The Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012 - Dr. Synthia Andrews Nd [37]
The calendar is not organized into astronomical cycles like the solar year or the orbit of Venus. As a result, for a long time it was believed to be independent of astronomical relationship. However, this isn’t true. It’s measuring a cycle so much larger than other cycles it simply dwarfs them. We’ll be exploring this larger cycle in the next chapter, but first let’s consider the Long Count measurements.
Measurements
The basic unit is the kin, or day, which allows it to be correlated with the Tzolk’in, Haab, and Venus cycles. The kin are counted in units based on the “20 vestigial” system we talked about in Chapter 3. Here’s a quick reference:
◆ Kin = 1 day
◆ Uinal = 20 kins = 20 days
◆ Tun = 18 uinals = 360 days
◆ Katun = 20 tuns = 7,200 days = approximately 20 years
◆ Baktun = 20 katuns = 144,000 days = approximately 394 years
◆ One Great Cycle = 13 baktuns = approximately 5,126 years
◆ One Grand Cycle = 5 Great Cycles = approximately 25,630 years and the length of the precession of the equinox
The Maya also counted larger time spans:
◆ 1 pictun = 20 baktuns = 2,880,000 days = approximately 7,885 years
◆ 1 calabtun = 20 pictuns = 57,600,000 days = approximately 158,000 years
◆ 1 kinchiltun = 20 calabtuns = 1,152,000,000 days = approximately 3 million years
◆ 1 alautun = 20 kinchiltuns = 23,040,000,000 days = approximately 63 million years
The Long Count calendar is one Great Cycle, a period of 13 baktuns or 5,126 years. Another way you might see this written in other books is for the Long Count Great Cycle to be 5,200 years and the Grand Cycle to be 26,000 years. These numbers are using the 360-day Haab year as opposed to the astronomical year of 365.2425 days. To fit with astronomical information in the rest of the book, we are using the actual solar years.
Creation Myths
Many researchers believe the creation myths are tied in to the Long Count calendar and the Long Count calendar is a cycle within the precession of the equinox. Stories drawn in murals, on temple walls, and inscriptions on steles support this view. We’ll explore this further in Chapters 6 and 8. What we need to know now is when the 13-baktun cycle started, when it will end, and where we are on the timeline.
Monuments of the Maya
Monuments found throughout the jungles proved to be the Rosetta stones to determine the starting point of the Long Count calendar. Steles were marked with Long Count dates for important events, like coronations, Calendar round cycles, etc. Long Count dates have five designations, or decimal places. The first position on the right is for kin, the second is for uinals, the third for tuns, then katuns, and then baktuns. The Maya placed the positions in columns, as we saw in Chapter 3. However, researchers have made an easier notation by placing the positions in rows to match our system, separating each position with a dot. Each position increases by the power of 20.
An empty date notation would look like this: 0.0.0.0.0. If you saw this date, you might think it was the starting date of the Long Count cycle, but you would be tricked! The actual starting date of this baktun is 13.0.0.0.0, meaning it’s the start of a 13-baktun era.
def•i•ni•tion
The Rosetta stone was a stele monument found in Egypt in 1799 that contained the same message in three different languages. It allowed the researchers to decode Egyptian hieroglyphics. In common use, the term “Rosetta stone” means any key to understanding another language.
Hundreds if not thousands of archeological monuments bear the markings of the Long Count dating system. On a monument you would see the Long Count date for an event next to the Calendar round date. This proved to be the Rosetta stone in correlating