Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/91

Rh cathedral. A cast of a cylinder known as "The Mexican Cycle" is very interesting. Among the Aztecs every fifth day was a day of rest, called Tianquiztli, and five of these periods constituted a month of twenty days, eighteen of which made up a year of three hundred and sixty days, to which were added five more to make up the proper length of the year. The cycle or century was composed of fifty-two



years. This cylinder is composed of a bundle of reeds tied with cords, representing a cycle, or xuihmolpilli in the Mexican idiom, the signification of the word being a "union of years." The Aztecs believed that at the close of the cycle the world would come to an end, and the last night of the cycle was a time of great anxiety for them. They destroyed their goods, threw away their valuables, and offered human sacrifices. As soon as the moment of suspense was passed, and it was seen that the world had not been destroyed, but would last another