Aztec Calendar System

Timeline

1. 1300–1479Tenochtitlan and surrounding city-states · Aztec EmpireThe Aztecs inherited and adapted Teotihuacan and Maya calendrical traditions, forming a parallel ritual-agricultural reckoning framework of 260 and 365 days.
2. c. 1502–1510Templo Mayor and royal ritual center · TenochtitlanIn the early reign of Moctezuma II, calendar priests calculated ritual days and the new-year ceremony from the dual calendars; the calendar stone symbolized the union of cosmic order and state power.
3. c. 1519–1521Tenochtitlan · New SpainThe Spanish conquest interrupted the Aztec state ritual system; calendar knowledge passed into secret transmission within indigenous communities and into adversarial records in colonial chronicles.