A cycle featured in Maya calendars has been a mystery pretty much since it was rediscovered and its deciphering began in the 1940s.
However, the difficulty lay in trying to figure out how these synodic periods worked in the context of the 819-day count. Mercury is easy; it has a synodic period of 117 days, which fits into 819 days exactly seven times. But where did the rest of the planets fit?
Jupiter and Saturn aren't left out, either. Jupiter's 399-day synodic period fits exactly 39 times into 19 counts; and Saturn's 378-day synodic period is a perfect match for 6 counts. "An expansion of the standard 4 × 819-day cycle to 20 periods of 819 days does provide a larger calendar system with commensurations at its stations for the synodic periods of all the visible planets.
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