The Tzolk’in
The Maya count of 260 days: thirteen numbers turning against twenty named days, so that each pairing comes round once in 260. Here is where any date falls in it, with the Haab’ year and the Long Count beside it.
Starts from the birth date kept on this device, or from today. Nothing is sent anywhere.
What the Tzolk’in is
The Tzolk’in, a modern name made from Yucatec Maya words for a count of days, is a cycle of 260 days kept across Mesoamerica for well over two thousand years and still kept by daykeepers in highland Guatemala. Each day has a number from 1 to 13 and one of twenty day signs, from Imix to Ajaw. Both move on together every day, so 1 Imix is followed by 2 Ik’, and 13 Ben by 1 Ix, and the same pair comes back only after 13 times 20 days. Beside it ran the Haab’, a year of eighteen named months of twenty days and five days called Wayeb’. A pairing of a Tzolk’in day and a Haab’ day returns every 18,980 days, about 52 years, which is the Calendar Round. For longer spans the Classic Maya counted days in the Long Count, in units of 1, 20, 360, 7,200 and 144,000 days from a zero date in 3114 BC.
A living count
This is not only a matter of stelae and bark-paper books. In the highlands of Guatemala, among the K’iche’ above all, daykeepers called ajq’ij still keep the count day by day and call it the Cholq’ij. There the twenty days have K’iche’ names, Imox, Iq’, Aq’ab’al and on to Ajpu, in the same order as the Yucatec names on this page. Days such as Wajxaqib’ B’atz’, 8 B’atz’, are marked in towns like Momostenango. This page does the arithmetic of the count and nothing more; what a day means for a person is read by the ajq’ij inside their own tradition, and no attempt is made at it here.
Three counts, told apart
The three are often run together as “the Maya calendar”, and they do different jobs. The Tzolk’in is the 260-day count: it follows no season and no visible body in the sky, and it names the day. The Haab’ is the 365-day year. It has no leap day, so it slips against the seasons by about one day every four years, and its first day has wandered through the whole year more than once. The Long Count is neither a cycle of names nor a year: it is a plain tally of days from the zero date, which is why it can fix a day without ambiguity across thousands of years, where a Tzolk’in and Haab’ pair comes round again every 52.
How it is worked out here
The page turns the date into a Julian Day Number, the running count of days astronomers use, and subtracts 584,283. That is the Goodman–Martinez–Thompson correlation, which puts 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 December 2012, a day 4 Ajaw 3 K’ank’in. It is the standard correlation, the one most Mayanists use, and it agrees with the count still kept in Guatemala, but it is not the only one: the close variant 584,285 puts 13.0.0.0.0 two days later, and older proposals differ by centuries. Dates are Gregorian, extended back before 1582 where needed, and a day runs from midnight to midnight. It is arithmetic throughout, so there is no rounding in it.
A worked example
Take 1 January 2000. Its Julian Day Number is 2,451,545, and taking away 584,283 leaves 1,867,262 days since the zero date, which was a day 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk’u. Divide by 13 and the remainder is 7: seven steps on from 4 is 11. Divide by 20 and the remainder is 2: two signs on from Ajaw, the last of the twenty, are Imix and then Ik’. So the day is 11 Ik’. For the Haab’ divide by 365, which leaves 287, and 287 days on from 8 Kumk’u is 10 K’ank’in. The Long Count is the same number of days split into its units: 12 bak’tuns, 19 k’atuns, 6 tuns, 15 winals and 2 days, written 12.19.6.15.2.
Dreamspell and 2012
Many “Mayan sign” calculators online give a kin, a solar seal and a galactic tone. That is Dreamspell, a system published in 1990 by José and Lloydine Argüelles. It borrows the 260 days and renames them, but it does not count 29 February, so it slips a day against the traditional count in every leap year and seldom lands on the same day. Nor was 2012 an end of the world in either count. On 21 December 2012 the Long Count reached thirteen bak’tuns, the way an odometer rolls over to a round number, and the next day was 13.0.0.0.1.
What it claims
The day signs carry traditional associations, and daykeepers read the day of a birth for character and calling, much as a birth chart is read elsewhere. The short glosses on this page are the usual translations of the names, not readings. The page works out which day a date falls on, exactly, and predicts nothing.
The Maya also followed Venus closely, and the tables of the Dresden Codex track its 584-day cycle as morning and evening star; that cycle is drawn under the eight years of Venus. Another count kept by a living tradition, the sixty-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, has its own page.
Questions people ask
What is my Mayan day sign?
Put your birth date in the date field, or choose Your birth if your details are already saved on this device, and the page gives your day in the Tzolk’in: a number from 1 to 13 with one of the twenty day signs, such as 8 Ben, and the usual translation of the sign’s name. It also shows the Haab’ date and the Long Count for the same day. The whole count is arithmetic done in your browser with the standard GMT correlation, and nothing is sent anywhere.
How does the 260-day Tzolk’in calendar work?
Two cycles run side by side. The numbers go from 1 to 13 and start again, and the twenty day signs go from Imix to Ajaw and start again, both moving on by one each day. Because 13 and 20 have no common factor, every pairing of a number with a sign comes up exactly once before the pattern repeats after 260 days. On the board on this page that shows as a diagonal: each day steps one row down and one column across, wrapping round at the edges.
Why do some sites give a different Mayan day sign?
Usually for one of two reasons. Many popular sites use the Dreamspell count, a separate modern system from 1990 with names of its own, kin, seal and tone, whose day rarely matches the traditional one because it skips 29 February. Others use a different correlation between the Maya calendar and ours. This page uses the Goodman–Martinez–Thompson correlation, 584,283, which matches the count still kept by daykeepers in highland Guatemala, and the note under your day shows what the close alternative, 584,285, would give.
What is the Maya Long Count?
The Long Count is the Maya way of counting days from a fixed zero date, 11 August 3114 BC under the standard correlation, written as five numbers: bak’tuns of 144,000 days, k’atuns of 7,200, tuns of 360, winals of 20 and k’ins of single days. A cycle of thirteen bak’tuns was completed on 21 December 2012, written 13.0.0.0.0, a turning of the count rather than an ending. The page gives the Long Count for any date after the zero date, with the number of days counted.