The reckoning of days is still more cumbrous.  It consists of the days of the week written in succession from 1 to 13, underneath these the 20 signs of days, and underneath these again another series of 9 signs; so that each day was distinguished by a combination of a number and two signs, which combination could not belong to any other day.

The date of the year at the top of the calendar is 13 acatl (13 canes), which stands for 1479, 1427, 1375, 1323, and so on, subtracting 52 years each time.  Now, why was this year chosen?  It was not the beginning of a cycle, but the 26th year; and so, in ascertaining the meaning of the dates on the calendar, allowance has to be made for six days which have been gained by the leap-years only being adjusted at the end of the cycle; but this certainly offers no advantage whatever; and if an arbitrary date had been chosen to start the calendar with, of course it would have been the first year of a cycle.  The year may have been chosen in commemoration of the foundation of Mexico or Tenochtitlan, which historians give as somewhere about 1324 or 1325.  The sign 13 acatl would stand for 1323.  It is more likely that the date merely refers to the year in which the calendar was put up.  As such a massive and elaborate piece of sculpture could only belong to the most flourishing period of the Aztec empire, the year indicated would be 1279, nine years before the building of the great pyramid close by.

Baron Humboldt’s celebrated argument to prove the Asiatic origin of the Mexicans is principally founded upon the remarkable resemblance of this system of cycles in reckoning years to those found in use in different parts of Asia.  For instance, we may take that described by Hue and Gabet as still existing in Tartary and Thibet, which consists of one set of signs, wood, fire, earth, &c., combined with a set of names of animals, mouse, ox, tiger, &c.  The combination is made almost exactly in the same way as that in which the Aztecs combine their signs and numbers, as for instance, the year of the fire-pig, the iron-hare, &c.  If these were simple systems of counting years, or even if, although difficult, they had some advantages to offer, we might suppose that two different races in want of a system to count their years by, had devised them independently.  But, in fact, both the Asiatic and the Mexican cycles are not only most intricate and troublesome to work, but by the constant liability to confound one cycle with another, they lead to endless mistakes.  Hue says that the Mongols, to get over this difficulty, affix a special name to all the years of each king’s reign, as for instance, “the year Tao-Kouang of the fire-ram;” apparently not seeing that to give the special name and the number of the year of the reign, and call it the 44th year of Tao-Kouang, would answer the same purpose, with one-tenth of the trouble.