Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Article

Eb Across Mesoamerica

Learn More
Eb Across Mesoamerica

Eb is the Yucatec form of the twelfth sign; the K'iche' name is simply E. Both are glossed as road or path, and Yucatec sources also give a reading of tooth. The Classic glyph is one of the group that epigraphers read with reference to the road and to the journey.

In central Mexico the twelfth position is Malinalli, twisted grass, and this is another of the places where the imagery does not carry across. Twisted grass and the road are not the same picture, though both suggest something extended and laid along the ground, and the divergence belongs with Akbal against Calli and Cib against Cozcacuauhtli as evidence that the sequence was translated rather than simply transmitted.

Eb is a Year Bearer. It is one of the four the Classic inscriptions use, Ik, Manik, Eb and Kaban, and it remains one of the four the highland Maya communities use today under the names Iq', Kej, E and No'j. The Postclassic Yucatec system Diego de Landa recorded used a different set, Kan, Muluc, Ix and Kawak, so a reader comparing colonial Yucatan with modern Guatemala is comparing two conventions and not two calendars.

The bearer sets are worth stating as arithmetic rather than as lore. A Haab year of 365 days advances the Tzolk'in sign by five positions each year, because 365 leaves a remainder of five on division by twenty, so a bearer set is any four signs spaced five apart, and there are exactly five such sets in the twenty. Which of the five a community uses is convention, and the Classic, Yucatec and central Mexican traditions each chose differently.

Connections

Article On

Eb, Tzolkin Day Signs
Source Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition
Sources
Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.