Mesoamerican Long Count calendar 20, 2012 (Gregorian Calendar), followed by the start of the 14th b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012. There are only two references to the current creation's 13th b'ak'tun in the fragmentary Mayan corpus: Tortuguero Monument 6, part of a ruler's inscription and the recently discovered La Corona Hieroglyphic Stairway 2, Block V. Maya inscriptions occasionally reference future predicted events or commemorations that would occur on dates that lie beyond 2012 (that is, beyond the completion of the 13th "b'ak'tun" of the current era). Most of these are in the form of "distance dates" where some Long Count date is given,
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and the 365 day Haab'. The equivalent Aztec calendars are known in Nahuatl as the tonalpohualli and Xiuhpohualli. The combination of a Haab' and a Tzolk'in date identifies a day in a combination which does not occur again for 18,980 days (52 Haab' cycles of 365 days times 73 Tzolk'in cycles of 260 days, approximately 52 years), a period known as the Calendar Round. To identify days over periods longer than this, Mesoamericans used the Long Count calendar. The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from a starting date that is generally calculated to