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These books were mostly created by the native people of Mexico and Guatemala; including the Mexica and their neighbors in the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding area, the Maya of Guatemala, Chiapas, and the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Mixtec tribes of Oaxaca. They all shared variations of this calendar.

It is a combination of a 260 day Sacred Calendar (twenty repeating day names and thirteen numbers that follow sequentially) and a 365 day annual calendar (divided into 18 periods of 20 days each followed by a special period with only 5 days). These are counted forward in an interlocking cycle. Each day of the year draws one element from the 260 day calendar, and one element from the 365 day calendar. In this way, no individual day name repeats for 52 years.

Examples of the use of this calendar system are found not only in the Codices, but on carved monuments, jade, painted and carved ceramics, and other grave goods.

It is recommended that you start with Prehispanic Calendars, a somewhat schematic but succinct page based on the fundamental work of Alfonso Caso and Munro Edmonson.

René Voorburg has created an Aztec Calendar Program that runs under Windows or Macintosh. Check out his fine pages, and excellent program that he's making available to everyone.

There are many other things to explore at this web site, including news of the Maya Meetings at Calgary, Alberta, Canada a six-day event scheduled to take place this November. This is the first major Maya event on the home turf of Dr. Peter Matthews that I'm aware of, and should be terrific. These pages join many others at http://www.xibalba.com/.

For a good introduction to the Maya Calendar and Maya Hieroglyphic Writing in general it is recommended that you visit Nancy McNelly's Rabbit in the Moon web site.