Tzolkin Day Signs

The twenty day signs are one of the two cycles of the tzolkin, the 260-day ritual count used across Mesoamerica. Each sign has a name (Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan and the rest in Yucatec Maya, with different names in other Mesoamerican languages such as Nahuatl), and a set of associations: a direction, a patron deity, and qualities of character and fortune.

Running the twenty day signs against the thirteen tones produces the 260-day count, in which a given sign-and-number pairing recurs only every two hundred and sixty days. The count is attested across Mesoamerica for well over two thousand years.

In the Mesoamerican tradition the day sign of a person's birth was held to shape their character and fate, and the tzolkin was used for divination, naming, and the scheduling of ritual, a role that continues among some Maya communities today, where day-keepers maintain the count. Each sign carries its own auguries.

The atlas gives each day sign its name, direction, patron and associations. The day signs pair with the thirteen tones, and work alongside the haab and Long Count, each treated in its own category under Calendars & Time.