60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 57 



The Long Count 

 Wo have seen : 



1 . How the ^laya distinguished 1 day from the 259 others in the 

 tomUaniatl; 



2. How they distinguished the position of 1 day from the 364 

 others in the haab, or year; and, finally, 



3. How by combining (1) and (2) they distinguished 1 day from 

 the other 18,979 of the Calendar Round. 



It remains to explain how the IMaya insured absolute accuracy in 

 fixing a day mthin a period of 374,400 years, as stated above, or how 

 they distmguished 1 day from 136,655,999 others. 



The Calendar Round, as we have seen, determined the position of a 

 given day A\dthin a period of only 52 years. Consequently, in order 

 to prevent confusion of days of the same name in successive Calendar 

 Rounds or, in other words, to secure absolute accuracy in dating 

 events, it was necessary to use additional data in the description of 

 any date. 



In nearly all systems of chronology that presume to deal with really 

 long periods the reckoning of years proceeds from fixed starting 

 points. Thus in Christian chronology the starting point is the Birth 

 of Christ, and our years are reckoned as B. C. or A. D. according 

 as they precede or follow this event. The Greeks reckoned time 

 from the earliest Olympic Festival of which the winner's name was 

 known, that is, the games held in 776 B. C, which were won by 

 a certain Coroebus. The Romans took as their starting point the 

 supposed date of the foundation of Rome, 753 B, C. The Baby- 

 lonians counted time as beginning with the Era of Nabonassar, 747 

 B. C. The death of Alexander the Great, in 325 B. C, ushered -in 

 the Era of Alexander. With the occupation of Babylon in 311 B. C. 

 by Seleucus Nicator began the so-called Era of Seleucidse. The con- 

 quest of Spain by Augustus Caesar in 38 B. C. marked the beginning 

 of a chronology which endured for more • than fourteen centuries. 

 The Mohammedans selected as their starting point the flight of their 

 prophet Mohammed from Mecca in 622 A. D., and events in this 

 chronology are described as having occurred so many years after the 

 Hegira (The Flight). The Persian Era began with the date 632 

 A. D., in which year Yezdegird III ascended the throne of Persia. 



It will be noted that each of the above-named s3^stems of cliro- 

 nolog3"has for its starting point some actual historic event, the occur- 

 rence, if not the date of which, is indubitable. Some chronologies, 

 however, commence with an event of an altogether different charac- 

 ter, the date of which from its very nature must always remain 

 hypothetical. In this class should be mentioned such chronologies as 

 reckon time from the Creation of the World. For example, the Era 

 of Constantinople, the chronological system used in the Greek Church, 



