What is a week? Although I still believe it possible that the glyphs of Keiti, which we just have seen, constitute a week, I am less sure now than when I started to investigate these glyphs. The reason is that I imagine I can discern in them a picture of that part of the year which is most interesting for the farmer and then perhaps these glyphs are intended to show exactly this and nothing else.

By that statement I have made it clear that it certainly is not enough that we can count to 7 semi-repetitious sequences of glyphs and then declare that we have found a week. The number is not enough, even if we postulate that these 7 sequences together represent a period of time divided into 7 parts. And then it might be that we have not a period of time but a presentation of the 'planets' or some other group containing 7 elements, such as for instance the stars in the Big Dipper.

Complicating things: the ancient peoples seem to have 'played with mirrors'. Cfr the mirror of Tezcatlipoca (= 'smoking mirror' in the Nahuatl language according to the comments to Popol Vuh) and the mirror of obsidian with a torch which is placed on the forehead of  Tohil. The 'mirrors' are examples of the magic games, in which similar structures not only were similar but could be grouped together so that each structure represented all the other similar structures and were causally connected to them. E.g. the stars in the Big Dipper (7) were connected to the 'planets' (7) and also to the Pleiades (7). The stars in the Big Dipper are revolving around the fixed point, and according to some opinions, drove the planets, while one the other hand the Pleiades seemed to have power to influence the Big Dipper.

 

next page

home