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Maya 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.
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, 3114 BCE in the Julian Calendar (-3113 astronomical). The Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40.
The Maya calendar consists of several cycles or counts of different lengths. The 260-day count is known to scholars as the Tzolkin, or Tzolkʼin. [5] The Tzolkin was combined with a 365-day vague solar year known as the Haabʼ to form a synchronized cycle lasting for 52 Haabʼ called the Calendar Round.
Scholars show how multiple planet movements tie into the 819-day Mayan calendar. The 819 days of the calendar must be viewed across a 45-year time period to fully understand.
A baktun / ˈ b ɑː k t uː n / [1] (properly bʼakʼtun) is 20 kʼatun cycles of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar. It contains 144,000 days, equal to 394.26 tropical years . The Classic period of Maya civilization occurred during the 8th and 9th baktuns of the current calendrical cycle.
The Mayan calendar’s 819-day cycle has confounded scholars for decades, but new research shows how it matches up to planetary cycles over a 45-year span.
Unlike the 260-day tzolkʼin 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 kʼatun, and 20 kʼatuns (144,000 days or roughly 394 years) made up a bʼakʼtun. Thus, the Maya date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents ...
The "Long Count" portion of the Maya calendar uses a variation on the strictly vigesimal numerals to show a Long Count date. In the second position, only the digits up to 17 are used, and the place value of the third position is not 20×20 = 400, as would otherwise be expected, but 18×20 = 360 so that one dot over two zeros signifies 360.