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Just for Reading
THE AZTEC CALENDAR
The Aztec Calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well
as other Pre-Columbain 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 daty 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 calendric year began with the first appearance of
thePleiades asterism in the east immediately before the dawn light.
The tonalpohuali ("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.
The set of day signs used in central Mixico is identical to that used by
Miztecs and toa lesser degree similar to those of other Mesoamerican
calendars. Each of the day signs also bbears an assoication with one of the
four cadinal directions, north, south east and west.
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