Two Kinds of Calendar 

 

 

 

 

·       The xiuhpohualli and the tonalpohualli calendar

 

 

o       The xiuhpohualli calendar has 365 days (365 day calendar)

 

 

o       The tonalpohualli calendar has 260 days (day-count calendar)

 

 

·       The calendars are used for either agricultural or ritual reasons

 

 

• Aztecs usually focus on the day-count calendar

   

Tonalpohualli

 

 

 

 

·       Called the sacred calendar

 

 

o       This calendar divides the days and rituals (symbols) between the gods

 

o       It is composed of two wheels that are connected to each other

 

 

 

·        One wheel would consist of numbers ranging from one to thirteen

 

 

 

·        The other wheel would consist of twenty symbols

 

·       The two wheels would go around in a cycle

 

 

·       When the first number and symbol realign it represents a century

 

 

o       52 years equals a century to Aztecs, usually the time when the wheels realign to start the cycle all over again

 

 

·        They believe that everyone lives up to a century and the gods would take their lives after they have lived a century

 

 

 

·        Holds a festival that lasts 12 days in which no light would be seen from homes

 

 

 

·        On the twelfth day at midnight, the Aztecs would take a prisoner and wake until the star of fire reaches zenith; to take out the heart of prisoner as an offering to the sun god

 

 

 

 

 

Xiuhpohualli

 

 

·       This calendar is used as an agricultural calendar

 

 

o       The calendar is based on the sun

 

 

o       Calendar is put on top of the ritual calendar to form one calendar (the wheel with symbols) also known as the Sun Stone

 

 

o       It has all the symbols that are used as a dedication to the god in which the number of day that the god presides

 

 

 

 

Gods

 

 

·       The calendars are designed in a way that the days can be divided equally to each god

 

 

o       Each god was fighting over who gets power, so the Aztecs designed their calendar in order to evenly distribute the days to each god

 

 

 

o       Gods are thought to be sun, based their calendar structure on a figure that represents the sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aztec vs. Mayan

 

 

·       Some people mistake the Aztec calendar as the Mayan calendar

 

 

o       Both calendars are similar, but the Aztec calendar lacks a precise way of recording their dates

 

 

·        Because of the Aztec calendar only consisting of thirteen numbers, when they record the day of which a ritual happened it would be ambiguous because the number repeats faster than the symbols

 

 

 

 

·        Aztec calendars is based off of Mayan calendars, Aztec switched the meanings and the use of the calendars to make theirs different from Mayan calendars

 

 

Citation

 

 

·       http://www.azteccalendar.com/azteccalendar.html

 

 

·       http://www.crystalinks.com/aztecalendar.html

 

 

·       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_calendar

 

 

  By: Michelle Chan