The size of a directory, as retrieved by the ls command, is the size of the directory file itself, and correlates to the maximum number of directory entries that were ever stored at one time in this file (directory files do not shrink when entries are deleted). It is NOT the size of the contents!
The modification timestamp of a directory is the most recent time when a file was added, deleted, or had its name changed. It is NOT the time when any of the contents changed!
UNIX directories do not hold any metadata about files, these are retrieved from the inode table; only pointers to the inode table and names are stored in UNIX directories, that's why you can have multiple (hard) links (read: multiple names in multiple locations) to a single inode and therefore a single file.
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