Mayan Calendar Design Postcard

The Mayan Haab' Calendar comprises eighteen "months" of twenty days each, plus an additional period of five days ("nameless days") at the end of the year known as Uayeb'. This gives a year length of 365 days The Haab' was first used around 550 BCE with the starting point of the December Winter Solstice. The Haab' was the foundation of the agrarian calendar and the month names are based on the seasons and agricultural events. For example the thirteenth month, Mak, may refer to the end of the rainy season and the fourteenth month, K'ank'in, may refer to ripe crops in the fall. The names of these months are: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Ch`chen, Yax, Zac, Chen, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, Cumku, and Uayeb. This unique design has the symbol for "Hunab Ku" in the center. The Maya came to the mathematical certainty of the existence of cosmic consciousness which they named "Hunab Ku", sole dispenser of measurement and movement, to whom they attributed the mathematical structuring of the universe. This divinity they represented by a circle in which was inscribed a square, just as did Pythagoras. The Maya believed that their supreme divinity functioned through a principle of dynamic dualism, or polarity...by which, through the agency of the four elements, air, fire, water, earth...the whole material world was engendered...To the Maya, the earth was not a corpse, it was neither dead nor inert, but a living entity immediately tied to the existence of man.