2012 and the Long Count

2012 and the Long Count

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 14th b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012There is only one reference to the current creation's 13th b'ak'tun in the fragmentary Mayan corpus: Monument 6, part of a ruler's inscription.

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 that is to be added to the Long Count date to arrive at this future date.

For example, on the west panel at the  in a section of the text projects into the future to the 80th Calendar Round (CR) 'anniversary' of the famous Palenque ruler 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 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar). It does this by commencing with Pakal's birthdate 9.8.9.13.0  8 Ajaw 13 Pop (24 March 603 CE Gregorian) and adding to it the Distance Number 10.11.10.5.8 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 notesthat 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.