Maya Cycles of Time: Further Explorations

All of these calculations can be confirmed using online Maya calendar converters that translate Classical Maya Long Counts into Western Gregorian calendar dates and vice versa. Want to explore further? Try these exercises:

1. Create a glyph Long Count of your birthday or other significant date(s).
2. Determine which days in the Tzolkin calendar could begin any Haab new year.
3. How did the Maya arrive at 1,101,600 days in the computation of the true length of the solar year?
4. If the Short Count date 13 Ahau is not 11.16.0.0.0, are there other possible katun-ending Long Counts in the same baktun? What would be the corresponding Gregorian date(s)?
5. Explain why period-ending dates have a cycle of 18,980 Haab years, more than triple a Great Cycle of 13 baktuns.

Other Convergence articles about Maya numbers, Maya geometry, and Maya calendars:

• Maya Calendar Conversions, by Ximena Catepillán and Waclaw Szymanski
• When a Number System Loses Uniqueness: The Case of the Maya, by Amy Shell-Gellasch and Pedro Freitas
• Maya Geometry in the Classroom, by John Diamantopoulos and Cynthia (Woodburn) Huffman