Mesoamerican Long Count calendar 18. Thus 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, but rather only 360 days and 0.0.0.17.19 represents 359 days. The name "b'ak'tun" was invented by modern scholars. The numbered Long Count was no longer in use by the time the Spanish arrived in the Yucatán Peninsula, although unnumbered k'atuns and tuns were still in use. Instead the Maya were using an abbreviated Short Count. Long Count dates are written with Mesoamerican numerals, as shown on this table. A dot represents "1" while a bar equals "5". The shell glyph was used to represent the zero concept. The Long Count calendar required
Mesoamerican calendars calendar, a ritual calendar with no confirmed correlation to astronomical or agricultural cycles. Apparently the earliest Mesoamerican calendar to be developed, it was known by a variety of local terms, and its named components and the glyphs used to depict them were similarly culture-specific. However, it is clear that this calendar functioned in essentially the same way across cultures, and down through the chronological periods it was maintained. The second of the major calendars was one representing a 365-day period approximating the tropical year, known sometimes as the "vague year". Because it was an approximation, over time the seasons and