cp's OEIS Frontend

"Mayan primes" may be defined as these periods plus or minus 1, namely: 2, 19, 359, 143999, 1872001. Note also that 361 = 19^2; 144001 = 11 * 13 * 19 * 53.

From the Hermetic Systems" link: "The Mayas used three different calendrical systems (and some variations within the systems). The three systems are known as the tzolkin (the sacred calendar), the haab (the civil calendar) and the long count system. The tzolkin is a cycle of 260 days and the haab is a cycle of 365 days (these cycles are explained in Sections 2 and 3 of this chapter). The tzolkin cycle and the haab cycle were combined to produce a cycle of 18,980 days, known as the calendar round. 18,980 days is a little less than 52 solar years.

"Thus the Mayas could not simply use a tzolkin/haab date to identify a day within a period of several hundred years because there would be several days within this period with the same tzolkin/haab date. The Mayas overcame this problem by using a third dating system which enabled them to identify a day uniquely within a period of 1,872,000 days (approximately 5,125.36 solar years).

"To do this they used a vigesimal (i.e. based on 20) place-value number system, analogous to our decimal place-value number system. The Mayas used a pure vigesimal system for counting objects but modified this when counting days."

Day 1 of year 1 of the Mayan Long Count calendar (0.0.1.0.1) coincides with the first day of the Tzolkin cycle (1,1). Two Tzolkin cycles before that date, there was a new moon.