Postby Esoteric » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:05 pm
Build one? Do you mean make a replica of the Stone of the Sun? (that circular calendar stone) If that's your intent you might try looking up "Aztec calendar" or "the fifth sun" instead. I'm not sure that they've found any Mayan calendar stones... at least not like that one, but they're calendar worked the same way.
If you actually mean building a calendar out of cardboard or something where you turn wheels to follow dates... That's gonna be a little tough! I recommend you go to a local library, preferably a college library and search there. You should confirm that the Aztec and Mayan callendars work the same, but assuming they do, The aztec calendar has two parts, the secular and the sacred which behave like two gear cogs. The secular had 360 days and the Sacred 260 days. These both had separate arraingments of days and months. The Secular had 18 months, each 20 days long. The sacred only had 13 symbols, which rotated with the 20 days, creating '65 day long' weeks . Note: There were 5 1/4 days at the end of the 360 day year which were considered unlucky. They are extra days, not part of any month. Because these 'gear cogs' are of uneven size, it takes 52 years for the calendars to 'reset'. This 52 years are an Aztec Century.
Source: From Black Land to Fifth Sun by Brian Fagan