Quote:
Addendum
After posting this I thought I had better go back and check my books on the Mayan calendar system. The difference between 12.0.0.0.0 and 13.0.0.0.0 is shorter than I thought. I had forgotten that the number system used for calendar dates is in days not years. The Mayan's calendar count is modified from a true base twenty count in that they used 360 rather than 400 to represent the number of days in a year. Starting at the right, the numbers between the decimal points represent the following.
A 400 year period called a baktun
A 20 year period called a katun
A 360 day period called a tun similar to our year but 5 1/4 days shorter. They made up for this by having a 5 day period at the end of the year which was not included in the calendar count. They then did another adjustment every 52 years to account for the slippage due to the 1/4 days.
A 20 day period called a winal similar to our month
And a one day period called a kin.
A period of 13 baktans was called a great cycle and according to Mayan theorists, at the end of each great cycle the count was set back to 0.0.0.0.0 although there is no real support for this conclusion. The present zero date corresponds to 13 Aug 3114 BC. A great cycle is 5200 years long. All Mayan dates encountered so far fall within this range although use of a dating system which counts days before or after a fixed date reference happennings far in the past and in the future.
What is causing all the furor is the fact that in the year 2012, a great cycle is completed. Our millenium is equal to 10x10x10 years. Their millenium was 20x20x13 or 5200 years compared to our 1000 year millenium.
Larry P[/b]
|
Ok so that means that... one cycle is finnished and a new will begin... what ever that means! A new iceage?? Hmm why could they not use the 1,10,100! Would have been so much easire for us!
So I am a couple katuns and half...and a third old... and kin was very busy today! And Christmas is after a winal! :P
And I have done my genealogy a little longer than one baktun! My husband has a line to Adam... if one of the assumpitons we have is a relative.
Thanks for knowledge Poulsnell!!