Mesoamerican calendar

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The Mesoamerican calendar has been known to many peoples of Mesoamerica since the 1st millennium BC. BC and is still used in a simplified form by some Indian groups to this day. It consists mainly of three cycles that are related to each other:

The 260-day ritual calendar

The most important cycle in daily life consists of exactly 260 days. The Náhuatl- speaking peoples called the cycle tonalpohualli , in Mayan languages ​​it was called tzolkin . It is formed from the recurring combination of 20 named characters and 13 digits . In the various Mesoamerican languages, the 20 characters rarely had the same, mostly different, but sometimes seemingly related meanings. The following table compares the names of the day signs in central Mexico with the Náhuatl-speaking Aztecs , in Oaxaca with the Mixtec and Zapotec , and with the Maya in Guatemala and Yucatan .

Position. Náhuatl meaning Mixtec Zapotec Meaning (Mixtec)
 Yucatec Maya meaning
i cipactli Caiman quevui chilla crocodile imix Earth monsters
ii eecatl wind chi quij Embers ik breath
iii calli House cuau guela night akbal Darkness
iv cuetzpalin lizard que ache Frog / lizard can Ripe corn
v coatl Snake yo zee Snake chicchan Sky snake
vi miquiztli death mahua lana Hare cimi death
vii mazatl deer cuaa China deer manic ?
viii tochtli Hare sayu lapa ? lamat ?
ix atl water tuta niza water muluc ?
x itzcuintli Dog hua tella Head down oc entrance
xi ozomatli monkey ñuu loo monkey chuen Craftsman
xii malinalli Winding grass cañe pija Turned eb rain
xiii acatl reed huiyo quij reed ben ?
xiv ocelotl jaguar huidzu geche jaguar ix jaguar
xv cuauhtli Eagle sa naa mother men Wise
xvi cozcacuauhtli vulture cuii loo deer cib wax
xvii olin Move qhi xoo earthquake caban earth
xviii tecpatl Flint cusi Grandpa stone netnab Sharp stone
xix quiahuitl rain co ape Cloudy cauac Storm
xx xochitl flower huaco lao face ahau Mr

The traditional spelling is used. The Mixtec day names apparently have the same meaning as those in Náhuatl, but the colloquial words are not used. The same applies to the numbers associated with names.

The function of the day signs or names was comparable to that of the European week. It was also used to determine the quality of the individual days; these were viewed as good, bad or indifferent and accordingly also used for divination. The attribution of the quality of the days was by no means uniform. The quality also determined the fate of those born on that day and was often used to give them a name.

The day characters were combined with the digits from 1 to 13 so that the first character was connected with the number 1, the second with the number 2, etc. The 14th character was connected again with 1, until the end, after 260 days, the number 13 came to rest on the sign 19. Then the cycle started all over again. The cycle has always been synchronous and has been uninterrupted in some areas until now. This cycle could be used to designate days precisely, but only within a period of 260 days, because afterwards the sequence of the combination of digits and symbols recurred identically.

The year

Another function was in the Nahuatl-speaking peoples the year xihuitl in the Mayan haab ' called. Its duration was constant at 365 days. There was no switching, which is why the year slowly shifted towards the solar year, which is 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.5 seconds longer. The year was divided into 18 sections of 20 days, plus a short section of 5 days. These 5 days were considered unhappy and unsuitable for any important activity. The names of the sections, which are often misleadingly referred to as months , are of course not only different in the various Mesoamerican languages, but also within one language. The different names for the same section are unrelated to one another. The content of the names often refers to the ritual activities that took place at that time or to characteristic seasonal phenomena. However, some of these phenomena are shifted considerably compared to the real seasons, which is an effect of the short duration of the year. The first months, i.e. the beginning of the year, were not synchronized in different regions: In central Mexico the year began in 1519 on February 14th, for the Maya around March 31st. The days of the sections were only counted among the Maya.

