Aztec calendar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (April 2007) |
 |
| The Aztec world
Human sacrifice in Aztec culture |
The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica.
The calendar consisted of a 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count) and a 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count). These two cycles together formed a 52 year "century," sometimes called the "calendar round." The xiuhpohualli is considered to be the agricultural calendar, since it is based on the sun, and the tonalpohualli is considered to be the sacred calendar.
The calendric year may have begun at some point in the distant past with the first appearance of the Pleiades (Tianquiztli) asterism in the east immediately before the dawn light.[1] (See heliacal rising.) But due to the precession of the Earth's axis, it fell out of favor to a more constant reference point such as a solstice or equinox. Early Spanish chroniclers recorded it being celebrated in proximity with the Spring equinox.
Contents |
[edit] Tonalpohualli
The tonalpohualli ("day count") consists of a cycle of 260 days, each day signified by a combination of a number from one to thirteen, and one of the twenty day signs. With each new day, both the number and day sign would be incremented: 1 Crocodile is followed by 2 Wind, 3 House, 4 Lizard, and so forth up to 13 Reed, after which the cycle of numbers would restart (though the twenty day signs had not yet been exhausted) giving 1 Jaguar. The cycle of day signs would continue until 7 Flower, after which it would restart and give 8 Crocodile. It would take a full 260 days (13×20) for the two cycles of twenty day signs and thirteen numbers to realign and repeat the combination 1 Crocodile.
[edit] Day signs
The set of day signs used in central Mexico is identical to that used by Mixtecs, and to a lesser degree similar to those of other Mesoamerican calendars.
Each of the day signs also bears an association with one of the four cardinal directions.[verification needed]
There is some variation in the way the day signs were drawn or carved. Those here were taken from the Codex Magliabechiano.
|
|
Wind and Rain are represented by images of their associated gods, Ehecatl and Tlaloc (respectively).
Other marks on the stone showed the current world and also the worlds before this one. Each world was called a sun, and each sun had its own species of inhabitants. The Aztecs believed that they were in the fifth sun and like all of the suns before them they would also eventually perish due to their own imperfections. Every fifty two years was marked out because they believed that fifty two years was a life cycle and at the end of any given life cycle the gods could take away all that they have and destroy the world.
[edit] Trecenas
A set of thirteen numbered days is known by the Spanish term trecena (from trece "thirteen"). Each of the twenty trecenas in the 260-day cycle was associated with a particular deity:
|
|
[edit] Xiuhpohualli (solar year)
[edit] Veintena (twenty); metzli (moon)
"In ancient times the year was composed of eighteen months, and thus it was observed by these Indian people. Since their months were made of no more than twenty days, these were all the days contained in a month, because they were not guided by the moon but by the days; therefore, the year had eighteen months. The days of the year were counted twenty by twenty." Diego Durán
Xiuhpohualli is the Aztec year (xiuhitl) count (pohualli). One solar year consists of 360 named days and 5 nameless (nemontemi). The year was broken into 18 periods of twenty days each, sometimes compared to the Julian month. The Aztec word for moon is metzli but whatever name that was used for these periods is unknown. The Mayan calendar has a similar configuration and the same 20-days period which they labeled uinal. Through Spanish usage, the 20 day period of the Aztec calendar has become commonly known as a veintena.
Each 20 days period started on Cipactli (Crocodile) for which a festival was held. The eighteen veintena are listed below. The dates are from early eye-witnesses. Each wrote what they saw. Bernardino de Sahagún's date precedes the observations of Diego Durán by several decades and is believed to be more recent to the surrender. Both are shown to emphasize the fact that the beginning of the Native new year became non-uniform as a result of an absence of the unifying force of Tenochtitlan after the Mexica defeat.
|
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Brad Schaefer (Yale University). Heliacal Rising: Definitions, Calculations, and Some Specific Cases (Essays from Archaeoastronomy & Ethnoastronomy News, the Quarterly Bulletin of the Center for Archaeoastronomy, Number 25.)
