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Long Count
This nOde last updated November 7th, 2001 and is permanently morphing...
(11 Etz'nab (Flint) - 16 Zac (White) - 258/260 - 12.19.8.12.18)

          The Mayan calendar is complex. Years of 260-, 360-, and 365-days duration run
          concurrently. The Long Count (360-day) calendar records time intervals in excess of
          billions (yes, billions) of years. On December 23, 2012, the 13th Baktun will be
          completed, a day that occurs once every 8000 Mayan Tuns (about 7890 modern years).
             Zero day for the Maya calendar was 13.0.0.0.0 of the Long Count, 4 Ahau 8 Cumku of the
          Calendar Round, and on a day when the 9th Lord of the Night was ruling; or, by our
          calendar, August 11, 3114 B.C.E. 13.0.0.0.0 also occurs on December 23, 2012, but this
          date falls on 4 Ahau 3 Kankin rather than on creation day, 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. Thus the
          Maya did not consider December 23, 2012, the beginning of a new creation but of a major
          new cycle within the current creation. The Maya creation date is Date 1 below.

               Date 1:
               13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0
               4 Ahau 8 Cumku

                Date 2:
               13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.9.15.13.6.9
               3 Muluc 17 Mac

         Since dates rarely requred numbers higher than the baktun, the Maya normally excluded
          them. The exception to this was found at Yaxchilan where a date on the stairs of a temple
          records eight of the larger cosmic cycles of the baktun (Date 2 above). Thus we learn that
          the higher cycles of the Maya calendar were at 13 during Maya history. On the day of
          creation, all the cycles above the katun were set on 13. If each cycle is composed of 20 of
          the next lowest units (moving in order 20, 400, 8000, 160,000, 3,200,000, 64,000,000,
          etc.), it will take 41,341,050,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tropical years to convert the
          highest 13 in Date 1 back to 1.
 
 

               Kin (days)
               Uinal (20 days)
               Tun (18 Uinal, 360 days)
               Katun (20 tuns)
               Baktun (400 tuns, 20 katuns)
               Piktun (8000 tuns, 400 katuns, 20 bactuns)
               Kalabtun (160,000 tuns, 8000 katuns, 400 bactuns, 20 pictuns)
               Kinchiltun 3,200,000 Tuns, 20 Kalabtuns
               Alautun 64,000,000 Tuns, 20 Kinchiltuns
               Hablatun 1,280,000,000 Tuns, 20 Alautuns
               20 Hablatuns equals one unit of the next order but no name has been found
               for this period of about 25 billion years.

          Shadow of the Seven Triangles
          On the equinoxes, the Sun crosses a center
          point and makes an exact 90-degree angle
          directly over the Pyramid of Ku'Kulkan (El
          Castillo) at the sacred site of Chichen Itza on
          Mexico's Yucatan peninsula (a place that
          represents the turtle's head on the continent
          known as Turtle Island or North America).

          The Castillo is part of the Mayan calander's Path
          of the Sun (solar calendar) with 4 stone stairways of 91 steps each plus an upper platform
          for a total of 365. The Maya had an 18-base for their mathematics and 18 months in a
          year. The pyramid has nine levels divided by the staircases or 18. The relationship of the
          Sun to the Earth at this sensitive point creates the phenomenon of the dramatic Shadow of
          the Seven Triangles, shadow triangles projected on the north staircase with serpent heads at
          the base. The triangles undulate in an ascending fashion in March and descend during the
          fall equinox.

         Following 360-day Maya solar calendar are five "nameless days." The New Year started
          after this five-day period, a time unfit for work; a time for ceremony when the old world is
          symbolically destroyed and a new one created. These 5 days are considered unlucky days
          comparable to the time of chaos before creation and before world order was established.
          Ancient Egypt also commemorated these 5 days. Coincidentally, on the first of these
          five days both the Egyptian grain god, Osiris, and the Mayan grain god, Hun Hunahpu,
          were born.
 

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