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after the Classical Period, the Long Count was frequently dropped once again, to be replaced by a shorthand form. |
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You should also note that Maya inscriptions can record what are termed "distance numbers" using the same positional notation used for a Long Count. These numbers are simply counts of the number of days between two dates and thus represent elapsed time, rather than the point time of a date. |
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The Maya knew of a large number of cyclic phenomena. They timed the 263-day cycle governing the reappearance of Venus, as well as its complete 584-day cycle. They also timed the cycles of Mars and Jupiter. A cycle of 819 days is also important. For the Maya, with their cyclic view of time, the completion of cycles was important. Dates on which several cycles were completed simultaneously received a lot of ceremonial attention. Such a date was 9.9.16.0.0, which includes integral numbers of tzolkin, haab, and Calendar Round cycles, as well as exact multiples of the cycles of Venus and Mars. |
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The particular mathematical properties of the Calendar Round cycle yield another consequence for the Maya calendar. The first day of the haab can only coincide with 4 days of the tzolkin Lamat, Ben, Eznab, and Akbal. The four days are called Year Bearers. |
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In the absence of hard evidence, the early study of the Maya went badly astray in some cases. The dating of Maya inscriptions, in particular, was subject at first to almost unbridled speculation. Some authors felt that the Maya pyramids were thousands of years old, represented the works of a lost tribe of Israel, were relics of Atlantis, or were evidence of the lost continent of Mu. |
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As the decipherment of the dates progressed, however, more work was done to investigate the calendars still in use among the surviving Maya and to correlate the evidence from early Spanish chroniclers such as Landa. The evidence yielded certain logical constraints that could be applied to dating. On this basis, several authors advanced theories to correlate Maya and Western dates. |
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The issue of date correlation can be reduced to the question of a choice for a "correlation coefficient", which is simply the value of the difference between the Julian Day number and day 0 in the Maya calendar. This value, when added to the number of elapsed days represented by a Long Count gives the equivalent Julian Day number. In this work, I simply refer to this number as the offset. A good deal of the early scholarly squabbling revolves around a choice of offset value. |
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Each author had a favorite number, which became associated with him. Makemson (489,138), Escalona Ramos (679,108), and Weitzel (774,078) were among the investigators attempting to correlate dates. The pack eventually narrowed to two major contenders, however. Spinden and J.E.S. Thompson conducted a lively debate for years. Eventually, carbon dating and other techniques permitted scientists to quantify the numbers, and the error was small enough to tilt the argument in favor of Thompson. |
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The Thompson correlation, then, is the offset that has come to be accepted. Later work has only tended to confirm this value. Thompson himself has actually published |
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