Tzolk'in

The Tzolk'in is the Maya 260-day sacred calendar: twenty named day-signs turning against the numbers one to thirteen (20 × 13 = 260). Not tied to the sun or moon, it is one of the oldest continuously used calendars in the Americas — the 260-day count is shared across Mesoamerica and predates the Maya themselves.

Each day carries its own energy or nawal, and a person's birth day-sign is read for character and fate; in the Guatemalan highlands daykeepers (ajq'ij) still count it.