systems, including the Calendar Round, the Long Count Calendar, and the Lunar Series to help them tell time. These calendars gave

Astrology began in Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C. when civilizations began to observe the constellations and planets in the sky. The Babylonians then realized that the position of celestial bodies allowed them to predict the seasons and other events that happened cyclically

There were accepted systems for the division of time into day, months and years. Calendars reflect a human effort to measure and order the extended period of time for the future. Without the human effort we probably wouldn’t know the time of day, months and years. This brought satisfactory to represent the ordering of life.

The Egyptians devised the solar calendar by recording the yearly reappearance of Sirius (the Dog Star) in the eastern sky. It was a fixed point which coincided with the yearly flooding of the Nile. They also constructed canals and irrigation ditches to harness Nile river’s yearly flood and bring water to distant

Two contributions from the ancient world that influence our culture today are the architecture from the ancient Greece and the Gregorian Calendar. Another thing that started used in greece is the olympic games (OI). The Greek architecture really helped because the jefferson and lincoln memorial are made in Greek architecture (Doc1). Also those memorials are still standing today (OI) .Three types of Greek Architecture are the Doric column, Ionic column and the Corinthian column(Doc1). Next another important invention is the Gregorian calendar. It is used to keep track of time (Doc4).This Calender was invented by Pope Gregory(Doc4). The Calendar helps us now when important days are coming(OI). Some ancient civilizations used the calendar to

The ancient Egyptians measured time by the phases of the moon. Their first calendar was based on the moon’s cycle and had years consisting of 3 four month seasons. The new year was started by the star they called Sopdet that appeared above the horizon at dawn at the time of the annual Nile overflow. Around 2900 B.C a calendar was made based on a solar year of 365 days.