Aztec calendar

The Aztec calendar system combined a 260-day ritual cycle with a 365-day solar calendar. Their interlocking cycles formed a 52-year cycle used to organize time and religious observances.

Tōnalpōhualli: The 260-day cycle formed by combining 20 day signs with 13 numbers. This ritual cycle supplied one of the calendar’s two interlocking counts.
Calendar round: A 52-year period after which a 260-day and a 365-day calendar date recur together. It marks the full repetition of dates in the paired Aztec cycles.
Mesoamerican 260-day calendar: A 260-day cycle found in multiple ancient Mesoamerican calendrical traditions. The Aztec ritual count was one regional expression of this older shared cycle.
Aztec cosmology: The Mexica understanding of the universe as ordered through divine forces and successive cosmic ages. Calendar cycles gave temporal structure to this account of cosmic order.
Xiuhpōhualli: The 365-day solar cycle divided into 18 periods of 20 days and five additional days. This year count supplied the calendar’s seasonal and festival framework.
Aztec New Fire ceremony: A Mexica rite performed at the end of each 52-year cycle to renew cosmic and civic order. The calendar’s major cycle concluded with this renewal ceremony.
Mexica: The Nahuatl-speaking people who founded Tenochtitlan and built the dominant power in central Mexico. Their institutions and religious practices shaped the calendar’s use in the Aztec Empire.
Aztec agriculture: The farming systems of central Mexican peoples, including maize cultivation and chinampa production. The solar year’s seasonal divisions helped coordinate agricultural observances.
Aztec calendar stone: A monumental Mexica sculpture depicting solar imagery and calendrical symbols. Its carved symbols are often used to illustrate the calendar, though it is not a complete calendar diagram.
Aztec month festivals: Ritual celebrations associated with periods of the 365-day Mexica year. These observances linked the solar year’s divisions to agricultural and religious life.

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