Maya calendar Maya calendar The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 5th century BCE. It shares many aspects with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec and Aztec calendars. By the Maya mythological tradition, as documented in Colonial Yucatec accounts and reconstructed
Mesoamerican cosmovision and adherence to calendar systems. Mesoamericans did not understand human sacrifice as a malicious act, but rather sacrifices were carried out in an effort to renew and center their world, as well as pay debts to the gods. Mesoamericans carried out ritual sacrifice in order to balance, center, and renew their cosmo-magical world, which hinged upon ever-present duality: the human and the divine (the earth and the cosmos). Cosmovision is understood as one of the structures that is found throughout Mesoamerican history. It is evident that the concept was one adopted in varying forms by all Mesoamerican cultures, and aided