The Maya Indians are probably the best-known of the classical native civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize.

Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Mayans developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Mayans were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. They were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Mayans were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples.

The Mayans are regarded as the inventors of many aspects of Meso-American cultures including the first complex calendar and the most elaborate form of hieroglyphics in America.

Tzolk'in, which means "count of days," refers to the 260-day Mesoamerican calendar which was used by the Maya civilization. The Tzolk'in Count of Days calendar combines a cycle of twenty named days with another cycle of thirteen numbers, to produce 260 unique days (i.e., 20 × 13 = 260). Each successive named day was numbered from 1 up to 13 and then starting again at 1. There were 20 individual named days. Each has a glyph associated with it, and these glyphs are depicted around the periphery of the Mayan Tzolk'in Mandala.

At the center of the mandala is the glyph for Hunab Ku. Hunab Ku was, to the Mayas, the supreme God and ultimate Creator. It represented the gateway to other Galaxies beyond our Sun as well as all of the Consciousness that has ever existed in this Galaxy