THE LONG COUNT

The Long Count is the name given to the chronology used by the Maya during their Classical Era to keep track of the long-term passage of vast tracks of time that individual human lifetimes could not encompass.  On almost all the ancient pyramids and stelae, dates were inscribed according to this "Long Count."

The Long Count consisted of thirteen baktuns, which are periods of 400 tuns (a tun is a 360-day period). One baktun is thus 400 x 360 = 144,000 days, amounting to 394.3 solar years.

Today, most archaeologists agree that the beginning date of the thirteen baktuns of the Long Count was the day we would now call August 11, 3114 B.C.E.

It should be noted that the current swell of interest in 2012, the supposed end of the Mayan Calendar, cresting at times into fear and anxiety about the end of the world, the end times, the Apocalypse, and other similar awe-inspiring events, is largely unfounded, if simply by definition.  The Mayan Calendar is not defined solely by the Long Count; it is a system of timekeeping tools, as is explained on these pages, that work harmoniously together to offer a multi-level view into the nature of existence, from the individual human being to the large-scale universal time scales most of us find hard to imagine.

The Maya themselves do not endorse a specific end date, and they certainly do not promote the end of the world.  Regardless of the point of view you take, the Mayan Calendar has always been about the journey, not the destination.