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Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history; (1904) (14781489185)
Summary
Identifier: mexicancentralamer00bowd (find matches)
Title: Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history;
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Bowditch, Charles P. (Charles Pickering), 1842-1921 Seler, Eduard, 1849-1922 Förstemann, Ernst Wilhelm, 1822-1906 Schellhas, Paul, b. 1859 Sapper, Karl, 1866-1945 Dieseldorff, Erwin Paul, 1868-1940 Wesselhoeft, Selma Parker, Alberta M Thomas, Cyrus, 1825-1910
Subjects: Mayas Maya calendar Calendar, Mexican
Publisher: Washington, Govt. print. off.
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute
Text Appearing Before Image:
a h (■ Pig. 74. Venus symbol and figures of mountains and liouse, from Maya and Mexican codices. is indicated a blossoming tree, and opposite is seen, clothed in eaglearray, the deity 9 rolling ball AYe have already seen thissame deity in the remarkable representation in figure 78, where,
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 75. Temple and sun symbol, from the Borgian codex. clothed in eagle array, he and a god with an alligator mask, togetherAvith the descending Quetzalcoatl, are bringing down from theheavens the houses of the day and the night. Night is here repre-sented (see figure 73) by a head with closed eyes. This representa- RKLER) EXPLANATION OF WALL PATNTTNGS 311 tion is one which can nnqiiestionably be compared with the represen-tations of day and night among the so-called celestial shields of theMaya manuscripts, and it proves that 1 was entirely in the right when1 pronounced this sign of the night in the Maya manuscripts, which isat the same time the hieroglyph for the mnneral 20, to be a head withempty, bleeding eye sockets/ The entire picture in figure 73 appearsto be a remarkable parallel to a, figure 74, from the Dresden manu-script, which was interpreted by Forstemann as the descent of Venus.
Aztec calendar, dating system based on the Mayan calendar and used in the Valley of Mexico before the destruction of the Aztec empire. Like the Mayan calendar, the Aztec calendar consisted of a ritual cycle of 260 days and a 365-day civil cycle. The ritual cycle, or tonalpohualli, contained two smaller cycles, an ordered sequence of 20 named days and a sequence of days numbered from 1 to 13. The 13-day cycle was particularly important for religious observance, and each of the 20 numbered cycles within the ritual year was associated with a different deity. Similarly, each named day was associated with a unique deity, and scholars believe that the combinations of ruling deities were used for divination. The civil year was divided into 18 months of 20 days each, plus an additional 5 days called nemontemi and considered to be very unlucky. Again as in the Mayan calendar, the Aztec ritual and civil cycles returned to the same positions relative to each other every 52 years, an event celebrated as the Binding Up of the Years, or the New Fire Ceremony. In preparation, all sacred and domestic fires were allowed to burn out. At the climax of the ceremony, priests ignited a new sacred fire on the breast of a sacrificial victim, from which the people rekindled their hearth fires and began feasting.
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