Mesoamerican Long Count calendar

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar

unlike the 52-year still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear, rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20: 20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals (360 days) made a tun, 20 tuns made a k'atun, and 20 k'atuns (144,000 days) made up a b'ak'tun. Thus, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 b'ak'tuns, 3 k'atuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days.

 

December 2012 marks the conclusion of a; a great cycle of years in the , which was used in  prior to the arrival of Europeans. Though the Long Count was most likely invented by the it has become closely associated with the  whose classic period lasted from 250 to 900 ADThe of the classic Maya has been substantially deciphered, meaning that a corpus of their written and inscribed material has survived from before the ^days.