Mayan birth sign calculator

The Maya Calendar and Mayan Astrology

The Maya of Mesoamerica kept several interlocking counts of days. The best known today is the 260-day sacred calendar, called Tzolk'in ('count of days') by modern scholars and Cholq'ij by the K'iche' Maya of highland Guatemala, who still keep it. It combines thirteen numbers with twenty named days, so that each day has a number and a name — 1 Imix, 2 Ik', 3 Ak'b'al and so on — and the same combination returns only after 260 days. The span roughly matches human gestation and the agricultural cycle of highland maize, and both explanations are offered by daykeepers and scholars.

Running beside it was the Haab', a 365-day year of eighteen named months of twenty days and a closing period of five days called Wayeb'. A given Tzolk'in day and Haab' date coincide again only after 18,980 days, about 52 years: the Calendar Round. For dates spanning centuries the Classic Maya also used the Long Count, a tally of days from a mythic starting point in 3114 BCE, written as five numbers (baktun, katun, tun, winal, k'in). The famous date 13.0.0.0.0, 21 December 2012, completed thirteen baktuns; the inscriptions treat it as a calendrical milestone rather than an end of the world.

Converting Maya dates to our calendar depends on a correlation constant. The scholarly standard, used here, is the 'GMT' correlation (584283), supported by colonial sources, astronomy and radiocarbon dating; a variant (584285) shifts dates by two days.

In K'iche' communities the day of birth carries a nawal, a sign that shapes character and calling. Daykeepers (ajq'ij) read the 260-day count to choose days for ceremonies, counsel and healing, and some are recognised as daykeepers because they were born on particular days. Modern 'Mayan astrology' books often take this idea further and attach personality profiles to each sign. A separate system, José Argüelles' Dreamspell (1987–1990s), uses a different count, colours and 'galactic' names; it is a New Age creation and does not match the traditional Maya day count used on this page.