| Calendar wheel representing the 52 years of the yearbearer cycle (Manuscript Tovar, 16th century, Central Mexico). When the 260-day and the 365-day calendar were set in motion with one another, it took exactly 52 years of 365 days, a total of 18,980 days, for a given date to repeat. This period is called a calendar round, and any human completing a calendar round would have been old indeed. The Aztecs represented the calendar round as the xiuhmolpilli, or "years bundle" and carved sculptures of 52 sticks bound together to symbolize it. |