Annual commitment

The same characters of tonalpohualli or tzolk'in always fell on the days of the 18 sections in a year , but combined with other of the 13 digits. On the other hand, in the following year, on the same day of the year (for example, the starting day), the fifth day symbol came, but the next digit was located. This could be used to distinguish the years. Since in this way only 52 different combinations could occur on each day of the year (because 20 divided by the common factor of 365 gives 5 results in 4, multiplied by 13 equals 52) a recurring cycle of names of years was created that lasted 52 years and which the Aztecs called xiuhmolpilli (annual bond , represented by a tied bundle of sticks). After the 52 years the sequence of the year names returned in an identical form, which is why an exact dating was only possible within this cycle. The names of days and years did not differ in any way in this way. In hieroglyphic writing, different symbols or forms of representation were used to differentiate between the years. The annual commitments were not counted. The last sequence of year names is given in the following table; One or more multiples of 52 have to be subtracted to calculate previous sequences. The European years are given, on which the greater part of the Indian year fell.

character Coefficient → 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 11 12 13
tochtli Hare 1506 1546 1534 1522 1510 1550 1538 1526 1514 1554 1542 1530 1518
acatl reed 1519 1507 1547 1535 1523 1511 1551 1539 1527 1515 1555 1543 1531
tecpatl Flint 1532 1520 1508 1548 1536 1524 1512 1552 1540 1528 1516 1556 1544
calli House 1445 1533 1521 1509 1549 1537 1525 1513 1553 1541 1529 1517 1557

Long count

The name (English: Long Count) is a unique invention for autochthonous cultures . A native name for the system is not known. It not only requires a system of place values , but also the concept of the number zero and a special character. In this system, the days are counted from a mythical beginning day, which in a recalculated Gregorian calendar is August 11, 3114 BC. Corresponds to. The time elapsed since then was recorded using a combination of days (Maya: k'in ), 20-day segments ( winal ) and years ( ha'ab ), which in this use consisted of 18 segments. At this point there is a break in the place value system on the basis of 20.

The period of 20 years was called winik ha'ab ("20 years"), the next higher of 400 years was called pik ha'ab ("a bundle of years"). There were also time periods that went far beyond that and could number several million and billions of years. To write historical data, however, you only needed the periods up to the pik ha'ab. Days, months and years are usually written one after the other, similar to the way in which we use to give data, e.g. B. write March 31, 2013.

Job Mayan name previous designation equal = Days = about years
1
k'in
k'in
Day
1
 
2
winal
winal
20 days
20th
 
3
ha'ab
to do
18 winal
360
1
4th
winik ha'ab
k'atun
20 ha'ab
7,200
19.71
5
pik ha'ab
bak't do
400 ha
144,000
394.26

development

Steles 12 and 13 from Monte Albán, Oaxaca
Stela 1 from El Baúl, Guatemala
Stela C from Tres Zapotes, upper part
Stela 6 from Tres Zapotes, Museum Jalapa

When the Mesoamerican calendar was created in the form described cannot be said. However, it can be assumed that this was in the first millennium BC. Happened in BC. Initially, the calendar should only have been memorized; written records will certainly have to be made later. The assumption that the steles 12 and 13 of Monte Albán are the first reliable evidence of the 260-day calendar and the 365-day year in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. BC are not generally shared. Undoubtedly, these two monuments contain calendar signs, which, however, show little correspondence with the later known ones, and the typical number signs, which consist of discs (for 1) and bars (for 5).

The development lines in regional-spatial terms can be seen from the following overview of the earliest dates in the Long Count. Region A denotes the area of ​​the Olmec culture around the Tuxtla volcanoes, B the Pacific coast and Guatemala and the highlands of Chiapas, C the area of ​​the classical Mayan culture (only exemplary). From this it can be seen that from the region of the isthmus of Tehuantepec the most important strand probably extended southward over the coastal region of Guatemala, while another came to the center of Mayan culture very early. The few monuments of Cerro de las Mesas are a late and barren offshoot.

