bʼakʼtun

bʼakʼtun

See also: baktun

English

WOTD – 20 December 2012

Alternative forms

• baktun

Etymology

"[T]he gloss b’ak’tun was invented [by scholars], it is not an indigenous Maya word; the Classic Maya word was probably pik."[1]

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑkˌtun/[2]
• (Mayan) IPA^(key): /ˈɓakʼtun/

Noun

bʼakʼtun (plural bʼakʼtuns)

1. In the Maya calendar, a period of 144 000 days (20 k’atun periods): 394.25 solar years.
   • 1998, Grant D. Jones, The conquest of the last Maya kingdom, page 431:

     We would create the same problem that the Mayas did in omitting the b’ak’tun if we were to drop the number that indicates where a century falls in relation to a fixed point in our own calendar. For example, reference to the "nineties" could refer to the ninth decade of any century past or present.

   • 1998, Grant D. Jones, The conquest of the last Maya kingdom, page 14:

     Because this "long count" had a fixed beginning point and identified b'ak'tuns and each of their 20 k'atuns in numerical sequence, scholars can correlate long-count dates with the Gregorian and Julian calendars.

   • 2009, Brian D'Amato, In the Courts of the Sun:

     “And if you started walking to the sun now, although you couldn't, but let's say you were flying as fast as you can walk, you wouldn't get there for nine hundred times four hundred b'ak'tunob.”

Quotations

• "The common "Initial Series" or "Long Count" records, through a place-notational system and period-glyphs, the amount of days elapsed since the "beginning date" of 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk’uh, in ever larger growing units of the k’in (day), the winal or winik (or 20 k’ins), the tun (or 18 winak/winiks), the k’atun (or 20 tuns), and the b’ak’tun (or 20 k’atuns; the gloss b’ak’tun was invented, it is not an indigenous Maya word; the Classic Maya word was probably pik)."[1]
• Anthropological scholar John Eric Sidney Thompson stated that placing a Long Count of (for example) 9.15.10.0.0 in the 9th b'ak'tun is almost certainly an error, like placing the year 2009 in the 2nd millennium. The erroneous practice is, however, common among Maya epigraphers.[3]

Synonyms

• pik

Meronyms

• k'in, kin
• winal, winik
• tun
• k'atun, katun

Translations

Maya calendar period of 144000 days

Dutch: baktun Finnish: baktun German: Baktun n

Italian: baktun m Spanish: baktún m, baktun m

References

1. 2005, Erik Boot, Continuity and change in text and image at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico: a study of the inscriptions, iconography, and architecture at a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Maya site, page 22
2. “bʼakʼtun” in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary.
3. 1971, J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction, Civilization of the American Indian series, number 56, edition 3 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press; →ISBN; OCLC 275252)