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On that date, the calendar comes to several zeroes:
They divided the time in baktuns, katuns, etc. on Dec 21, 2012 is the end of the 260th katun or The thirteenth and last baktun...
But that is only reaching a lot of zeroes, like the 2nd milenium in the Gregorian calendar, just a lot of zeros, nothing else, as there are divisions higher than the baktun.
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Long Count
Since Calendar Round dates can only distinguish within 18980 days, equivalent to around 52 solar years, the cycle repeats roughly once each lifetime, and thus, a much more refined method of dating was needed if their history was to be recorded accurately.
The Long Count employs the use of number series, roughly base 20 and is constructed by counting whole number of days alone. The Mayan name for a day was k'in; twenty of these k'ins are known as a winal (or uinal); eighteen winals make one tun; twenty tuns are known as a k'atun, twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun. (Four rarely-used higher-order cycles are known as Piktun, Kalabtun, K'inchiltun, and Alautun.)
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So basically, we are finishing 13 baktuns, but there are many Piktuns left to reach the next Kalabtun and so on.
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