Although
Maya builders possessed many practical skills, the most
distinctive Maya achievements were in abstract mathematics
and astronomy.
One
of their greatest intellectual achievements was a pair
of interlocking calendars, which was used for such purposes
as the scheduling of ceremonies. One calendar was based
on the sun and contained 365 days.
The
second was a sacred 260-day almanac used for finding lucky
and unlucky days.
The designation of any day included the day name and number
from both the solar calendar and the sacred almanac. The
two calendars can be thought of as two geared wheels that
meshed together at one point along the rim, with the glyphs
for the days of the sun calendar on one wheel and the
glyphs for the days of the sacred almanac on the other.
With each new day the wheels were turned by one gear.
The name for each day was formed by combining the name
for the sun calendar day with the name for the sacred
almanac day.
Maya
astronomers could make difficult calculations, such as
finding the day of the week of a particular calendar date
many thousands of years in the past or in the future.
They
also used the concept of zero, an extremely advanced mathematical
concept. Although they had neither decimals nor fractions,
they made accurate astronomical measurements by dropping
or adding days to their calendar. For example, during
1000 years of observing the revolution of the planet Venus,
which is completed in 583.92 days, Maya astronomers calculated
the time of the Venusian year as 584 days.
The
Maya method of reckoning time involved counting forward
from a hypothetical fixed point and expressing the date
in time periods based on the number 20 and counted in
intervals of 1, 20, 360, 7200, and 144,000 days. Such
dates appear on carved stone monuments dating to as early
as the late Preclassic period, and they are prevalent
throughout the lowlands on monuments from the Classic
period.
The
Maya developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing
to record not only astronomical observations and calendrical
calculations, but also historical and genealogical information.
Many recent advances have occurred in the decipherment
of the Mayan script. These breakthroughs made it possible
to conclude that Mayan hieroglyphs were a mixture of glyphs
that represent complete words and glyphs that represent
sounds, which were combined to form complete words.
Scribes
carved hieroglyphs on stone stelae, altars, wooden lintels,
and roof beams, or painted them on ceramic vessels and
in books made of bark paper.
