Mayan Astronomy
One of the many things the Mayans excelled in is astronomy, The study of space, they could predict phases in the moon and also tell the stars.
Mayan Calendars
The Maya were quite accomplished astronomers. The Maya believed the Earth was flat with four corners. Each corner represented a cardinal direction. Each direction had a specific color: east=red; north=white; west=black; south=yellow. While green was the center. At each corner, there was a jaguar of a different color that supported the sky. The jaguars were called bacabs. Mayans believed that four jaguars held up the sky.
Among their other accomplishments, the ancient Mayas invented a calendar of remarkable accuracy and complexity(and yet simple). The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, constructed circa 1050 was built during the late Mayan period, when Toltecs from Tula became politically powerful(put not in numbers). The pyramid was used as a calendar: four stairways, each with 91 steps and a platform at the top, making a total of 365, equivalent to the number of days in a calendar year.
The Maya calendar was adopted by the other Mesoamerican nations, such as the Aztecs and the Toltec, which adopted the mechanics of the calendar unaltered but changed the names of the days of the week and the months...Copy Cats!
The Maya calendar uses three different dating systems in parallel, the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar), and the Haab (civil calendar). Of these, only the Haab has a direct relationship to the length of the year.
Below: A picture of part of the mayan calendar.
