First published Feb 8, 2010. Major revisions Mar 25, 2013.
Before the Maya developed the well-known Long Count calendar sometime before 3114 BCE, they were using a long count calendar based on the orbit of Mars. The Mars tables in the Dresden Codex might provide more information, but there are also clues of this in the Mayan history book, the Popol Vuh. In fact, I believe that this calendar was developed in Honduras, when the Maya lived on Isla Tigre, and dates back to about 8500 BCE, which would make it one of the oldest calendars known to humankind.
The Mayan ancestors were using a base 20 day-counting system, no later than 8600 BCE while they were living at the Tecapa volcano, El Salvador, known as Hakawitz in the Popol Vuh and may have used it earlier. According to the Popol Vuh at Hakawitz (Tecapa) they began to practice every 20th day as a day of sacrifice to the ancestors and spirits (Tojmar day). Soon thereafter they seem to have initiated the 260 day calendar, most likely because it corresponded with the time between a pregnant woman's first missed period and the time of birth.
The Maya were forced to flee to an island - Isla Tigre - because they had a fierce enemy, descendants of the Clovis point hunters, who were based at Corinto cave. The Maya called them Xibalbha - "those afraid of water". The Maya were safe on islands. But they desired to live on land and the only way to do that was to overcome the Xibalbha. Eventually it might mean militarily but before that they needed to overcome the Xibalbha shaman who could predict the timing of the full moon. The Maya began to see if they could predict the standing still and retrograde motions of the various planets - that would overcome the Xibalba shaman.
The Mayan ancestors would have noticed that at least four stars (planets) did stand still and move backward - Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They might have noticed Mercury but it is never high above the horizon and is hard to see, especially in a hilly landscape.Venus has a synodic period - the length of time from one retrograde motion until the next retrograde motion - of about 584 days. One could track Venus with 73 8-day weeks, and eventually the Mayans probably did this. But 584 is not evenly divisible by 20, so it was not possible to predict its retrograde motion with a base 20 system.
Jupiter has a synodic period of just under 399 days. That is close to 20 20-day weeks, but is not close enough to being evenly divisible by 20 to serve as a long-count calendar. Saturn has a synodic period of 378 days and is close to 19 20-day weeks, but, like Jupiter, would not serve as a long-count calendar.
Mars has a synodic period of 779.9197 days. This is almost exactly 39 20-day weeks. Embedded within that 780 day cycle are three 260 day segments, corresponding to the 260 day tzolk'in calendar, with 13 20-day weeks in each segment. Eventually that flipped to become 20 13-day weeks.
The three 260 day segments of the Mars cycle are:- Middle night to evening star: station (turn) retrograde, retrograde, station direct, direct
- Evening star to invisible: evening star, heliacal setting, invisible (conjunct Sun)
- Morning to middle night star: heliacal rising, morning star, to middle night star
Based on the how the Mayan week fits into the characteristic of the stages in the first segment, the retrograde period, the weeks of the tzolk'in can be placed in four groups. Mars always stations retrograde within the same 52 day span (4 13-day weeks) of the tzolk'in - what I call Group 'A' in the table below. (Actually not always: it slips one day every 26 years.) Mars is always retrograde during every third time through a 26-day period, called Group 'B'. Mars also stations direct each time within the same 52 day span, Group 'C', below. Finally there is a 130 period in tzolk'in where Mars is never retrograde or stationing direct, called Group 'D' below.
