Mayan Calendar vs Gregorian Calendar
The Mayan Calendar has been a popular topic of discussion due to an interpretation that it predicted the end of the world in December 2012, specifically on the 21st. However, the Mayan calendar is not an official calendar and is not widely used; the Gregorian calendar holds the title of the world’s most important calendar. This article will highlight the differences between the Gregorian calendar and the Mayan calendar.
Key Takeaways
- The Mayan calendar, developed and refined by the Mayan people, was adopted and used by many other civilizations in pre-Columbian times, while the Gregorian calendar is the most widely used and accepted calendar worldwide.
- There is a difference in the length of days in a year between the Mayan and Gregorian calendars.
- The Mayan calendar is a system of three calendars called the Long Count, the Haab, and the Tzolkin, while the Gregorian calendar is based upon the earlier Julian calendar.
Mayan Calendar
The Maya civilization is an ancient civilization dating back to Pre-Columbian times. The Mayans are credited with many different skills, such as calligraphy and mathematics, as well as having developed a calendar system that was pre-existing but refined by them. This Mayan Calendar was adopted by other civilizations of their time, such as the Toltec and Aztec. Some communities still make use of this Mayan calendar.
The most important feature of the Mayan calendar is the presence of three separate calendar systems called the Long Count, the Haab or the civil calendar, and the Tzolkin or the divine calendar. These calendars are cyclical in nature and require the passing of a set number of days in each cycle before a new cycle can begin. There are three dates in a given day that pertain to all three the Long Count, the Haab, and the Tzolkin. While the Haab is a 365-day calendar, Tzolkin has 260 days with 20 periods of 13 days each. The Long Count was used to calculate astronomical periods. Mayans believed that each universal period in the Long Count to be of 2,880,000 days and that the world gets destroyed with the end of each such cycle. It is this belief that has led many to believe that the doomsday is near, and it has been set as December 21, 2012.
Gregorian Calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used and accepted calendar in the world. It is also called the western calendar or the Roman calendar. The reason why it is called Gregorian is because of the name of the person who introduced it to the world in 1582 – Gregory XIII the Pope. Most of us are familiar with its features such as it being a solar calendar consisting of 365 days with the calendar divided into 12 months of 30 and 31 days, with February being the shortest having just 28 days.
When Gregory took over as Pope, there was too much confusion regarding the dates in the western world, though the earlier Julian calendar was still serving the purpose. In the Gregorian system, every year that is divisible by 4 is a leap year and has 366 days while others are normal years having 365 days.
Mayan vs Gregorian Calendar
• Mayan calendar is a calendar developed and refined by the Mayan people and is adopted and used by many other civilizations in pre-Columbian times, whereas Gregorian calendar is the most widely used and accepted calendar of the world.
• There is the difference in length of days in a year between Mayan and Gregorian calendars.
• Mayan calendar is a system of three calendars called the Long Count, the Haab, and the Tzolkin.
• Gregorian calendar was adopted by different countries in different years and it is based upon the earlier Julian calendar.
