The Mayan calendar brings back memories of a particular civilization that belongs to the pre-Columbian era’s Mesoamerica. This particular Mayan calendar by also dates back to a few modern Maya communities that is located in the highlands of Guatemala. These are special calendars that can be both synchronized as well as interlocked and calculations can be brought out from them. These calendars have a few particular combinations and these combinations are responsible for giving rise to more extensive cycles that needlessly to say are more complicated than the last cycle. The essence of all these Mayan systems including calendars are all firmly based on a particular system that has been in use all throughout the region where the Mayans resided. According to calculations all these particular systems date back at least to the 6th century BCE.

The informative Mayan calendar shares several aspects of typical calendars that were previously used by the other earlier civilizations of the Mesoamerican race like the Zapotec and the Olmec. The Mayan Calendar also bears a certain likeness to several later formed calendric systems like the Mixtec as well as the Aztec calendars. However it is quite interesting to know that Mesoamerican calendar wasn’t originated with the advent of the Mayan culture or with the Mayan progress. The later extensions as well as the refinements of this calendric system were termed to be the most sophisticated as well as most complex too. The Maya calendars along with their Aztec counterparts have the best-documentation and also are the most completely comprehensible ones.

According to the tradition of the Mayan mythology which reportedly are documented in the accounts of the Colonial Yucatec cultures and are re-made from the inscriptions found from the late Classic as well as Postclassical era. According to these facts the deity by the name of Itzamna is usually credited as the bringer of knowledge of these systems of calendar to the Mayan ancestors. This deity also brought in writings as well as many other basic aspects of the Mayan culture.

There is one calendar that comprises of a period of a total of 260 days and this is the one that is considered to be the most important calendar of the two. This 260-day calendar was in use all across every Mesoamerican societies and is considered to have a great antiquity. This is one calendar that is used even now in some of the regions of Oaxaca. This 260 day calendar is also used by communities of the Mayas residing in the highlands of Guatemala. The Mayan version of the calendar is usually known to all the scholars of the world as the Tzolkin and this is a perfect combination of another conventional 365-day calendar that is called the Haab and forms a much synchronized cycle that lasts for a total of 52 Haabs and this is called the Calendar Round.  There are several smaller cycles consisting of a total of 13 days that is also known as the trecena and a total of 20 days that is called the veintena. These two were very important and absolutely indispensable components of both the Tzolk’in and Haab’ cycles.