monument
region
Long count
Day
Julian calendar
Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2
B.
 7.16.3.2.13 6th 32 BC Chr. (4. 9.)
Takalik Abaj Stela 2
B.
 7.16.?.?.? 37-17 BC Chr.
Tres Zapotes Stela C
A.
 7.16.6.16.18 6th 36 BC Chr. (9.12.)
El Baúl Stela 1
B.
 7.19.15.7.12 12 37 AD (5.3.)
Takalik Abaj Stela 5
B.
 8.2.2.10.5   83 AD (24.8.)
Takalik Abaj Stela 5
B.
 8.4.5.17.11   126 AD (6.5.)
Uaxactún Polychrome Vase
C.
 8.5.0.0.0 12 ajaw 140 AD (1.4.)
La Mojarra Stela
A.
 8.5.3.3.5 13 143 AD (21.5.)
La Mojarra Stela
A.
 8.5.16.9.7   156 AD (13.7.)
Tuxtla statuette
A.
 8.6.2.4.18 8th 162 AD (26.2.)
Hauberg Stela
C.
 8.8.0.7.0 * 3 ajaw 199 AD (9.10.)
Tikal Stela 29
C.
 8.12.14.8.15   292 AD (7.7.)
Leyden plaque
C.
 8.14.3.1.12   320 AD (15.9.)
Uaxactun Stela 9
C.
 8.14.10.13.15 8 men 328 AD (9.4.)
El Zapote Stela 4
C.
 8.17.1.5.3 2 ajaw 378 AD (25.1.)
Cerro de las Mesas Stela 6
A.
 9.1.12.14.10   468 AD (9.4.)
Cerro de las Mesas Stela 8
A.
 9.4.18.16.8 9 533 AD (6.5.)

The date of the long count has been calculated.

This resulted in a two-way division of the calendar systems in Mesoamerica in around the first centuries AD: West of the isthmus of Tehuantepec and the region of the Tuxtla volcanoes with the Olmec core area, the long count fell out of use, at least as far as can be read from the inscriptions , while it was expanded and used intensively among the Maya.

Maltrata inscription stone
Possible calendar correction on the Pyramid of the Delivered Serpent, Xochicalco

In the west, calendar dates in inscriptions only show day signs in a cartouche , a wide rectangular frame with rounded corners, and the associated numbers (see picture steles 12 and 13 Monte Albán). It can only be assumed that the calendar cycle year continued to exist everywhere, but was not recorded in writing. This is also supported by the fact that from around AD 1000 in the Mexican highlands there are inscriptions with dates that are distinguished from the dates by a sign in the form of a loop and apparently denote a year of the 52-year cycle (see picture of the monolith of Maltrata ). A particularly revealing but at the same time enigmatic inscription in Xochicalco shows, in addition to the described calendar symbols in a cartridge, a day symbol in a narrow angular frame, on the edge of which the number 11 is expressed by the corresponding number of small discs with a hole in the middle. The mysterious message of this inscription is expressed by a hand protruding from the cartouche symbol, which pulls the other symbol towards it with a rope looped around it. The hand on the other side reaches for a small cartridge that contains two points and an element that is no longer clearly recognizable. It could be a correlation between two calendar styles, or the replacement of one with the other.

The post-classical calendar of Western Mesoamerica is well known for the numerous colonial accounts of the Aztec calendar . It consists of the two cycles tonalpohualli with a duration of 260 days and the year xihuitl with an invariable length of 365 days, which together define a period of 18,980 days equal to 52 years or 73 tonalpohualli . The 8 year cycle of 5 synodic vernus circulations (2920 days), which was documented in detail by the Maya, should also have been known.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfonso Caso : Los calendarios prehispánicos . Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México 1967; Cuadro IX
  2. ↑ J. Eric S. Thompson : Maya hieroglyphic writing. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1970, p. 89.
  3. ^ Mary Elizabeth Smith: Picture writing from ancient Southern Mexico . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1973, ISBN 0-8061-1029-5
  4. ↑ Prudence M.Rice: Maya calendar origins . University of Texas Press, Austin 2007, ISBN 978-0-292-71692-6
  5. ↑ Harris, John F., Stephen K. Stearns: Understanding Maya inscriptions . University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology 1997. ISBN 0-924171-41-3 . Pp. 117-128
  6. ↑ Linda Schele : The Hauberg Stela: Bloodletting and the mythos of Maya rulership, In: Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1983 . Pari, San Francisco. P. 136
  7. ↑ Hanns J. Prem : Considerations on the chronological information on the pyramid of the feathered snakes, Xochicalco, Morelos, México. Ethnological journal Zurich 2, pp. 351–64

literature