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