Maya Calendar
Calculation

Wask'lom K'in
User Manual

Information About Wasak'lom K'in, Version 1.11

by Michael P. Closs

Wasak'lom K'in, "the turn or return of time", has been developed to perform a variety of computations related to Maya calendrics in an intuitive and attractive fashion. Among these are the basic calculations which link the Mayan system of absolute chronology (the Long Count) to the 260-day and 365-day calendars (the Sacred Round and the Vague Year, respectively). These are achieved by using the three large buttons labeled "Initial Series", "Distance Numbers", and "Locate CR Date".

INITIAL SERIES. When this button is pressed it produces a dialog box requesting an Initial Series. The Initial Series is to be entered into the hilighted box containing the sample. It must have the same format: numerals separated by commas without spaces between the various entries. This is like the traditional notation with periods replaced by commas. It is permissible to have fewer than five, but not more than five, components in your Initial Series. When you have entered your Initial Series in the prescribed format, press the "OK" button (or the return key on your keyboard). This will produce another dialog box asking you if you wish the Initial Series to be positive or negative. The "Positive" response is the default setting; this means that instead of pressing the "Positive" button you may press the return key on your keyboard to implement your selection. A positive Initial Series counts time after the base date of Maya chronology at 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. A negative Initial Series, counts time before the base date. (In Maya notation, negative Initial Series were usually represented by Ring Numbers.)

DISTANCE NUMBERS. When this button is pressed it produces a dialog box requesting a Distance Number. The Distance Number is to be entered into the hilighted box containing the sample. It must have the same format: numerals separated by commas without spaces between the various entries. This is like the traditional notation with periods replaced by commas. It is permissible to have fewer than five, but not more than five, components in your Distance Numbers. When you have entered your Distance Number in the prescribed format, press the "OK" button (or the return key on your keyboard). This will produce another dialog box asking you whether you wish to add or subtract the Distance Number. The "Add" response is the default setting so that instead of pressing the "Add" button you may press the return key on your keyboard to implement this command.

LOCATE CR DATE. When this button is pressed it produces a dialog box requestiing a Calendar Round date. (A Calendar Round date is a combination of a Sacred Round date and a Vague Year date which is compatible with a synchronisation of the two calendars determined by the base date of Maya chronology at 4 Ahau 8 Cumku.) The date is to be entered into the hilighted box containing the sample and must have the same form as the sample. This requires four components, of which the first and third are numerals, the second is a day name, and the fourth is a month name. All components are separated by commas and there are no spaces between the various entries. It is important that the entries for the day names and the month names be in the following prescribed form if you wish the computer to recognize them.

Day Names: Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Etz'nab, Cauac, Ahau

Month Names: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz', Zec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Ch'en, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, Cumku,

Uayeb When you have entered your Calendar Round date in the prescribed format, press the "OK" button (or the return key on your keyboard). If the CR date you entered is not compatible with the usual synchronisation of the 260-day and 365-day calendars, Wasak'lom K'in will advise you of the incompatibility and will not carry out the calculation. If your date is acceptable, Wasak'lom K'in will find you a Long Count position for the date during the historical epoch of the Classic Maya. It will only be valid up to multiples of 18,980 days. To obtain other Long Count positions for the date, you may use the "+" or "-" buttons, above and below, respectively, the letters "CR" to the right of the Maya date. These will provide positive or negative increments of 18,980 days to the recorded long Count position and will leave the CR date invariant.

Wasak'lom K'in is limited to Long Count positions between -7 and +15 baktuns. If these limits are exceeded, the calculator will offer you a choice of two default positions.

The calculator also has a display of the Mayan Day Number of the currently recorded date. This is just the decimal equivalent of the Long Count position of the date. It is the first text entry below the Initial Series.

Wasak'lom K'in contains several buttons in addition to those described above. In fact, all of the items in the right hand margin are buttons with special purposes. The first of these is the ABOUT ME button (it looks like a thought balloon) which gives some information about the author of Wasak'lom K'in and the conditions under which Wasak'lom K'in may be used. The button next to it is the HOME button which will take you back to your home stack. The ARROW buttons at the bottom will take you to the previous card or to the next card in this stack, respectively. The remaining buttons have been developed for Wasak'lom K'in and are described below.

EVALUATE. This button generates most of the data found on the left side of the calculator card. The first two items, below the Mayan Day Number, record the position of the given date in a cycle of 9-days (sometimes referred to as the Lords of the Night cycle) and the position of the date within a larger cycle of 819-days. The next item estimates the age of the moon, as measured from new moon, on the date in question. This is followed by the approximate position of Venus, on the given date, within a mean Venus cycle of 584 days. A positive position corresponds to the number of days after inferior conjunction and a negative position to the number of days before inferior conjunction. Both the moon age and the approximate Venus age are calculated from Maya data and are correlation independent. It may be noted here that this astronomical data is compatible with the 584285 correlation of the Maya and Gregorian calendars. That value of the correlation constant is used as a default in Wasak'lom K'in. It is recorded as the next item and is not generated by the EVALUATE button. After the correlation constant, and dependent upon it, is the Julian Day Number for the given date. Next are a pair of radio buttons which enable the user to select the format for the modern determinations of the Maya date. One may choose between the style used by astronomers (Astr. Year) or that used by historians (Hist. Year). Finally, modern equivalents of the Maya date are given according to the Julian calendar (J) and the Gregorian calendar (G).

Final Note

If you are a user of Wasak'lom K'in, let me know of any bugs or difficulties you might encounter. Comments and suggestions for improvements would be appreciated.

Send an email to: kantel@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de