Protohistoric Period
613 B. C. to 176 A. D. 7.0.0.0.0 to 9.0.0.0.0
The counting of days apparently began on August 6, 613 B. C. and the civil calendar in perfected form was inaugurated about 580 B. C. when 0 Pop coincided with the winter solstice, while the Venus calendar emerged half a century later. The calendarial inventions, the numerical notation and the hieroglyphic system may, perhaps, be credited to the genius of one man afterwards deified as Itzamna. The earliest contemporary Mayan date occurs on a jade statuette from San Andres Tuxtla, and is May 16, 98 B. C. The next earliest one is on the jade tablet known as the Leyden Plate and is November 17, 60 A. D., having reference to the Venus calendar. This is followed almost immediately by several contemporary dates on monuments at Uaxactun which also are of astronomical import. The design on the Leyden Plate shows that the characteristic details of Mayan drawing had already been developed and we may surmise that during the protohistoric period the early carvings were on wood instead of stone and that the peculiar religion of the Mayas was even then beginning to crystallize around the serpent, the jaguar, etc.