The following table describes how the four groupings of weeks fall within the three 260-day cycles of Mars. When it says last three days of Noj, for example, that means the 11th, 12th and 13th days of the week that begins 1 Noj. Note: I will use the following convention when referring to day signs (Chorti/Quiche/Yucatec/Aztec/English). The four weeks mentioned below are: Noj/No'j/Caban/Ollin/Greatness; Tojmar/Toj/Muluk/Atl/Payment made; Tz'ikin/Tz'ikin/Men/Cuauhtli/Clay and sticks; and Ch'i'/Kej/Manik'/Mazatl/Growth. Based on my reading of the Popol Vuh, I use the correlation of GMT-95 or 584188, for dates after October 1582.
|
Phase . . . . 1. Middle night to evening star 2. Evening star to invisible 3. Morning to middle night star |
Group A last 3 days of Noj to first 10 days of Tojmar52 days . Turns retrograde . Evening star . Heliacal rising |
Group B
last 3 days of Tojmar to first 10 days of Tz'ikin
26 days . Always retrograde . Early evening star . Morning star |
Group C last 3 days of Tz'ikin to first 10 days of Ch'i' Turns direct . Heliacal setting Early morning star |
Group D last 3 days of Ch'i' to first 10 days of Noj Late evening star Invisible or briefly visible Middle of night star |
The key driver of the Mars calendar is the station retrograde. When Mars is ready to turn retrograde it rises in the evening - between 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm. The elliptical nature of Mars' orbit is due, in part, to the gravitational pull of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Visually this is located at the dark spot in the middle of the Milky Way, the 'void', which is, literally, a large black hole.
When Mars stations (turns) retrograde opposite the center of the galaxy, i.e., in Taurus or Gemini, its retrograde station occurs very late in the tzolk'in, but when it stations retrograde in Scorpio or early Sagittarius the retrograde station occurs very early in the tzolk'in. It's important to use the tropical zodiac rather than the sidereal zodiac since the impacting force is the center of the galaxy not individual stars which are precessing through the galaxy's elliptic. Every 7th or 8th Mars' synodic period, every 15 to 17 years, will produce a retrograde in Scorpio or early Sagittarius.
By representing each tzolk'in day as a number from 1 to 260, starting with 1 Imix as 1, one can see how the Mars retrograde occurs earlier during March and April and when Mars is Scorpio or Sagittarius. The following table lists the last time that the Mars retrograde calendar moved backward one day (in 1984), when it repeated on that tzolk'in date in 1999, as well as all of the Mars retrograde occurrences from 2012 to 2031.
Mars Mars Tzolk'in
Retrograde Zodiac Tzolk'in 1-260
Date d/m/y Position Date Number
5/4/1984 28 21 Sco 12 K'anir 168
18/3/1999 12 12 Sco 12 K'anir 168
23/1/2012 23 06 Vir 13 Ik'ar 182
1/3/2014 27 32 Lib 1 Tz'i 170
17/4/2016 8 54 Sag 12 K'anir 168
26/6/2018 9 13 Aqu 6 K'anir 188
9/9/2020 28 8 Ari 6 B'ahram 214
30/10/2022 25 37 Gem 7 Tz'ikin 215
6/12/2024 6 10 Leo 8 Akbar 203
10/1/2027 10 26 Vir 6 K'anir 188
14/2/2029 13 55 Lib 5 B'ahram 174
28/3/2031 21 38 Sco 10 Chamer 166
The Mars retrograde calendar moves backward every 15, 32, or 47 years. Fifteen years after 1984, in 1999, it almost moved back but repeated the same day, 12 K'anir. Thirty two years after 1984, in 2016, it almost moved back but again repeated the same day, 12 K'anir. Forty-seven years after 1984, in 2031, the calendar will move back two days to 10 Chamer. Often when it hasn't moved in 47 years it will back up two days at once. The Maya would have known from the position of Mars as it slows down whether or not it would move the calendar back. For example in 1999, Mars' position at 12 Scorpio was too early in the Milky Way.
Because Mars' synodic period is 779.9197 days and not exactly 780 days it slowly moves backward through the tzolk'in. This happens on average one day per about 26 years. A Mars station retrograde is considered significant in the calendar when it moves the Mars calendar backward by one day. For example, on March 25, 1952, the Mars retrograde station occurred on 13 Tojmar (the 13th day of Noj/No'j/Caban/Ollin/Greatness week). It was a significant retrograde since previously the calendar was set on 1 Tz'i'/Tz'i'/Ok/Izcuintli/Dog. Considering for the moment only Mars retrogrades that occurred in Scorpio or early Sagittarius, 15 years later, on March 8, 1967, Mars turned retrograde on 1 Tz'i'; this was not significant. Seventeen years later, on April 5, 1984, Mars turned retrograde on 12 K'anir/Q'anil/Lamat/Tochtli/Yellow Star (12th day of Noj week); this was significant since it clicked down from the 13th day of Noj to the 12th day of Noj.
