How Does the Mayan Calendar Work?

The Mayan Calendar Explained

The Mayan calendar has a long and deep history. But its premise is quite simple. Maybe not as simple as our Roman calendar, however. One of the defining characteristics of our Roman calendar is that it is based on various cycles. From minutes, to hours, days, weeks, months - we divide our calendar into increments that repeat on their own cycle.

For example, each hour has a first minute, each week has a Monday, each year has a first of January, and so on. However, it's not every year that a Monday is also the first of January - this occurs only every seven years or so. The Mayan calendar works on a similar premise. As we examine the history of the Mayan calendar, we are given insight into its workings.

Roman vs. Mayan calendar - Working in Cycles

You might say that the Mayan calendar works the same as the Roman calendar, but with more complex, and overlapping cycles. A 52 year cycle on the Mayan calendar, for example, is called a Calendar Round. Now, similar to the way the first of January only occurs on a Monday every seven years or so, each day in the Mayan Calendar Round, referred to as a Long Count, is given a unique name based on a combination of various cycles.

Base 10 vs. Base 20

Unlike the Roman day, which is calculated using base ten, the Mayan Long Count is calculated using base twenty. What is base twenty? Just like our base ten system uses 10 numbers (zero through ten), the Mayan base 20 system uses 20 numbers (zero through twenty). So, while moving the decimal one spot in the Roman system changes our result by a factor of 10, moving the decimal in the Mayan system changes the result by a factor of 20.

Breaking Down the Mayan Long Count

The Mayan Long Count breaks down into the following units, where a kin is one day in the 52 year period:

• 20 kin = 1 uinal
• 360 kin = 19 uinal = 1 tun
• 7200 kin = 360 uinal = 20 tun = 1 kactun
• 144000 kin = 8000 uinal = 400 tun = 20 kactun = 1 bactun
• 13 bactun = 1 Mayan epoch
• 1 epoch ~ 5125.26 Mayan years

Subtracting from today, that puts the beginning of the current Mayan Long Count at August 11, 3114 BC, and the end at December 21, 2012 AD.

Does that mean the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012? We don't think so. Read our article on the 2012 Planetary Alignment to find out why.

The Mayan 20 Day Period

The Mayan calendar is broken into 18 periods of 20 days each. They are outlined, along with their meanings, in the table below: