I received a comment over the weekend about the entry Tzolkin #1 - The Mayan Numbering System. Apparently I didn’t clarify the information properly, which I will blame on being lazy. I did intend to cover more information from the beginning including some basic mathematics, but since I took the easy route I need to make sure I cover that information now. I will cover this quickly so I can get started on something new. I have to make up for a few days of downtime as a result of going camping.
The Maya counted a dot as 1 and a line, or bar as 5 as we covered in the already. When you count a 6 you use a bar with a dot stacked on top. When you count 11 you use 2 lines and a dot stacked upon those. If you would like to see what the numbers 0 through 19 look like refer to the link in the paragraph above.
The Maya used a base number of 20 rather than 10 like we do today. Larger numbers were written in powers of 20 and they were written from bottom to top. The first position (on the bottom) is the 1s position, next one up is the 20s position, next the 400s, then finally the 8000s. Below I give 4 different examples of how these larger numbers were written.
Example #1
In this first example we will be using the number 20
We have a single dot in the 20s position and a zero in the 1s position. This makes the total for this number 20.
20 x 1 + 0 = 20
Example #2
In this second example we will be using the number 2850
We have a 7 in the 400s position, a 2 in the 20s position and a 10 in the 1s position. This makes the total for this number 2850.
(400 x 7) + (20 x 2) + (1 x 10) = 2850
Example #3
In this third example we will be using the number 9711
We have a 1 in the 8000s position, a 4 in the 400s position, a 5 in the 20s position and an 11 in the 1s position. This makes the total for this number 9711.
(8000 x 1) + (400 x 4) + (20 x 5) + (1 x 11) = 9711
Example #4
In this fourth example we will be using the number 53363
We have a 6 in the 8000s position, a 13 in the 400s position, a 8 in the 20s position and a 3 in the 1s position. This makes the total for this number 53363.
(8000 x 6) + (400 x 13) + (20 x 8) + (1 x 3) = 53363