Generally anytime that the Mars retrograde starts between March 19 and April 8, it will be a significant retrograde for the calendar. Over time this time span slowly moves forward. This corresponds to a location of Mars between 13 Scorpio and 3 Sagittarius. The table above shows that in 1999 Mars turned retrograde in the 12th degree of Scorpio. It was not significant. In 2016 Mars will turn retrograde in the 8th degree of Sagittarius and it will not be significant. Then in 2031 Mars turns retrograde at 21 Scorpio and will click down two spaces in the calendar. While the Maya could see that Mars was in the middle of the Milky Way, when it clicked the calendar down two days it helped to confirm it was the center of the galaxy that was affecting Mars' orbit. Watching Mars helped the Maya determine where the center of the galaxy was - located in our era at 2 Sagittarius.
The Mars retrograde long-count calendar is not exact - it can range from 316 years to 394 years to click through one 13-day sign. This may be one reason that the Maya decided to adopt the solar elliptic based long-count calendar, which consists of 73 tzolk'in cycles, 52 365-day years, or 51.9644 Julian years.
How did the Maya keep track of time for thousands of years? I guess that they did it by body painting, body piercing, and scarring. It would have been necessary to track only two calendars: the tzolk'in and the Mars calendar date, in order to keep track of the Mars long count.
The tzolk'in, which changed each day, was likely tracked in a non-permanent way, such as with body paint on people's toes and fingers. It was an honor to be the official day-keeper. Counting the days is symbolized by the day sign tz'ikin, which has a double meaning of "count days".
The Mars long count itself was most likely tracked with piercings or scarring, since a change in the count would occur only every 15 to 47 years. This was probably done only on the shaman-astronomers themselves. They probably used the body parts least likely to be lost - the face, chest, and abdomen. In fact, I think that the later practice by the priests of cutting themselves on the ear or genitalia was a symbolic reference back to the days when shaman kept track of the Mars long count in that manner. When a new shaman was being initiated part of the initiation was to repeat the scarring or the piercing of the outgoing shaman so that the historical record was not lost.
When Mars rose an hour or two after sunset, i.e. about to turn retrograde, and nearing the center of the galaxy, several days of celebration would ensue as people waited to see if it heralded a new calendar day. The shamans were able to predict the exact date of the retrograde motion by seeing how close Mars was to the center of galaxy when it was about to turn backward. The Popol Vuh describes precisely this "ball game" contest with the lords of Xibalba, when Hunahpu and Xbalanque ("movement into B'ahram") were in the razor room and made the razors stand still. (Tedlock, pg. 123). Note: the page numbers that I reference are from the Revised Edition, 1996, of Dennis Tedlock's English translation of the Popol Vuh.
Because the calendar is moving backward through the signs, the week identifier does not start until the calendar is down to the first day of the week. For example, we are now in the Tz'i' period, which started with 1 Tz'i' and continues from the 13th to the 2nd day of Noj week. This helps explain why the Mayans later used the last day of a time period to identify that period rather than the first day.
