The Mayan Calendar and World's End: Things to know

Author: Krishnanjan Pramanik

The Mayans were the civilization inhabited in South America. They and the calendar devised by them, the 'Mayan Calendar' have been on headlines for a while. Non-senses are in the air about it and its connection with an another non-sense (End of world in 2012). But I really have doubt regarding the number of persons who really know about the Mayan way of counting days. Let me explain it for those who don't.

First of all, the Mayans had two basic way of counting days, namely Tzolkin and Haab. Tzolkin is a 260-day ritual count. This 260-days were counted with 13-cycles of 20 days each. Haab was a 365-day solar count. This 365-day were calculated with 18-cycles of 20 days each. Research workers sometimes call the Haab as the ' Vague Year ' because Mesoamericans did not take account of the fact that a solar year lasts slightly more than 365 days and add an extra day every four years. So, overtime, their solar years must have dragged behind the movements of stars ans sun. There used to have a 'unlucky period' of five days period at the end of each year.
There are conflicts about why the early Mesoamericans first fixed on 260-days count as a useful unit for measuring time. Some have argued that it was based on observation of the movements of Venus and of the Sun because 260-days period roughly corresponds to the gap between the appearance of Venus as the evening star and its emergence as the morning star. There is also an interval of 260 days between the sun's annual southward movement and its northward return when viewed from latitude close to Copan.
Most modern researchers argue thet the 260-days cycle is based on counting forward 260 days from the date of a woman's last menstrual period, to predict when a baby is likely to be born, as do the modern Maya still living in the mountains of southern Guatemala.

The Mayan Long Count

In addition to the twinned 260-days and 365-days calendars, the Maya people greatly refined a much longer running measuring system, the 'Long count', which is known to have been used in many parts of Mesoamerica at the beginning of the first millennium BC. Researchers found that during the Classical period, the Mayans dated their monuments using the Long Count to record births, deaths, royal accessions and anniversaries, the dates of ritual sacrifices and battle triumphs. This system counted forward from a Zero date of 4 Ahua 8 Cumku, equivalent to 11 August 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar.
The Maya Long count counted days in units of 20 and used 360 days as a 'Year'. Its five units were the 'Baktun' (144,000 days), the 'Katun' (7,200 days), the 'Tun' (360 days), the 'Uinal' (20 days), and the 'Kin' (1 day). Dates were carved in this order, with units separated by full points. For example, the date 3.3.2.1.1 would be 3 Baktuns, 3 Katuns, 2 Tuns, 1 Uinal and 1 Kin, making a total of 454,341 days after the Zero date of 11th August 3114 BC.
The misinterpretation of this Long count calendar is the basis for the popular belief that a cataclysm will take place on 21st December of 2012 .
But actually 21st December, 2012 is the day that the calendar will go to the next 'Baktun'. The foresaid fact is what inspired many prophecies and the exploitation of people in the name of World's End.

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