Maya Long Count Calendar:

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal (base-20) calendar used by several Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is sometimes known as the Maya (or Mayan) Long Count calendar. Using a modified vigesimal tally, the Long Count calendar identifies a day by counting the number of days passed since August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian or September 6, 3114 BCE in the Julian calendar, (−3113 astronomical year numbering).^[1] It was widely used on monuments.

Background

Among other calendars devised in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, two of the most widely used were the 365-day solar calendar (Haab' in Mayan) and the 260-day ceremonial calendar, which had 20 periods of 13 days. This 260-day calendar was known as the Tzolk'in to the Maya and tonalpohualli to the Aztecs.

The Haab' and the Tzolk'in calendars identified and named the days, but not the years. The combination of a Haab' date and a Tzolk'in date was enough to identify a specific date to most people's satisfaction, as such a combination did not occur again for another 52 years, above general life expectancy.

Because the two calendars were based on 365 days and 260 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab' years exactly. This period is generally known as the Calendar Round.

To measure dates over periods longer than 52 years, the Mesoamericans devised the Long Count calendar.

Long Count periods

The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar, (−3113 astronomical dating). Rather than using a base-10 scheme, like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40.

The Long Count is not consistently base-20, however, since the second digit rolls over to zero when it reaches 18. Thus 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, but rather only 360 days.

The following table shows the period equivalents as well as Maya names for these periods:

Calculating Long Count dates

Mesoamerican numerals

Long Count dates are written with Mesoamerican numerals, as shown on this table. A dot represents 1 while a bar equals 5. The shell glyph was used to represent the zero concept. The Long Count calendar required the use of zero as a place-holder, and presents one of the earliest uses of the zero concept in history.

Syntax

The Long Count dates are written vertically, with the higher periods (i.e. b'ak'tun) on the top and then the number of each successively smaller order periods until the number of days (k'in) are listed. As can be seen at left, the Long Count date shown on Stela C at Tres Zapotes is 7.16.6.16.18.

On Maya monuments, the Long Count syntax is more complex. The date sequence is given once, at the beginning of the inscription, and opens with the so-called ISIG (Introductory Series Initial Glyph) which reads tzik-a(h) hab’ [patron of Haab' month] ("revered was the year-count with the patron [of the month]").^[2] Next come the 5 digits of the Long Count, followed by the tzolk'in date written as single glyph, and then by supplementary information. Most of this supplementary series is optional and has been shown to be related to lunar data, for example, the age of the moon on the day and the calculated length of current lunation.^[3] The date is concluded by a glyph stating the day and month of the Haab year. The text then continues with whatever activity occurred on that date.

Origin of the Long Count calendar

The earliest Long Count inscription yet discovered is on Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico, showing a date of 36 BCE.^[4] This table lists the six artifacts with the eight oldest Long Count dates.

Of the six sites, three are on the western edge of the Maya homeland and three are several hundred kilometers further west, leading most researchers to believe that the Long Count calendar predates the Maya.^[5] La Mojarra Stela 1, the Tuxtla Statuette, Tres Zapotes Stela C, and Chiapa Stela 2 are all inscribed in an Epi-Olmec, not Maya, style.^[6] El Baúl Stela 2, on the other hand, was created in the Izapan style. The first unequivocally Maya artifact is Stela 29 from Tikal, with the Long Count date of 292 CE (8.12.14.8.15), more than 300 years after Stela 2 from Chiapa de Corzo.^[7]

Correlations between Western calendars and the Long Count calendar

There have been various methods proposed to allow us to convert from a Long Count date to a Western calendar date. These methods, or correlations, are generally based on dates from the Spanish conquest, where both Long Count and Western dates are known with some accuracy.

The commonly-established way of expressing the correlation between the Maya calendar and the Gregorian or Julian calendars is to provide number of days from the start of the Julian Period (Monday, January 1, 4713 BCE) to the Long Count's zero date or base date, which was 13.0.0.0.0 (the corresponding Calendar Round date was 4 Ajaw, 8 Kumk'u).^[8]

The most commonly accepted correlation is the "Goodman, Martinez, Thompson" correlation (GMT correlation). The GMT correlation establishes that the 13.0.0.0.0 creation date occurred on September 6, 3114 BCE (Julian) or August 11, 3114 BCE (Gregorian), Julian day number (JDN) 584283. This correlation fits the astronomical, ethnographic, carbon dating, and historical sources. However, there have been other correlations that have been proposed at various times, most of which are merely of historical interest, except that by Floyd Lounsbury, two days after the GMT correlation, which is in use by some Maya scholars, such as Linda Schele.

Today, 07:05, Friday July 3, 2009 (UTC), in the Long Count is 12.19.16.8.13 (GMT correlation).

2012 and the Long Count

According to the Popol Vuh, a book compiling details of creation accounts known to the K'iche' Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world.^[9] The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 13th b'ak'tun.

The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.^[10]

Three figures within the New Age, the artist and theorist José Argüelles, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and the late ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna, have publicized theories concerning the significance of the end of the cycle. (They arrived at their conclusions separately from one another). They have jointly inspired a number of articles and books that this will be the end of this creation, the next pole shift or, as McKenna speculated in his theories, the end of history and events as "novel" as the origin of life on Earth, which we could not possibly imagine. The date is supposed to mark the return of the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl. His name is a compound of the Nahuatl words for plumage (quetzalli) and snake (coatl). The symbolism of this name implies that the catastrophe could be a unification of opposites, the merging of flight and slithering, dark and light, life and death, suggesting that 2012 could be more of a paradigm shift than a physical cataclysm. Jenkins has focused on the occurrence of a Galactic Alignment in the "era of 2012". Other, more mundane speculations involve a worldwide catastrophe, such as a pole shift. The idea of the significance of the date has also increasingly passed into popular culture.

