Talk:Maya calendar/Archives/2006/August

Commendable article

I have to say this is one of the most lucid, intriguing wiki articles of this length I've seen.

Agree, this is a very good piece 135.196.228.114 11:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I must say I'm impressed as well. Where did all the typos go? ;) Lusanaherandraton 07:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Questionable Caption

Madman:

I like the llustration of an early Long Count date that you have added to the section about Calculating Long Count Dates but the craption has big problems. First It says that the date is in 162, then it gives the date as 6/23/152. So Which year is it? Using the Julian calendar I calculate the date as 7/14/156. Even a calculation using the proleptic Gregorian calendar shouldn't be this far off from mine. What correlation constant and calendar are you using?

If it's really wrong then maybe it should be elimnated. 206.54.110.92 13:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)Tlaloc

Right you are, Kenny. Good catch. I can only ascribe this to a loose nut on the keyboard or the heavy ingestion of psychotropic substances. I have corrected the caption. Thanks, Madman 14:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Who's Kenny? 206.54.110.92 20:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)Tlaloc

Why, Kenny Blankenship from MXC, of course!  :) This hilarious TV program is both silly and clever, and the more you know about American culture, the funnier it is. "Right you are, Kenny" is a tag line used by the inappropriately-named Vic Romano. Madman 21:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. BTW I'm looking for someone to touch-up that photo to highlight the glyphs. I suppose I could trace them myself using, say, MS Paint, but that seems way too labourious and clumsy. Madman

Problems with Gregorian calendar

The problems with the calculations from Maya calendar to the Gregorian calendar and vice versa are overstated.

1. Historical research. If you sources use another calendar than your date-calculating-program, do a conversion before you enter dates in your program. (most likely: a rather trivial conversion from Julian date to Gregorian date). 2. Astronomical research. After you calculate the Julian day number of a Maya-date. You can convert this Julian day number without problems to any other calendar.

There is a problem if you mix up dates from different calendars but this goes for all date-conversions. Pukkie 06:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Should "Long Count" be a separate article??

Fellow editors: I have been doing a bit of work on the Long Count calendar on other articles (0 (number) and La Mojarra Stela 1 among them) and it would be easier for me to link back to the Long Count "article" contained within Maya calendar if Long Count were its own article.

Moreover, I think that the Maya 260-day, the 365-day, and the Long Count calendars are sufficiently separate matters and, at 33kb, this article is getting rather large.

Thoughts?? Madman 15:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. IMO first we should decide if "Long Count" should be the article title or some variation on the phrase. then spin it off into a seperate article, with a short summary and link here. -- Infrogmation 17:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Madman: you're mad. The Long Count is part of the Maya calendar and you can't split this up.216.67.161.95 18:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)Tlaloc

This is not a justification. Please, avoid personal attacks. -- Szvest 18:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Tlaloc, I don't think Madman is suggesting that mention of the Maya LC be removed from this article, but instead that there is more than enough material to write on the LC itself to justify it having its own article. Also, LC inscriptions are known for a couple of other Mesoamerican cultures apart from the Maya.

I think that overall there's ample scope and material to justify a set of articles on the individual components of these calendars, and in fact we should have articles on each at both the Mesoamerican and individual-culture levels (some we already have, others need creating). For example:

• Mesoamerican calendars
  • Maya calendar, Aztec calendar, Zapotec calendar, etc
    • Mesoamerican 260-day calendars
      • tzolk'in, tonalpohualli, etc
    • Mesoamerican 365-day calendars
      • haab', Aztec 365-day calendar (or solar calendar- name?), etc
    • Calendar Round (or Mesoamerican Calendar Round?)
      • Maya Calendar Round, Aztec Calendar Round (or yearbearer cycle?), etc

and so on.

For the LC in particular, we could have both

• Mesoamerican Long Count (or just Long Count, or Long Count calendar, or...?
  • Maya Long Count (or Maya Long Count calendar..?)

Madman, I would suggest however that if you're keen to expand upon the (Mesoamerican) LC that you do so first (or also) at Mesoamerican calendars, which should give an overview and guide to all such systems with sections/{main} links to the more specific articles.

Per Infrogmation, need to decide upon appropriate titles- do we need to preface generic-sounding titles such as Long Count, Calendar Round, with a cultural qualifier (Mesoamerican, Maya, etc) in all instances? At the moment I think that might be best, but open to other suggestions.--cjllw | TALK 01:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)