|
Historic Era-Week in the Mars Retrograde Calendar (Ch'orti'/Quiche/Yucatec) 1 Ahchuck/Junahpu/Ahaw 1 Ch'i'/Kej/Manik' 1 B'ahram/Ix/Ix 1 Imix/Imox/Imix 1 K'anir/Q'anil/Lamat 1 Tz'ikin/Tz'ikin/Men 1 Ik'ar/Iq'/Ik' 1 Tojmar/Toj/Muluk 1 Ahmok/Ajmak/Cib 1 Akb'ar/Aq'ab'al/Ak'bal 1 Tz'i'/Tz'i'/Ok 1 Noj/No'j/Caban 1 Kach/K'at/Kan 1 B'atz/B'atz'/Chuen 1 Etz'nab'/Tijax/Etz'nab 1 Chichan/Kan/Chikchan 1 B'i'r/E/Eb 1 Kawe't/Kawuq/Kawak 1 Chamer/Kame/Kimi 1 B'ahk'/Aj/Ben 1 Ahchuk/Junajpu/Ahaw 1 Ch'i'/Kej/Manik' 1 B'ahram/Ix/Ix 1 Imix/Imox/Imix 1 K'anir/Q'anil/Lamat 1 Tz'ikin/Tz'ikin/Men 1 Ik'ar/Iq'/Ik' 1 Tojmar/Toj/Muluk 1 Ahmok/Ajmak/Cib 1 Akb'ar/Aq'ab'al/Ak'bal 1 Tz'i'/Tz'i'/Ok Note: Uses GMT correlation 584178, except after 1582 CE uses 584188. |
Nov 20, 8198 BCE Nov 23, 7835 BCE Dec 16, 7487 BCE Dec 19, 7124 BCE Dec 12, 6793 BCE Dec 4, 6462 BCE Dec 26, 6114 BCE Dec 11, 5736 BCE Jan 2, 5387 BCE Dec 26, 5057 BCE Dec 29, 4694 BCE Jan 9, 4377 BCE Jan 1, 4046 BCE Jan 5, 3683 BCE Jan 27, 3335 BCE Jan 31, 2972 BCE Jan 23, 2641 BCE Feb 15, 2293 BCE Feb 6, 1962 BCE Feb 10, 1599 BCE Feb 21, 1283 BCE Feb 25, 920 BCE Feb 17, 589 BCE Feb 20, 226 BCE Feb 23, 137 CE Feb 27, 500 CE Mar 10, 816 CE Mar 3, 1147 CE Mar 6, 1510 CE Apr 2, 1905 CE |
What is the evidence that the Maya used the Mars retrograde calendar? The first is deduction and the second are references in the Popol Vuh. The deductive argument is that if the Maya had a 260 day calendar, and they did, they would have had to be aware of the Mars cycle that is described at the beginning of this post. They were simply such good astronomers that they must have noticed the Mars cycle of retrogrades, directs, settings and risings. And if the Maya were aware of the Mars cycle they would have made a calendar of the cycle. They created dozens or even hundreds of calendars.
The Popol Vuh appears to embed dates from the Mars long count calendar by using pairs of names and by using other symbols that appear to be placed in the narrative for no apparent reason. The most obvious pairing of names are "One Kame (Chamer), Seven Kame" (One Death, Seven Death) and "One Hunahpu (Ahchuk), Seven Hunahpu" (One Observer, Seven Observer). In the case of One Hunahpu, Seven Hunahpu, the Popol Vuh states (pg. 91) that Seven Hunahpu "has no wife. He's just a partner and just secondary; he just remains a boy." That to me is a clue that it is a date reference rather than an actual person.
The repeated references to "One Kame, Seven Kame" appear to refer to the date that the Maya met the death-bringing Xibalba hunters soon after the Maya arrived to El Salvador on four rafts. They were captured and taken to the Corinto cave. Seven Kame occurred about 180 years before 1 Ahchuk (8514 BCE) on the calendar above. Precisely 7 Kame (Chamer) occurred in 8687 BCE but I don't see evidence in the Popol Vuh for the tzolk'in, let alone the Mars calendar, to be in use that early. The tzolk'in seems to have been developed at Hakawitz which would have been in the 50 to 100 years following the Mayan arrival to El Salvador. So the Maya on Isla Tigre were estimating when their ancestors had met the Xibalbhans and used 7 Kame as that estimate.
