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Temple #20 - The last day and counting Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

rambudo: The end has come for the Temple Series ten years after it was published.

Thanks to the 160 cachers that found this piece of the Temple. I have enjoyed reading all of your logs.

This puzzle required identifying the 12 vigesimal numbers on the 2 pictures and converting them into Arabic Decimal Numerals. When the puzzle was first published, no information about where to find a conversion table. I inadvertently made the puzzle more difficult by inverting the colors of the image to match the theme of the page I was going for. As a result, image searches would not find the table. I quickly added a link to the page shortly after the FTF. I later added the table directly to the cache page through a picture when the other site no longer existed.

The numbers when converted to Arabic Numerals came out as 1,9,12,4,13,17 & 3,16,5,15,1,11. However, these are based on Mayan numbers. They used a vigesimal (Base 20) number system. To use them, you need to convert them to Decimal. If you wanted to drop them into a conversion tool, you need to adjust them to 19C4DH & 3G5F1B so that each digit is represented by a single symbol.

Those wanting to go the hard way, could also do the math by hand. the equation comes out to:
digit * Base ^ digit count + next digit * base ^ next digit count...; where digit count starts with 0.
17*20^0 + 13*20^1 + 4*20^2 + 12*20^3 + 9*20^4 + 1*20^5 = 4737877
11*20^0 + 1*20^1 + 15*20^2 + 5*20^3 + 16*20^4 + 3*20^5 = 12206031

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Hidden : 12/20/2012
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

This is the last of 20 caches published each day of the last days of the Maya long count calendar. So, will there be a tomorrow? The Maya believed it will simply be the beginning of a new era. Let's hope so!


As a people, we have always had to count something. In Europe, our ancestors developed a counting system based on the number of digits we have. As it gets very cold in Europe, we had a tendency to cover our feet. So we came up with a decimal (10) system. In Mesoamerica, the Maya did not cover their feet, so they used a vigesimal (20) system.


Remember to write down the Maya number symbols found in the log book, or on the lid, that is needed to determine the coordinates of the final cache of this series. After conversion, ten are labeled N and are each a four-digit number. Ten are labeled W and are each a three-digit number. The final cache of this series, A New Era , provides the final numbers and instructions how to add to the prior twenty to determine its coordinates.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

[Hide: See the geochecker]

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)