Inscriptions beyond 2012

Maya inscriptions occasionally reference future predicted events or commemorations that would occur on dates that lie beyond 2012 (that is, beyond the completion of the 13th b'ak'tun of the current era). Most of these are in the form of "distance dates" where some Long Count date is given, together with a Distance Number (DN) that is to be added to the Long Count date to arrive at this future date.

For example, on the west panel at the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, a section of the text projects into the future to the 80th Calendar Round (CR) 'anniversary' of the famous Palenque ruler K'inich Janaab' Pakal's accession to the throne (Pakal's accession occurred on a Calendar Round date 5 Lamat 1 Mol, at Long Count 9.9.2.4.8 equivalent to 27 July 615 CE).^[11] It does this by commencing with Pakal's birthdate 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ajaw 13 Pop (24 March 603 CE) and adding to it the Distance Number 10.11.10.5.8.^[12] This calculation arrives at the 80th Calendar Round since his accession, a day that also has a CR date of 5 Lamat 1 Mol, but which lies over 4,000 years in the future from Pakal's time—the day 21 October in the year 4772. The inscription notes that this day would fall eight days after the completion of the 1st piktun [since the creation or zero date of the Long Count system], where the piktun is the next-highest order above the b'ak'tun in the Long Count. If the completion date of that piktun—13 October 4772—were to be written out in Long Count notation, it could be represented as 1.0.0.0.0.0. The 80^th CR anniversary date, eight days later, would be 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol.^[13]

Summary

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.^[14]

Calculating a full Long Count date

As stated, a full Long Count date not only includes the 5 digits of the Long Count, but the 2-character Tzolk'in and the 2-character Haab' dates as well. The 5 digit Long Count can therefore be confirmed with the other 4 characters (the "calendar round date").

Taking as an example a Calendar Round date of 9.12.2.0.16 (Long Count) 5 Kib' (Tzolk'in) 14 Yaxk'in (Haab'). One can check whether this date is correct by the following calculation.

It is perhaps easier to find out how many days there are since 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, and show how the date 5 Kib' 14 Yaxk'in is derived.

Calculating the Tzolk'in date portion

The Tzolk'in date is counted forward from 4 Ajaw. To calculate the numerical portion of the Tzolk'in date, we must add 4 to the total number of days given by the date, and then divide total number of days by 13.

This means that 106395 whole 13 day cycles have been completed, and the numerical portion of the Tzolk'in date is 5.

To calculate the day, we divide the total number of days in the long count by 20 since there are twenty day names.

This means 16 day names must be counted from Ajaw. This gives Kib'. Therefore, the Tzolk'in date is 5 Kib'.

Calculating the Haab' date portion

The Haab' date 8 Kumk'u is the ninth day of the eighteenth month. Since there are twenty days per month, there are eleven days remaining in Kumk'u. The nineteenth and last month of the Haab' year contains only five days, thus, there are sixteen days until the end of the Haab' year.

If we subtract 16 days from the total, we can then find how many complete Haab' years are contained.

We then find which month the day is in. Dividing the remainder 135 days by 20, we have six complete months, plus 15 remainder days. So, the date in the Haab' lies in the seventh month, which is Yaxk'in. The fifteenth day of Yaxk'in is 14, thus the Haab' date is 14 Yaxk'in.

Piktuns and higher orders

As mentioned in the Syntax section, there are also four rarely-used higher-order periods above the b'ak'tun: piktun, kalabtun, k'inchiltun, and alautun.

It is a matter of dispute whether the first piktun occurs after 13 or after 20 b'ak'tun. Most Mayanists think that in the majority of inscriptions, where only the last five Long Count positions are used, the count recycles at 13 b'ak'tuns, whereas, if longer cycles are used, the count continues to the end of the 20th b'ak'tun (b'ak'tun 19) before a piktun is registered.^{[citation needed]} In the same way, the fact that a 13-katun cycle was used, didn't negate the fact that there are 20 katuns in a b'ak'tun.

The inscription on Quirigua stela F, or 6, shows a Long Count date of 9.16.10.0.0 1 Ahau 3 Zip (March 15, 761 Gregorian). The huge distance date of 1.8.13.0.9.16.10.0.0 is subtracted and the resulting date is given as (18.)13.0.0.0.0.0.0.0 1 Ahau 13 Yaxkin, which is equivalent to a day over 90 million years in the past. However, there is another distance date on Quirigua Stela D or 4, that gives a date of 9.16.15.0.0 7 Ahau 18 Pop (February 17, 766 Gregorian), to which is added 6.8.13.0.9.16.15.0.0, to give a date of (13.)13.0.0.0.0.0.0.0. This is over 400 million years after the date the stela was erected! It was by calculating a number of these distance dates that Eric Thompson was able to determine that the date of creation in 3114 BCE – 13.0.0.0.0 was actually 0.1.13.0.0.0.0.0.0 in the extended version.

At Yaxchilan, on a temple stairway, there is an inscription that includes four levels above the alautuns. The inscription reads: 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.9.15.13.6.9 3 Muluc 17 Mac. This is equivalent to October 19, 744, but the higher cycles do not conform to Thompson’s calculation. The same applies to a Late Classic monument from Coba, Stela 1. The date of creation is expressed as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, where the units are 13s in the nineteen places larger than the b'ak'tun.^[17]

Maya Long Count Calendar

Contents