[edit] References
- Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (n.d.). "Aztec Art" (PDF). Aztec Art and Architecture. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI). http://www.famsi.org/research/aguilar/Aztec_Art_Bib.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
- Andrews, J. Richard (2003). Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (revised edition ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3452-6. OCLC 50090230.
- Aveni, Anthony F. (2000). Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures (reprint of 1990 original ed.). London: Tauris Parke. ISBN 1-86064-602-6. OCLC 45144264.
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill (1998). "Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking in Postconquest Mexico". in Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom Cubbins (Eds.) (PDF Reprint). Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks 2nd through 4th October 1992. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. pp. 149–199. ISBN 0-88402-239-0. OCLC 34354931.
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill (2000). Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztec and Mixtec. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70876-9. OCLC 40939882.
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill (2007). Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71263-8. OCLC 71632174.
- Clavigero, Francesco Saverio (1807) [1787]. The history of Mexico. Collected from Spanish and Mexican historians, from manuscripts, and ancient paintings of the Indians. Illustrated by charts, and other copper plates. To which are added, critical dissertations on the land, the animals, and inhabitants of Mexico, 2 vols.. Translated from the original Italian, by Charles Cullen, Esq. (2nd edition ed.). London: J. Johnson. OCLC 54014738.
- Coe, Michael D. (1994) [1962]. Mexico: from the Olmecs to the Aztecs (4th edition, Revised and Enlarged ed.). London and New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27722-2. OCLC 29708907.
- Hassig, Ross (2001). Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-73139-6. OCLC 44167649.
- Hernández de León-Portilla, Ascención (2004). "Lenguas y escrituras mesoamericanas". Arqueología mexicana (México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Editorial Raíces) 12 (70): 20–25. ISSN 0188-8218. http://arqueomex.com/S2N3nLENGUA70.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-14. (Spanish)
- Jacobs, James Q. (1999). "Mesoamerican Archaeoastronomy: A Review of Contemporary Understandings of Prehispanic Astronomic Knowledge". Mesoamerican Web Ring. jqjacobs.net. http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/meso_astro.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
- Klein, Cecelia F. (2002). "La iconografía y el arte mesoamericano" (PDF). Arqueología mexicana (México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Editorial Raíces) 10 (55): 28–35. ISSN 0188-8218. http://arqueomex.com/S8N4ICONKlein55.pdf. (Spanish)
- León-Portilla, Miguel (1963). Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Náhuatl Mind. Civilization of the American Indian series, no. 67. Jack Emory Davis (trans.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. OCLC 181727.
- Malmström, Vincent H. (1973-09-17). "Origin of the Mesoamerican 260-Day Calendar" (PDF Reprinted). Science (Lancaster, PA: American Association for the Advancement of Science) 181 (4103): 939–941. doi:. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17835843. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~izapa/M-1.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
- Miller, Mary; and Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317.
- Prem, Hanns J. (2008). Manual de la antigua cronología Mexicana. Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social. ISBN 978-968-496-694-9.
- Read, Kay Almere (1998). Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33400-4. OCLC 37909790.
- Sahagún, Bernardino de (1950–82) [ca. 1540–85]. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, 13 vols. in 12. vols. I-XII. Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J.O. Anderson (eds., trans., notes and illus.) (translation of Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España ed.). Santa Fe, NM and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-082-X. OCLC 276351.
- Smith, Michael E. (2003). The Aztecs (2nd edn. ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23015-7. OCLC 48579073.
- Townsend, Richard F. (2000). The Aztecs (2nd edition, revised ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28132-7. OCLC 43337963.
- Wimmer, Alexis (2006). "Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique" (online version, incorporating reproductions from Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine [1885], by Rémi Siméon). http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/nahuatl.page.html. (French) (Nahuatl languages)
- Zantwijk,Rudolph van (1985). The Aztec Arrangement: The Social History of Pre-Spanish Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-806-11677-3. OCLC 11261299.
[edit] External links
- (Spanish) Detailed description of the temalacatl from Mexico's Museo Nacional de Antropolgía
- Daily Aztec Calendar
