The Aztec Calendar

The Aztec Calendar, cut in stone, preserved for centuries from destruction, is now built into the Cathedral of the City of Mexico.

It was carved in the year 1512 A. D., and brought to the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico. When it had nearly reached its destination, it broke down the floating bridge on which it was loaded and was precipitated into the lake. The priest superintending the moving and many of his assistants were drowned, but the great stone Calendar was raised with difficulty from the water and brought to the great temple, located by Tizoc and Aluitzoth, where it was inaugurated with human sacrifices.

Not many years later this temple, with many others, was destroyed, and the huge Calendar and other objects of heathen worship were buried in the surrounding marshes, as the best way to get rid of them, by order of the Christian priests. It lay hidden for two centuries, until the 17th of December, 1790, when the grade of the pavement in front of the cathedral was lowered, and it came to light.

The Spanish Viceroy, then controlling Mexican affairs, allowed the commissioners of the cathedral to build it into their sacred edifice, on condition that it should be preserved and exposed always in a public place. It is now, however, held as the property of the National Museum.

This Zodiac, or Calendar, is twelve feet in diameter, made of a piece of basalt of immense weight. It gives a clear exposition of the divisions of time, as understood by the Aztecs, into cycles, years and days. Fifty-two years constituted a cycle; the year had three hundred and sixty-five days, with five very unlucky intercalary days wholly devoted to human sacrifice. Each year had eighteen months of twenty days each, and these months four weeks of five days each. The days had peculiar names, such as "Sea Animal," "Small Bird," "Monkey," "Rain." These names did not recur every week, but were as numerous as the twenty days of the month. The points of the compass were named "Reed," "House," "Flint," "Rabbit," instead of our East, West, North and South. Thus an Aztec might say, "I am going House on Sea-Animal," which would merely mean that he was starting west on Monday.

The months likewise had descriptive names; thus the third month, which might correspond with our March, was called "Victims flayed alive," while the more agreeable title for the sixth month, which we call July, was "Garlands of corn on the necks of idols." As their writing was pictorial, instead of by letters selected from an alphabet, they could give a long phrase in a brief space with a few adroit turns of their writing-instruments.

There is a painting in the Museum of Mexico called the "Wanderings of the Aztecs;" it is forty-eight feet long and fifty inches wide, on maguey paper, all in black, except that the line of travel is marked in red. This painting gives the routes of the Aztecs from the time of their departure from Aztlan (Atlantis) until their arrival in the valley of Mexico. On the island, in the land of Aztlan, stands a trocalli, like the temples of worship in Mexico. The chronology year by year is given, and the various walks made by the wanderers, with the principal events that befell them. A short piece at the end is torn off and missing, which probably depicted the founding of Tenochtitlan, Mexico.

Another painting depicts a range of mountains, among which is one pouring forth smoke from its summit. On the left is a city entirely surrounded by water, with the cactus growing on the rock, which always signifies Tenochtitlan. The mountain doubtless is Popocatepetl, which, by its name, signifies "the hill that gives smoke." Another painting gives the chronology of the Kings of Mexico and Texcuco; it is long, stretching half across the large room of the Museum in which it is exhibited.

Had more of these paintings been preserved, the daily life of the Aztecs would be before us, and every detail of such remote living could be as easily read as that of Egyptian life from the Monuments.