thousands of painted plaster mural fragments offer a window into ancient Maya civilization. Two of those fragments form the earliest known record of a Maya calendar, created between 300 and 200 B ...

The oldest written evidence of this calendar, found on painted plaster mural fragments from a Maya site in Guatemala, dates to between 300 and 200 B.C., nearly a millennium later (SN: 4/13/22).

Archaeologists found the calendar fragment among a total of 249 pieces of painted plaster and painted masonry block. Photograph by Karl Taube / Courtesy of the Proyecto Regional Arqueológico San ...