The 260-Day Sacred Count
The Tzolkin is the 260-day sacred calendar that forms the foundation of Mesoamerican astrology. It is not tied to the solar year but to the cycles of human gestation and the cultivation of maize. It is a divine engine for tracking destiny, personality, and auspicious dates.
The calendar is created by intercalating two cycles: a series of 20 sacred day signs (or glyphs) and a cycle of 13 numbers (or "tones"). As these two cycles run in parallel, they create 260 unique combinations (20 x 13), each with a distinct energy, such as '4 Sun' or '8 Monkey'.
Explore the Tzolkin Cycle
The Four Colors and Directions
Each sign is associated with one of the four cardinal directions and a color. The cycle of signs moves through these directions in order:
- Red (East): Represents beginnings, birth, and new energy.
- White (North): Represents the ancestral, spiritual, and intellectual realms; a place of "cold" purity.
- Black (West): Represents darkness, transformation, the underworld, and the setting sun.
- Yellow (South): Represents the sun, abundance, growth, and fruition.
Your sign's color and direction provide an axis towards your energy and destiny.
A Unified Mesoamerican System
The 260-day Tzolkin is the spiritual core of a system shared by cultures throughout Mesoamerica, from the ancient Olmec to the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Aztec. While names and interpretations varied, the system itself was universal and, most importantly, the count was continuous and unbroken. Ancient Maya, contemporary Maya daykeepers, and historical Aztec records align with the same correlation (the GMT). '4 Ajaw' in ancient Tikal is the same '4 Ajaw' today.
This unity also extended to the solar calendar. All cultures used a 365-day Haab' calendar, structured as 18 months of 20 days, followed by a 5-day transitional period (the Wayeb'). They were all acutely aware that this 365-day count was slightly "fast" compared to the true solar (tropical) year of ~365.2422 days. They observed this discrepancy as the To Haab' "drifted" against the seasons; for example, the date of the winter solstice would shift forward by one day every four years.
Where these cultures differed was how to handle this drift. There was no universal agreement on a "leap day." Instead, different cities and time periods adopted their own corrections, leading to shifts between them. During the Classic period, Tikal's calendar was the standard. By the Late Classic, a 1-day shift was used in Campeche (a system later adopted by the Aztecs). By the Postclassic period, the Yucatan Maya had adopted a further 1-day shift, placing them 2 days out of sync with the original Tikal standard. This site uses the Tikal standard, which aligns with the unbroken Tzolkin count.