AZTEC CALENDER

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AZTEC CALENDER

• BY ANTHONY CABRERA
• Period. 3 pre-calculus

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HISTORY
The Aztecs, or Mexica as they called themselves,
were the elite of a militaristic empire focused
in Central Mexico when the Spanish conquistadores
landed in America at the beginning of the 16th
century CE. The Aztecs originated in the
semi-arid environments of northern Mexico as one
of the many barbarian or "Chichimec" tribes. They
arrived at the fertile Valley of Mexico most
likely during the 14th century CE, and found the
land already settled and divided by city states.
They built their city at the marshes of Lake
Texcoco, and quickly adopted much of the culture
and language of their new neighbors.
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WHAT IS THE AZTEC CALENDER?

• The Aztec calendar is the CALENDAR system that
  was used by the AZTECS as well as other
  PRECOLUMBIAN peoples of central MEXICO. It is one
  of the MESOAMERICAN CALENDARS, sharing the basic
  structure of calendars from throughout ancient
  MESOAMERICA. Its recognized as the world's most
  accurate calendar, more so than the Gregorian
  system (based on the Julian calendar) that we use
  today. 

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HOW MANY AZTEC CALENDERS ARE THERE?

• There were actually two Aztec Calendars and they
  were both based on the MAYAN CALENDARS. One of
  them, called the Xiuhpohualli Calendar consisted
  of 365 days and was used for farming and normal
  daily life. The other, known as The
  Tonalpohualli, had 260 days and was used for
  worship and observing rituals. This calendar, the
  name means 'day count' in English, is the one
  described first.

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The Tonalpohualli - the Aztec Sacred Calendar

• Each day has both a number and a symbol and both
  are needed to define the date. The numbers run
  from 1 to 13 and there are 20 different symbols.
  Day one is defined by number 1 and symbol 1. Day
  two is defined by number 2 and symbol 2. This
  continues until day 13 which is defined by number
  13 and symbol 13. Day 14 is defined by number 1
  and symbol 14, day 15 by number 2 and symbol 15.
  Day 20 is defined by number 7 and symbol 20. Day
  21 by number 8 and symbol 1. As 13 is not a
  factor of 20 the same pair do not re-occur for
  260 days and then a new sacred year starts.

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The Xiuhpohualli - The Aztec Seasonal Calendar?

• This calendar defines a year of 18 months, each
  of 20 days, and five extra days, 365 days in
  total. These extra days were considered unlucky
  and so very little was done on them. Each year
  had a name and number combination as did the days
  in the The Tonalpohualli but this time there were
  only 52 such combinations before repeating. This
  series was known as a 'bundle'.

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DAY SIGNS

• 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.

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