[Aztlan] J. E. Thompson's take on Higher Periods

[Carl callaway]

Dear Friends,

I was reminded the other day by Barb of Thompson's ideas concerning the values of the Higher Periods. The Old Master's Words are worth a reconsideration ( see at the end of the appendix at 
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/maya/mhw/mhwap4.htm    )
  
  
(quote from Thompson)


"I have throughout assumed that the baktuns were grouped, not in 13's but in 
20'S, for the evidence supporting a vigesimal count of baktuns in Dresden and at 
Palenque and Copan is too strong to be overridden. I assume that at an early 
date, when the LC was first invented, the highest period was the baktun and that 
baktuns were arranged in re-entering series of 13, but that a subsequent desire 
to extend the range of time led to the invention of the pictun and still greater 
periods. With that expansion of time, it was essential to fit the baktuns into a 
vigesimal count. Consequently, 20 baktuns were made the equivalent of one 
pictun, but by then 4 Ahau 8 Cumku was so strongly established as the cyclic 
ending of a round of 13 baktuns that it continued to be given that designation, 
although reckoned as the end of a cycle of 20 baktuns for the purposes of 
calculation. Should my reconstruction of the higher periods be correct, 
4 Ahau 8 Cumku then became the end of 13 calabtuns, with the theoretical LC 
position 1.13.0.0.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku."