The Mayan Sacred Calendar is Encoded in the Toniná Acropolis



Significant numbers in the calendar board correspond to the design and structure of the Toniná Acropolis. Embedded a pattern called the Grecas, they would enable future generations to reconstruct the calendar, probably with the aid of information stored elsewhere in stone beneath the site or at other ruins in the Chiapas. This would have been similar to the that the Giza pyramid of Egypt has been proven to encode a variety of calendrical, astronomical and mathematical data, as established by Robert Bauval and others.

The Foundation of the Toniná Acropolis

The hill was landscaped by the Maya to form seven platforms. On them they built thirteen temples. 7 platforms times 13 temples = 20 nahuales. 20 x 13 = 260. The fundamental design of the Acropolis (7 artificial platforms and 13 temples) is based on key numbers from the Sacred Calendar.

Ceremonial Purpose of the 260 Steps

If the Toniná Acropolis structure is based on the 260-day calendar, then the 260 steps would have had a ceremonial purpose. One such application would be for Maya priests to pause on each step and count out the name and nahual of its corresponding day sign in the 260 days of the calendar. In this way, ritual was built into the site's design.




260 steps tonina

20 Steps at Base of Tonina Acropolis


Subsets of steps at the site are also linked to the calendar. From the base to the first level, for example, there are 20 steps from the base to the first level. The 20 steps can be used as the basis of a ceremony in which each of the 20 nahuales is celebrated or honored on one of the steps. The initial and last nahual would depend on the specific ceremony and date.

The Observatories at Toniná

Four observatories are found on the Acropolis. As at Chichen Itza and other ancient sites around the world, small windows were aligned with the passage of certain planets or stars in order to track their movements and orbits.

mayan observatory observatories tonina chiapas

One of the observatories at Toniná is a two-level structure whose second floor is almost completely destroyed; only a single small square window remains.


This Mayan observatory has thirteen windows, matching the key number of Mayan cosmology and the Sacred Calendar. In order to reach the platform with this observatory, which faces north, it is necessary to climb 7 steps to a small shelf, then 13 more steps to the next platform, for a total of twenty.The ground floor has a total of 13 small square windows.

The 13 Windows, with entrance at bottom (placement not precise)

Observatories are also found at Chichen Itza, Palenque, Uaxactun and other Mayan sites. But because Tonina is built on a hill, it is the highest structure in all of Mesoamerica, even taller than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. And that is precisely where modern observatories are situated, on the highest mountains of the planet.


Page 1: Tonina. City of e Mayan Sacred Calendar

Page 2: Overview of the Mayan Sacred Calendar

Page 3: The Pattern in the Grecas Revealed

Page 4: Archaeological and Mythological Evidence



