baktun
|bak-tun|
/ˈbæk.tʊn/
Maya 144,000-day period
Etymology
'baktun' originates from the Classical/Yucatec Maya term 'bʼakʼtun', where 'bʼakʼ' is a numeral element used in the Long Count and 'tun' means 'year' (a tun being 360 days).
'bʼakʼtun' was used in Maya inscriptions and was adopted into Spanish-language studies of Maya chronology in the 19th and early 20th centuries; it entered English scholarship in the same sense as 'baktun'.
Initially a technical term used in Classic Maya inscriptions to count long intervals (specifically 144,000 days); in modern English it retains that technical chronological meaning and is also used in popular references to Maya calendar cycles (for example, the 13th baktun).
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a unit of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar equal to 144,000 days (approximately 394.26 years); one of the principal higher-order periods used in Maya chronology.
Scholars noted that the inscription recorded events spanning several baktuns.
Synonyms
Last updated: 2026/01/03 10:00