Central America: 350 A.D.

The Mayans, native inhabitants of Central America, were highly skilled mathematicians, astronomers, artists and architects. They had a very complex calendar system and the need to hold a place in their elborate date system lead to their invention of zero--600 years and 12,000 miles removed from the Babylonians.

The Mayans had several calendars. There was a 365 day civil year, a 260 day religious year and the complicated Long Count calendar which measured time from the start of the Mayan civilization (August 12, 3113 B.C.).

It is the formal Long Count calendar that brought about the zero. The Mayan numerals were very complex in formal use--painted or carved heads or even full figures were used to represent numbers. When using these ornate carvings on a stelae, or stone tablet, the Mayans had a rather rigid graphic layout; each period of time had a space and all the spaces needed to be filled in. So a date that was 8 baktuns, 14 katuns, 3 tuns, 0 unials and 12 kins had to have one figure for each place. The zero was often represented by a shell shape.

Despite the use of zero in the place value system, it was never used for calculations. Once again, this stems back to the calendar. You may have noticed that a 360 day year is 18 months (20 days to a month). This irregularity messed up an otherwise tidy vegisimal (base 20) system.

The Mayans, for all their high level mathematical and astronomical skills, failed to make other key discoveries and inventions that might have helped their culture survive. They never used the plow or metal tools.