The Mayan Calendar The CBS reality show Survivor recently filmed in Guatemala. During the season, they often made reference to Mayan culture. The Mayans had a well developed mathematical system and are known for their calendar(s). The Mayans actually maintained multiple calendars, but their regular, everday civil calendar was called Haab. The Mayans used a base-20 number system. Instead of having ten digits as we use (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), the Mayans used 20 digits. It was rather natural, therefore, for the Mayans to contruct months that were 20 days long. The year was composed of 18 months (each 20 days long) plus five extra days. This created a 365-day year. Pretty accurate. The actual year is about 365.25 days long. Some cources indicate that the Mayans even compensated for this extra time in the year, occasionally "resetting" their calendar. Mayan mathematics is perhaps most respected because it allowed for "place values," unlike other ancient number systems such as Roman Numerals. This meant the Mayans had a symbol to represent the value "zero." Sounds simple, but anyone who tries diving two Roman Numerals knows what an accomplishment this really was. Dec. 2005 Links: Math Forum: Mayan Arithmetic The Mayan Calendar Maya Civilization: The Maya Calendar Return to Math History Page	Math... First Hand: Activities for Middle School Math Students Ten learning activities for middle school students Developed and classroom tested by teachers View Preview (PDF) See more details Softcover: $12.06 Download: $6.25

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