The date 7 Hunahpu also appears to be an embedded date which refers to two occurrences. The first, on pages 96-97, is One Hunahpu (leader of all four Mayan clans) making a mistake when predicting the motion of a planet - most likely Mars. One Hunahpu is forced to jump through the razor room and the sharp rocks behead him and his head is placed on a tree at the crossroads. But the Popol Vuh states that his death was not in vain, the Maya learned from it in terms of becoming better predictors of planetary motion. His sacrifice helped to later save the Mayan people. One Hunahpu's head then becomes a calabash, a squash. This may be indicating that the Mayan people first domesticated the squash at this same time. The date 7 Hunahpu is 7993 BCE. It appears that the 7 Hunahpu refers to the entire period from 7993 BCE until the next 1 date which is 1 B'ahram on 7835 BCE. It is in this time period that 1 Hunahpu is killed, most likely on the night that the Mars retrograde calendar clicked down to 5 Etz'nab' on Nov. 21, 7914 BCE. Razors are the symbol of the Etz'nab' day sign.
Probably the best evidence from the Popol Vuh of the existence of the Mars retrograde calendar is a passage from page 103 of Tedlock where there is a speech from Xkik'. The second line of the poem is:
xtoj, xq'anil
movement (into) Tojmar, movement (into) K'anir
Normally with the tzolk'in the days proceed Ch'i', K'anir, Tojmar, and Tz'i'. The only calendar where it goes in the opposite direction - Tz'i' to Tojmar to K'anir - is the Mars retrograde calendar. The use of x to denote movement also implies that something is moving (backward) into Tojmar and then K'anir. In this case the reference is to a process that took place over many years.
The following table lists many of the Mars retrograde calendar references in the Popol Vuh, as well as a couple others. Most of the Popol Vuh references took place between 8529 BCE and 7487 BCE.
| BCE Date: Mars Retro |
Mars Retrograde Tzolk'in Marker |
Event |
|
Nov 11, 8687 |
7 Chamer (Death) | Mayan arrival to place of Xibalba (El Salvador) |
| Nov 28, 8529 | 1 Ahchuk (Observer) | Observe Mars pattern |
| Nov 22, 8403 | 9 Tz'ikin (Count days; 2nd meaning) | Beginning of day count, tzolk'in |
| Nov 14, 8356 | 8 B'ahram (Jaguar) | Taming of the jaguar (B'ahram means "spider lattice") |
| Nov 25, 8324 |
7 B'ahk' (Cultivation) | First cultivation (of tobacco) |
| Nov 28, 8245 | 2 K'anir (Yellow star) | Triple star of 8207 BCE: Venus, Mars, Jupiter alignment |
| Nov 20, 8198 |
1 Ch'i' (Growth) | First corn grown at Teotipa |
| Nov 18, 7993 | 7 Ahchuk (Observer) | 7 Hunahpu Popol Vuh reference. 1st squash |
| Nov 21, 7914 | 5 Etz'nab' (Study or forget) | Death of Ahchuk in the Razor Room at Corinto Cave after making mistake in prediction of Mars retrograde |
|
Dec 13, 7850 |
2 Tz'ikin (Clay & sticks) | Lago Guija flood, Nov 1, 7835 BCE ("Sikin" sounds like Tz'ikin and means "Day of the Dead") |
| Nov 23, 7835 | 1 B'ahram (Jaguar) | Flood aftermath |
| Nov 26, 7756 |
11 B'atz (Sterile) | First explosives experiments by those with no family |
| Dec 19, 7692 | 9 Tojmar (Payment made), 8 K'anir (Yellow star) |
Clearing the blocked Lago Guija egress river |
| Nov 29, 7677 | 7 Ch'i' (Growth) | Lago Guija egress completely unblocked. Move to Igualtepec. (7 Chimalmat from Popol Vuh) |
| Dec 16, 7486 | 1 Imix (Cutting movement) | Final defeat of the Xibalbha hunters as they jump through the cutting rocks of the Razor House at Corinto cave |
| Jan 25, 3130 | 7 Etz'nab' (Study or forget) | Mars retrograde sign during the beginning of the long count calendar in August 3014 BCE. |
