A ''kʼatun'' (, ) is a unit of time in the
Maya calendar
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico.
The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon ...
equal to 20 ''
tuns'' or 7200 days, equivalent to 19.713
tropical year
A tropical year or solar year (or tropical period) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the sky – as viewed from the Earth or another celestial body of the Solar System – thus completing a full cycle of astronom ...
s. It is the second digit on the normal
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (East Africa), a p ...
long count date. For example, in the Maya Long Count date 12.19.13.15.12 (December 5, 2006), the number 19 is the ''kʼatun''. There are 20 ''k'atuns'' in a ''
baktun
A baktun (properly bʼakʼtun ) is 20 '' kʼatun'' cycles of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar. It contains 144,000 days, equal to 394.26 tropical years. The Classic period of Maya civilization occurred during the 8th and 9th baktuns of the ...
''.
The end of a kʼatun was marked by numerous ceremonies and, at
Tikal
Tikal (; ''Tik'al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of the Pre-Col ...
, the construction of large
twin pyramid complexes to host them. The kʼatun was also used to reckon the age of rulers. Those who lived to see four (or five) kʼatuns would take the title 4-(or 5-)kʼatun ruler. In the
Postclassic period when the full Long Count gave way to the
Short Count, the Maya continued to keep a reckoning of kʼatuns, differentiating them by the
Calendar Round date on which they began. Each kʼatun had its own set of prophecies and associations.
Notes
References
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Maya calendars
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