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calendarRoundOrigin

const calendarRoundOrigin: CalendarRound

Defined in: cr/calendar-round.ts:281

The Calendar Round base date: 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u.

This corresponds to the Maya creation-era base date 13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count, which serves as "day zero" (Maya Day Number (MDN) = 0) for all calendrical calculations per [R1, R2]. MDN is analogous to Julian Day Number, but for the Maya calendar system.

Scholarly Rationale:

  • This epoch is explicitly documented in Reingold, Dershowitz, & Clamen (1993) [R1] and Martin & Skidmore (2012) [R2] as the standard anchor for Maya calendar calculations
  • The date represents the completion of the 13th bak'tun at the beginning of the current era in Maya cosmology
  • Using this epoch ensures compatibility with correlation constants (GMT family: 584283, 584285, 584286) which all anchor to this same date

Alternative Epochs: While historical dates like royal coronations could theoretically serve as alternative anchors, changing the epoch would:

  1. Break compatibility with all published correlation constants
  2. Require recalculation of all Haab'/Tzolk'in offset formulas
  3. Diverge from established scholarly practice

For these reasons, this implementation follows the standard epoch per academic literature.

See​

  • Reingold, Dershowitz, & Clamen (1993) - Calendrical Calculations, II [R1]
  • Martin & Skidmore (2012) - Exploring the 584286 Correlation [R2]