The Mayan Long Count Calendar

Thomas Chanier (1)

1 L2MP - Laboratoire matériaux et microélectronique de Provence

The Maya had a very elaborate and accurate calendar. First, the Mayan Long Count Calendar (LCC) was used to point historical events from a selected "beginning of time". The Long Count Periods are given on Table \ref{LCC}. It is also characterized by the existence of a religious month Tzolk'in of 260 days and a civic year Haab' of 365 days. One Tzolk'in of 260 days was composed of 13 months (numerated from 1 to 13) of 20 named days. One Haab' of 365 days is composed of 18 named months with 20 days plus one month of 5 days called Uayeb. The number 73 is very important in Mayan civilization and will define all the Long Count Periods as we will see below. The LCC is supposed to begin on 11 August -3113 BC known as the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation to the Gregorian calendar based on historical facts and end on 21 December 2012 corresponding to a period of approximately 5125 years. We will explain here the origin of this cycle.

Mots clés: Maya calendar long count

Domaines: Histoire et perspectives sur les mathématiques [math.HO]

Thomas Chanier. The Mayan Long Count Calendar. 2012. ⟨hal-00750006v1⟩