Calendar
Like most other Mesoamerican cultures, the Mixtec people had a 260-day sacred calendar. The days that made up this calendar were represented in Mixtec writing by the combination of a numeral, called the coefficient, and a certain sign or symbol. This numeral ranges between one and thirteen, while there are 20 signs which progress from crocodile to flower. The calendar moves in such a way that the numbers and signs move in parallel, so they start on crocodile, and move onto two Wind and three House. However, after thirteen Reed, the number resets, giving the next sign (which is a Jaguar at this point) an assigned coefficient of one. However, when seven flower is reached, the signs reset, but the coefficient continues to rise, giving eight crocodile. Years worked differently on the Mixtec calendar, and there were only four signs used to denote actual year-lengths. These were rabbit, reed, flint, and house. It was these signs and symbols that allowed Mixtec history to be traced to almost as far back as 940 CE, because the Mixtecs dated many important events with these signs and coefficients.
Read more about this topic: Mixtec Writing
Famous quotes containing the word calendar:
“To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.”
—Clifton Fadiman (b. 1904)