Contents
Thirteenth of the twenty. Yucatec B'en; K'iche' Aj. The Classic main sign shows vertical elements with bound or knotted tops, described in the epigraphic literature as bundled reeds or as thatch — the material a roof and a wall are made of. The Aztec cognate is Acatl, reed, which supports the reading. The K'iche' Aj means cane or the standing cornstalk, and by extension the household that the cane encloses and the staff of office cut from it. The site's tooltip gives it as the green reed of the household. Direction east, colour red.
Religion and daykeeping
In living highland practice, Aj is the home. Ethnographic accounts and Guatemalan Maya organisations describe it as the day of the household and of children — for the roof over a family, for the wellbeing of the people under it, and for the authority a person holds inside it. It is also the day of the vara, the staff or bundle that marks a ceremonial office in highland communities; carrying the cane and carrying the household are the same idea seen at two scales. An ajq'ij born on Aj is spoken of as a householder in temperament, protective, with a strong sense of what belongs to whom, and sometimes as too closely bound to the family to see past it. Petitions for a house, for children and for the settling of a domestic difficulty are common on it. The particulars are taught inside the initiation lineage and are not written down here.
B'en belongs to one of the three attested year-bearer sets — Ak'b'al, Lamat, B'en, Etz'nab' — the four names on which a Haab' year could begin, necessarily five apart because 365 leaves five on division by twenty. Landa's Yucatec set was K'an, Muluk, Ix, Kawak; the Guatemalan highlands today use Ik', Manik', Eb', Kab'an, called the Mam. Which set a community used varies with place and period.
In the Classic and Postclassic record, the reed and the growing maize stalk sit inside the largest single image complex in Maya art: the Maize God, who dies, goes under, and is raised again by his sons. That narrative is painted on more Classic vessels than any other. The Madrid Codex, almost entirely 260-day working almanacs, gives extended space to agriculture — sowing, burning, the maize cycle — and the Dresden Codex distributes its day stations among gods and auguries in the same structure. The colonial Books of Chilam Balam carry short auguries and associated occupations for each of the twenty days.
Three source layers are in play on this page and they should not be blended: what the Classic inscriptions demonstrably say, what the colonial-era manuscripts record after a century of Spanish rule, and what daykeepers hold now. Agreement between them is meaningful; assuming it is not.
The Zapotec piyè and the Mixtec codices hold the same position, conventionally glossed Reed.
Key dates
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 600–500 BCE (contested) | Earliest 260-day count glyphs, Oaxaca — San José Mogote and Monte Albán. Zapotec, not Maya. |
| 36 / 32 BCE | Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2 and Tres Zapotes Stela C, the earliest dated Long Counts. Both partly reconstructed. |
| c. 250–900 CE | Classic period: the Maize God cycle on painted pottery; day signs in cartouches on the monuments. |
| 11th–12th c. CE (debated) | The surviving Dresden Codex copy, with its 260-day almanacs. |
| 1562 / 1566 | Landa burns the books at Maní, then records the twenty day names in his Relación. |
| 1905–1935 | The Goodman–Martínez–Thompson correlation, constant 584283. Mainstream, not unanimous. |
| 11 Aug 3114 BCE | Long Count zero under GMT 584283 (6 Sep 3114 BCE Julian); the 584285 variant gives 13 August. |
| 21 Dec 2012 | 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in — the anchor this site counts from. |
| 1995 / 1996 | Guatemala's Peace Accords recognise Maya spirituality and access to sacred places. |
In the count
B'en returns every twenty days, its coefficient advancing by seven at each return because twenty leaves seven on division by thirteen: 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13. Thirteen appearances take 260 days.
Upcoming in 2026, on the site's GMT anchor: 23 August (5 B'en), 12 September (12 B'en), 2 October (6 B'en).
Related
- Maya Tzolk'in — the system, the count, and what it is not.
- Eb' — the day before.
- Ix — the day after.
- World Zodiacs · Religion · Calendar