The oldest known Long Count date is closer to the 2012 'end of the world' than to the calendar's own start: carved in 36 BC, it falls 3,078 years after the mythical zero date of 3114 BC and 2,047 years before 2012.

36 BC · 2012 · apart: 2048 years

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The event

• Earliest Long Count date36 BC · Chiapa de Corzo. Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo bears the date 7.16.3.2.13 — December 36 BC, the oldest known Mesoamerican Long Count inscription. The calendar, later used by the Maya, counted days from a mythical starting point in 3114 BC.

1st century BC · 21st century

More amazing facts

• 44 BC · 1599 Caesar almost certainly never said 'Et tu, Brute?': Shakespeare gave him the line.
• 36 BC · 31 BC The earliest known Long Count calendar date in Mesoamerica is 36 BC — just five years before the Battle of Actium.
• 36 BC · 1202 Mesoamericans were writing zero more than 1,200 years before Fibonacci introduced it to Europe.
• 36 BC · 2012 The Maya calendar never predicted the end of the world in 2012.
• 30 BC · 394 Egyptian hieroglyphs outlived Cleopatra by more than 400 years.
• 25 BC · 21 BC A one-eyed queen of Kush fought Rome and won a good peace from Augustus.

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