I've just finished reading David Stuart's The Order of Days and in it he discusses the "true" Mayan long count. (along with tearing apart 2012 nonsense). I did know before that the Mayan long count days as ussually recorded by the Maya were actually appreviated versions of the full or actual date, generally including only the last 5 numbers. For example 13.5.7.8.9, the actual date would be 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.5.7.8.9.. to save space thety would generally write just the last 5 numbers. However in a few places they wrote out the full 24 number sequence. According to David Stuart the full actual long count of the Maya covers a period of 71,803,130,579,762,893,154,680,634,766 years!! Just for comparison the Universe is c. 14,500,000,000 years old or 14.5 billion years old! According to David Stuart the Maya were on their own count only c. 40% on the way towards the end. So much for thinking the world would end in December 2012.