introduction 1 IntroductIon Mesoamericanist and historian of religions, davíd carrasco, has comment- ed upon the paradox that whereas history of religions and anthropology have recognised the importance of analysing ritual practice in order to understand culture, this emphasis has not been appreciated—with some exceptions—in the same way in Mesoamerican studies (carrasco 2002: 277-278). one of the most fascinating aspects of the civilisations in Mesoamerica is the concept of time and the many calendars. In their sophisticated writ- ing (so-called hieroglyphic or more correctly logosyllabic), narrative visual (including logograms) aka pictorial, semiotic, symbolic and icono- graphic systems, Mesoamerican civilisations recorded several calendars (i.e. a organised computed number of time units and/or of time) founded upon meticulous astronomical observations and mathematical epistemol- ogy. the organised and systematised (calendar) time was and is today sub- jected to particular ritual practices, of which I characterise by the analytical category: “ritual practice of time”. A comprehensive systematic investigation—by the use of methodology and theories from the discipline of history of religions—of the ritual practice of time of the Mesoamerican calendar systems has, however, so far not been executed. there are a quite a few publications about Mesoamerican calendars but many of these are not relevant to the present subject matter, which relate to an analysis of the ritualisation of (calendar) time.1 I therefore call attention to that the central topic of the book is not an analysis of Mesoamerican calendars or time per se but of the different ritual practices of calendar time. the general theory is that calendar time, like any cultural and social element becomes philosophically meaningful because it is practiced. time is given a particular significance not because it is measured but because time is practiced in certain rituals. or, alternately, time is effectively mea- sured through the ritual practice.2 the theoretical and empirical objective 1 cf. for instance: Aveni (1980; 1989); Boone (2007); Bricker and Vail (1997); Broda (1997); Brotherson (1982); Malmström (1997); Milbrath (1999); Paxton (2001); read (1999); rice (2004; 2007); ruggles and urton (2007); Vail (1989; 2002); Vail and Aveni (2004); Vail and Bricker (1998); Vail and Hernández (2007; 2010); Van Stone (2011). 2 davíd carrasco has inspired this formulation. 2 introduction of this book is to investigate and analyse the ritual practice of time of cer- tain calendars observed by a selection of cultures in Mesoamerica. In this way, it is my aspiration to contribute not only to the theory and methodol- ogy of ritual studies in general but to enhance the knowledge of Meso- american ritual temporal practices, religion, and in addition it’s various social, political and intellectual systems.3 I commence by making some essential definitions. Mesoamerica and Ritual Calendars of Time despite the numerous particular traditions and languages, the people of Mesoamerica had several cultural and religious traits in common. Meso- america has been defined as a cultural-geographical region incorporating northwestern, central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and the western part of Honduras, El Salvador and nicaragua. In this area various cultures—for instance: Maya, nahua (Aztec), olmec, Zapotec, toltec, tlapanec, teotihuacano, tarasco, otomí, Mixtec etc.—lived in advanced civilisations before the European arrival, i.e. c. 1000 BC – 1521 AD (fig. 1).4 contacts existed between the different Mesoamerican cultures through migrations, pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy, war, tribute and conquest. to some extent, the Mesoamericans shared principles of writing and narrative visual systems, which were for instance employed in screenfold books, called codices by contemporary scholars. Many civilisations had a ball game, monumental architecture, certain religious symbols, deities, rituals and stories in common. What interest us here is that several Mesoamericans cultures, apart from a vigesimal counting system, also had quite a few calendars in common— in particular a 260-day calendar and a 365-day calendar, which together is permutated into a 52-year calendar cycle called the calendar round.5 the civilisations of Mesoamerica represent an especially interesting case in 3 Important note to the reader: the present book is about half the length of the original doctoral dissertation (2006)—where due to the size some empirical data, overview informa- tion and illustrations have to be left out. on the other hand, the manuscript of the doctoral dissertation has been revised and updated. 4 Paul Kirchoff originally outlined Mesoamerica as a cultural and geographical unity (Kirchoff 1943). other definitions of this region have been suggested as well (cf. carrasco 2001: ix,. xiii). 5 cf. Prudence M. rice about various theories of the origin of calendars in Mesoamer- ica (rice 2007)..