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In living highland practice, Ajpu is the sun and the ancestors, and it closes the count. Ethnographic accounts and Guatemalan Maya organisations describe it as a day of high standing — for the ancestors and the dead who have become guides, for artists and for those who bring things to completion, for clarity and for the light in which things are seen plainly. An ajq'ij born on Ajpu is spoken of as carrying authority and warmth, and as expected to finish what is begun. Petitions concern the ancestors, illumination on a matter, and endings. The working detail belongs to the apprenticeship, not to a page like this.

The Popol Vuh makes this day a person. Junajpu — One Ajpu, a coefficient and a day name used as a name — is one of the two Hero Twins, with Xb'alanke. They descend into Xib'alb'a, are defeated and killed, come back, and rise finally as the sun and the moon. It is the central narrative of highland Maya literature and it ends with this day sign becoming the sun. The twins' father and uncle, Jun Junajpu and Wuqub' Junajpu, carry the same day name with different coefficients.

In the Classic and Postclassic record, Ajaw is structurally privileged in a way no other day is. Because 360, 7,200 and 144,000 are all multiples of twenty, every tun, k'atun and b'ak'tun ending in the Long Count falls on a day named Ajaw — the same sign as the zero date, 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u. The great period-ending monuments of the Classic period are therefore all Ajaw dates, and a Classic ruler's most public act was to preside over one. The Dresden Codex Venus Table is likewise anchored on an Ajaw day, with its base at 1 Ajaw. And the Books of Chilam Balam organise Yucatec history and prophecy into the u kahlay katunob, the count of the k'atuns, in which each twenty-year period is named for the Ajaw day it ends on — Katun 11 Ahau, Katun 9 Ahau, and so on down a cycle of thirteen — with the Spanish arrival placed in Katun 11 Ahau. Thirteen k'atuns make a may, about 256 years, and the prophecy for a katun was expected to recur when its name came round again.

The Zapotec piyè and the Mixtec codices hold the same position, conventionally glossed Flower.

Date	Event
c. 600–500 BCE (contested)	Earliest 260-day count glyphs, Oaxaca — San José Mogote and Monte Albán. Zapotec, not Maya.
36 / 32 BCE	Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2 and Tres Zapotes Stela C, the earliest dated Long Counts. Both partly reconstructed.
c. 250–900 CE	Classic period: every tun, k'atun and b'ak'tun ending falls on Ajaw, and is marked by monument.
11th–12th c. CE (debated)	The Dresden Codex copy, including the Venus Table with its 1 Ajaw base.
1562 / 1566	Landa burns the books at Maní, then records the twenty day names in his Relación.
17th–19th c.	The Books of Chilam Balam carry the u kahlay katunob, k'atuns named for their ending Ajaw day.
1905–1935	The Goodman–Martínez–Thompson correlation, constant 584283. Mainstream, not unanimous.
11 Aug 3114 BCE	Long Count zero, 0.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, under GMT 584283 (6 Sep 3114 BCE Julian). Sources using the 584285 variant give 13 August.
21 Dec 2012	13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in — the b'ak'tun ending, and the anchor this site counts from. Not an ancient prophecy of the world's end.
1995 / 1996	Guatemala's Peace Accords recognise Maya spirituality and access to sacred places.

Ajaw returns every twenty days, its coefficient rising by seven each time because twenty leaves seven on division by thirteen: 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13. Thirteen appearances take 260 days, after which a given pairing — 4 Ajaw, for instance — comes round again.

Upcoming in 2026, on the site's GMT anchor: 10 August (5 Ajaw), 30 August (12 Ajaw), 19 September (6 Ajaw).

• Maya Tzolk'in — the system, the count, and what it is not.
• Kawak — the day before.
• Imix — the day after, opening the next twenty.
• World Zodiacs · Religion · Calendar