All about the ancient tribes
The Mayan numeral system was the system to represent numbers and calendar dates in the Maya civilization. It was a vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. The numerals are made up of three symbols ; zero (shell shape, with the plastron uppermost), one (a dot) and five (a bar).
The Maya counting system required only three symbols : a dot representing a value of one, a bar representing five, and a shell representing zero.
The turtle is the one that had a fundamental role as the origin of life for this culture. The sea turtle was not only important within the Maya cosmogony but also for other cultures in Mesoamerica that related its shell to the celestial vault and the animal’s body was the axis that united both heaven and earth.
Although there are around 1,000 different symbols in the Maya script, scribes of any one period used a range of between 300 to 500 signs. Despite the fact that there are only five vowels and nineteen consonants in the Maya language, there are actually 200 syllabic signs.
Both Mayan men and women got tattoos , although men put off tattoos until they were married. Mayan women preferred delicate tattoos on their upper bodies although not on their breasts. Men got tattoos on their arms, legs, backs, hands and face. Getting a tattoo was painful.
Maya numbers are based around the number 20, so in Maya numbers , 20 is a 1 and a 0. So write a dot for the 1 and leave a gap below it. Then below the gap, draw a clamshell – the Mayan symbol for zero. To write numbers from 21–39, think of them as 20 plus something.
The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth.
Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of a human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice .
Read more: 7 of Mexico’s best ruins, and how you can see them. Tulum , Mexico. Tulum , Mexico. Copan, Honduras. Copan, Honduras. Tikal, Guatemala. Tikal, Guatemala. Xunantunich, Belize. Xunantunich, Belize. Palenque, Mexico. Palenque, Mexico.
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Haabʼ
Seq. Num. | Yucatec name | Meaning of glyph |
---|---|---|
1 | Pop | green |
2 | Woʼ | white |
3 | Sip | red |
4 | Sotzʼ |
Yucatec Maya