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Ajaw (Junajpu): The Lord Day, Twentieth Sign of the Maya Calendar

Prepared by the Mayan Astrology Calculator editors · Sources below · Reviewed 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1

Quick answer. Ajaw (older spelling Ahau) is the twentieth and last of the 20 day signs in the 260-day Maya calendar; in K'iche' it is Junajpu or Ajpu'. Ajaw means "lord" in many Mayan languages, and a sign for "lord" is among the earliest Maya writing known. Because of how the Long Count works, every major period ending falls on an Ajaw day. In highland Guatemala Junajpu is a day of the ancestors, and it shares its name with one of the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh. Dreamspell calls this slot "Yellow Sun". [1][2][3][5][6]

Is Ajaw your day sign? Enter your birth date

Ajaw at a glance
Position in the 20-day cycle 20 of 20 [1]
How often it returns Every 20 days; a pairing such as 4 Ajaw returns every 260 days [2]
Yucatec name Ajaw (16th-century spelling Ahau) [1]
Classic-period reading Probably AJAW, "lord" [1]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche') Junajpu or Ajpu'; Hunahpu, Ahpu in colonial calendars [3]
Other names Kitix, "sun" (Ixil) [5]
Meaning of the names ajaw, "lord, chief"; ajaw in K'iche' also "owner; king" [5][7]
What the glyph depicts The flower ornament of a young god's headband, not a face [8]
Central Mexican counterpart Xochitl, "flower" [5]
Haab' days it can share Only day 3, 8, 13 or 18 of a Haab' month [1]
How we calculate it GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [9]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987) "Yellow Sun", seal 20; a separate system with a different count [10][11]

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Where Ajaw sits in the 260-day count

Ajaw follows Kawak and closes the cycle; the next day is Imix, and the 20 signs begin again. 6 Kawak is followed by 7 Ajaw. [1] In the 365-day Haab' Ajaw can only fall on positions 3, 8, 13 or 18 of a month, the same set as Chikchan, Ok and Men. [1]

The name: "lord"

Thompson wrote in 1950 that "Ahau means chief or lord in a number of Maya languages or dialects, notably Tzotzil, Chaneabal, Chol, Chontal, and Yucatec". [5] The same word is in K'iche', where Christenson's dictionary gives ajaw as "owner; lord; king; boss". [7] In the Classic inscriptions ajaw is the standard title of rulers, as in "divine lord of" a city. [1]

Kettunen and Helmke note that among the first identifiable signs of Maya writing, painted in Structure 1 at San Bartolo in northern Guatemala, is "a sign for 'lord' or AJAW". [1]

Other names point to the sun. Among the Ixil, the alternative name for the day is Kitix, which "means sun", and the central Mexican day in this position, Xochitl, "flower", belonged to the young sun god. [5] Thompson concluded that "Ahau, then, was the day of the sun god"; that is his 1950 synthesis.

The glyph: never a face

The standard Ajaw glyph looks like a simple face with two eyes and a mouth. David Stuart notes that epigraphers know "the Ahau 'face' was never a face to begin with". [8] In his study of Imix he explains the origin: the forehead floral ornament on the headband of Jun Ajaw, the Classic name of the Hero Twin Hunahpu, became a shorthand standing for the whole head. [8] Personified forms of the day show that young god's profile. [5][8]

Every period ending is an Ajaw day

The Long Count calendar counts days from a base date, 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BCE. [2] Its units are the k'in (1 day), winal (20 days), tun (360 days), k'atun (7,200 days) and bak'tun (144,000 days). [1] Every unit from the winal up is a multiple of 20, so any date whose last two places are zero is a whole number of 20-day cycles after a 4 Ajaw day. It must therefore fall on an Ajaw day, with only the number changing.

Some examples from the sources:

  • 9.9.0.0.0 3 Ajaw 3 Sotz', a k'atun ending used as an example by Kettunen and Helmke. [1]
  • 9.17.10.0.0 12 Ajaw 8 Pax, recorded on Stela 4 at Ixtutz, Guatemala: "On 12 ajaw 8 pax (2 December 780) … planted the stone." [1] (That date conversion is the authors'; with the GMT 584283 correlation used on this site, the same day is 30 November 780 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. [9])
  • 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in, the bak'tun ending of 21 December 2012. [2]

Many Maya monuments were dedicated at these endings, so Ajaw dates are among the most common in the inscriptions. In Yucatán at the time of the Spanish conquest, Thompson notes, k'atuns were numbered "by the day on which each ended", so colonial books speak of a "Katun 8 Ahau" or "Katun 11 Ahau". [12]

Junajpu in highland tradition

The K'iche' name of the day is Junajpu, also written Hunahpu, or Ajpu'. [3] It is also the name of one of the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh. Christenson notes that "Junajpu is a day on the traditional highland Maya calendar, dedicated to the memory of ancestors". [6] On the name's meaning he is cautious: it has usually been translated "One Master of the Blowgun", but the Popol Vuh's authors wrote "blowgun" as ub' or wub', "not pu", so they probably did not have that meaning in mind. [6] Thompson had glossed Ahpu as "he of the blowgun". [5]

The 260-day count is still kept in highland Guatemala by Ajq'ijab' (daykeepers). [2] Records of Junajpu:

  • 1854 manuscript. Vicente Hernández Spina's calendar calls it an "indifferent day". [3]
  • 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), describe it as "symbolic of the punitive power of the ancestors, embodied in their ownership of house and hearth". [3]

"Punitive" here refers to the ancestors' authority over the household, not to anything that will happen to people born on Ajaw. We are not daykeepers. Our reports use the themes of lordship, completion and ancestry as modern reflective writing.

