If that word sounds familiar, it's because Dec. 21, 2012, on our calendar marks the end of the 13th b'ak'tun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. In other words, it's the day the count will read 13.0 ...

The Maya, who lived in Central America between A.D. 250 and 900, had a cyclical calendar that ran approximately one human lifetime, or 52 years (life was shorter back then).

If you thought 365 days was a long time, try resetting your calendar every 18,980 days instead. 52 solar years make up the longest cycle of the Mayan calendar – a complex and ancient system that ...

But how does the Mayan calendar work, anyway? ... Each tun is thus 18 blocks of 20 days, or 360 days — approximately a year by the solar calendar. Tuns, in turn, ...

Entertainment; Doomsday 2012: If the Mayan calendar doesn't kill us, solar flares will . Published: ; Dec. 20, 2012, 7:42 p.m.

Mayan Calendar Round. ... Tzolk’in (260-day) and the 365-day, solar-based Haab’. Combined, these three cycles formed what is known as the Calendar Round and which lasts for 52 haab’ ...

"That's somewhat different from our own calendar, which is really tied to the length of the solar year," said Walter Witschey, an archaeologist and Maya expert at Longwood University in Virginia.

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. Guatemalans celebrated Mayan New Year on Sunday, which is the year ...

In Mayan culture, the numbers 13 and 20 were both considered highly significant -- 20 because it is the number of fingers and toes and 13 for the number of major joints in the human body. Mayan ...

Open your presents early this year. Even though the world showed no signs of ending on Friday, the Mayan calendar is notoriously tricky. One German researcher says that Dec. 24th could be the big day.

Mayan shamans take part in a ceremony on December 21, 2012, celebrating the end of the Mayan calendar, at the Tikal archaeological site, north of Guatemala City. JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images ...

LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Maya, best known these days for the doomsday they never foretold, may have accurately predicted astronomical phenomena centuries ahead of time, scientists find. A new ...