Strange Calendars of The Madrid and Borgia Codices

Having drawn out what I could see of theMadrid Codex, using I. V. Knorozou's 1963 edition, one item in particular became very clear. were facing left and more than a few walking (or sitting) from the left side of a page to the right side of a previous page, even the serpents on the serpent calendar pages are facing left.

On the other hand, the two-page calendar have their images facing each other from the four cardinal directions. Even though the outer edges are deteriorated so that the glyphs there are not very clear, the day glyphs within the Inner circle, except for three glyphs, are well defined.

Golly, I did immediately find the correct sequence in the serpent pages. Rethinking everything, (a very necessary procedure in this case) I found that the serpent pages have exactly fifty-two (52) columns filled in, but only as four rows, not five as in the Borgia.

In the Borgia Codex, there are five rows of day glyphs in 52 columns with two picture rows, on the at the top and one at the bottom of each column, instead of glyphs. This creates 364 days or 52 weeks (reading up and down each column) of seven days during a common year.

At first I thought that the mystery of the Madrid Codex double paged Calendar would still remain a mystery. However, the inner circle of the double page calendar had the correct sequence. so the serpent pages had to be correct also.

It seems there is a another way to tackle the 52 columns.

They have to be counted in groups of twenty: five columns of four glyphs each. They are specific groups of five columns and four rows (Imix to Ahaw), the serpent calendar pages then are in synch as drawn.

The extra two columns confused me for a while, but it appears that the Madrid preceeded the Borgia Codex.

What seems to have occurred was that there was a major calendar shift from 360 days to 365 days per year. Copan, the major astronomy "academy" at the time apparently made the announcement to all1. The astronmers who calculated the Madrid had tried their best to accommodate the old twenty (20) day system into the new 364/5 sequence. As can be seen in the serpent pages, they failed. The five extra days did not fit anywhere in or even out of, the 20 day sequence.

More work was done around the environs of the astronomy "academics" until the Borgia was re-designed with two extra rows. They started the bottom row of day-glyphs to read 20+20+12 days alomg the bottom row of the day-glyphs, but added graphic picture elements below them and another row of graphics above the top row of the day-glyphs.

What seems to be interesting is that the last two pages can be read as three twenty-day groups, in sequence from bottom to top, by omitting the first (or last) column of five glyphs to read from Crocodile to Flower three times. The fact that the two columns (first and last) are reversed sequencing, may indicate that the border "days" (12-13 on each of the double page set-ups) were not to be considered as "holiday" events, but only to be recalled at certain times. Otherwise they were to be treated within the twenty day groups of day-glyphs.

As it was, the Borgia, solved the problem of 364+1 days for a usable post-Copan adjusted year.

Diaz, Gisele and ROdgers, Alan (1993) The Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript, New York: Dover Publications. pp. 1-8.

Knorozou, |. V. (1963) Writing Indian Maya Moscow: Uzdatelbstvo Akademia Hayk, CCCP. The Madrid Codex

11 Wolf, Eric (1959) Sons of the Shaking Earth, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press,p. 100.