30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreWas the Toltec calendar similar to the Mexica?
Toltec calendar signs
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Igor: This site is full of wisdom and rich information about Nahua people and other Mesoamericans! I am curious - whether Toltec feasts were similar to late postclassic ones? For example did they have tlacaxipehualiztli feast for example? How different was Mexica’s xiuhpohualli’s months names from the Toltec ones? Thank you so much! (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
For us, the leading authority on comparative Mesoamerican calendars is Munro Edmonson. According to him the Toltec calendar was first ‘instituted’ in 208 CE, one of several that evolved from the ancient Tilantongo (Mixtec) calendar. Information is sketchy, but we know all Mesoamerican calendars featured the 52-year calendar round, the twenty-day count, 260-day and 360-day calendars. Some 13 of the 20 day signs in the Toltec calendar ‘match’ their Mexica equivalents (see picture) but as Edmondson puts it ‘In comparison with the days, the native months of the Middle American calendars are poorly documented’. So sadly it seems we don’t know the names or details of their monthly feasts...
Source of info & picture:-
• Edmonson, Munro S. (1988) The Book of the Year: Middle American Calendrical Systems, University of Utah Press.
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Toltec calendar signs
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