Plate 25, Day of 10 Movement.

(edited 24 April 2008)

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I still hope to find an explanation of the count of extra days that are required to keep the day count coordinated with the agricultural, solar, and astronomical cycle.

Plate 25 is interesting after I accept the interpretation offered in the commentary by Diaz and Rodgers. They interpret the dots in the center square as being the name of the day 10 Ollin in the ritual calendar.

I used the "table of contents" in the four double plates 1-8 to find 10 Ollin which shows its position just before the end of a ritual calendar in the last trecena of Plate 8. There is a footprint on this square which indicates travel to the left. The next three icons of this last trecena are arranged on the arms of Plate 25 in a counter-clockwise direction to finish qAtl and the fourth square holds the icon of the first day of qCipactli. Then the 16 icons of a new ritual year fill the next arm counter-clockwise on the four arms. These icons can be placed in the first 16 columns of qCipactli. This finishes a count into the first quadrecena of the following ritual year and clearly provides a teaching tool to show that the calendar repeats without end.

Plate 25 and Plate 8 are clearly an explanation of how to continue the day count into a new ritual year. Twenty days have passed, the final four days of a ritual year and 16 days of a new ritual year. Each occurance of qOllin will show the continuation to qCpactli.

Interpreting this figure:

The five Quadricenas are repeated in an encless list of identical sets of five quadricenas.