Winal

MayaHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

20 days, the Maya 'month' of the Long Count.

1 winal = 1,728,000 seconds (exactly).

About the winal

A winal, also spelled uinal, is a block of 20 days and the second-smallest step in the Maya Long Count. It is often likened to a month, though it has nothing to do with the moon. Twenty kʼin fill one winal, which matches the 20 named days that cycle through the Maya sacred calendar and the 20-day months of the civil year.

On monuments the winal is the fourth number in a Long Count date, ahead of the kin. Its count runs from 0 to 17 and not to 19, because 18 winals make one tun of 360 days. This is the point where the otherwise base-20 system departs from pure powers of twenty. One carved example is a full-figure winal sign on Stela D at Copan.

At 20 days, a winal equals 1,728,000 seconds and is a little under three weeks. No modern calendar unit corresponds to it closely, and it is an exact count of days with no ambiguity about its size.

Sources: Wikipedia: Winal; Wikipedia: Maya calendar; Steve Morse: Mayan Calendar Rules

Winal conversion chart

1 winal expressed in every other time unit:

More Maya units

• kin (Maya) (time)
• tun (Maya) (time)
• katun (time)
• baktun (time)

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