The significance of the "looped cord" year symbol in pre-hispanic Mexico: an hypothesis

Resumen

Various symbols for the year were utilized in Mesoamerican iconography. Most of them appear to have been variations of devices symbolizing the intimately interconnected concepts: ”precious stone” (”turquoise,” ”jade”), ”blue-green,” ”rain,” ”rain deity,” ”water,” etc. In western Mesoamerica the broad outlines of various evolutionary changes in a basic year symbol, which is best known in its interlaced A-O form (centered in late pre-Hispanic western Oaxaca) , can clearly be discerned. In eastern Mesoamerica (Lowland Maya Area), on the other hand, the year (i.e., the tun-haab) symbol exhibited no substantial changes through time.