Day-Count

• The sacred calendar counted days with two signifiers: a number and a symbol. Thus, this calendar is also called a day-count.
  
  

Numbers

• The numbers one to 13 were used and were frequently represented in texts by small circles. Thus, the number 10 would show 10 circles.
  
  

Symbols

• One of 20 symbols also defined each day, such as cipactli (crocodile), atl (water) and xochitl (flower). These symbols were represented by pictographs, such as stylized blue waves for atl.
  
  

Interaction

• Each day used a number and moved through the symbols in a preset order. After the number 13, counting would start again with one. After the last symbol, flower, the list of symbols would start again with the first symbol, crocodile. Thus a day would be names 1-Crocodile or 13-Water. The entire process of using all the numbers with all the symbols took 260 days.
  
  

Gods

• Each number and symbol was ruled by a god. For example, the number 10 was ruled by Tezcatlipoca, the god of time while the flower symbol was ruled by Xiuhtecuhtli, the god of fire.
  
  

Divination

• The combination of numbers, symbols and gods made this calendar an important source of divination. Priests consulted it for such occasions as births, wars and death.