Traditional Ajaw vs Dreamspell "Yellow Sun"

"Yellow Sun" is seal 20 in the Dreamspell, a modern system begun by José and Lloydine Argüelles in 1987 and published as a kit in 1990. [11] Dreamspell gives it the keywords Universal Fire, Enlightens and Life. [10] "Sun" echoes the Ixil name Kitix and the solar associations Thompson collected, but Dreamspell's keywords are its own. [5][10]

The counts differ: Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [11][13] 29 Oct 2026 is 7 Ajaw in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 64, Yellow Crystal Seed. The next Dreamspell "Yellow Sun" day, 25 Oct 2026 (Kin 60, Yellow Galactic Sun), is 3 Kib in the traditional count. [Link: Dreamspell vs traditional converter → /dreamspell-vs-traditional-maya-calendar]

Colors, directions and "elements"

  • Direction. Prehispanic calendars assigned the days to east, north, west and south in turn, which places the twentieth day in the south. [4] Contemporary K'iche' practice gives the south to Q'anil instead. [4]
  • Color. The south is yellow in colonial Yucatec texts; assigning that color to one day is a modern reconstruction. [14] Dreamspell also colors this seal yellow. [10]
  • Element. Some charts, including earlier versions of this site, give Ajaw the element "fire". We found no traditional source for Greek-style elements on day signs; on this site it appears only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Ajaw days

Calculated with the GMT 584283 correlation, the same method as our calculator, as of 10 October 2026: [9]

Gregorian date Tzolk'in (traditional) Haab' Dreamspell, for comparison only
29 Oct 2026 7 Ajaw 13 Sak' Kin 64, Yellow Crystal Seed
18 Nov 2026 1 Ajaw 13 Keh Kin 84, Yellow Rhythmic Seed
8 Dec 2026 8 Ajaw 13 Mak Kin 104, Yellow Cosmic Seed
28 Dec 2026 2 Ajaw 13 K'ank'in Kin 124, Yellow Resonant Seed
17 Jan 2027 9 Ajaw 13 Muwan Kin 144, Yellow Magnetic Seed
6 Feb 2027 3 Ajaw 13 Pax Kin 164, Yellow Galactic Seed
26 Feb 2027 10 Ajaw 13 K'ayab Kin 184, Yellow Lunar Seed

The date tables use your local date when JavaScript is available. Without it, they stay at the 10 October 2026 snapshot.

Each falls on day 13 of its Haab' month, one of the four positions (3, 8, 13, 18) open to Ajaw. [1]

Ajaw with each of the 13 numbers

Each number links to its page. 4 Ajaw is the day of the Long Count's base date and of 21 December 2012. [2]

Ajaw and relationships

Our compatibility tool compares two full birth signatures with a modern reflective method, not a documented historical Maya formula. [Compare two birth dates → /compatibility]

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FAQ

Are Ajaw, Ahau and Junajpu the same day? Yes. Ajaw (Ahau in older spelling) is the Yucatec name; Junajpu or Ajpu' is the K'iche' name for the twentieth day. [1][3]

What does Ajaw mean? "Lord" or "chief"; it was also the title of Classic Maya kings. [1][5]

Why do Long Count periods end on Ajaw? The base date is 4 Ajaw, and every Long Count unit from the winal up is a multiple of 20 days. [1][2]

Is "Yellow Sun" the same as Ajaw? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list, but Dreamspell's count differs, so a "Yellow Sun" birthday is usually not an Ajaw day. [10][11]

Why does another calculator give me a different day sign? It may use the Dreamspell count, or a correlation constant other than 584283, which shifts results by a day or two. [9][15]

Is Ajaw a zodiac sign? No. It names a day that recurs every 20 days. → How we calculate

Sources

  1. Kettunen, Harri, and Christophe Helmke. Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th rev. ed. Wayeb, 2020, pp. 12, 30, 49, 51–52, 57. https://www.mesoweb.org/resources/handbook/IMH2020.pdf
  2. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. "The Calendar System." Living Maya Time. https://maya.nmai.si.edu/calendar/calendar-system
  3. Weeks, John M., Frauke Sachse, and Christian M. Prager. Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 3 (Table 1.1), 13. https://www.upcolorado.com/media/acfupload/9780870819969.pdf
  4. Estrada Peña, Canek. "Anima' ri cho, anima' ri plo: Imox y el agua entre los k'iche'." Estudios de Cultura Maya 45 (2015): 191–224, pp. 202–203. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2813/281336894007.pdf
  5. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, pp. 87–88.
  6. Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. Electronic edition, Mesoweb, 2007, p. 79 n. 163; p. 99 n. 223. https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf
  7. Christenson, Allen J. K'iche'–English Dictionary. FAMSI, s.v. "ajaw". https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf
  8. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Caban." Maya Decipherment, 12 Aug 2024; and "Day Sign Notes: Imix / Imox," 14 Aug 2025. https://mayadecipherment.com/2024/08/12/day-sign-notes-caban/ ; https://mayadecipherment.com/2025/08/14/day-sign-notes-imix-imox/
  9. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
  10. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
  11. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (citing Argüelles & Argüelles, Dreamspell kit, 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
  12. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, p. 60.
  13. Argüelles, José. Rinri Project Newsletter II.2.1. Foundation for the Law of Time. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
  14. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Imix / Imox." Maya Decipherment, 14 Aug 2025 (on the colors of the imix che' world trees). https://mayadecipherment.com/2025/08/14/day-sign-notes-imix-imox/
  15. Van Stone, Mark. "2012 FAQ." FAMSI. https://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html

Reviewed: 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1 · Corrections: contact us