Meaning
Twelve is the second-to-last number of every run and one of the strong numbers of the highland reports. As for every number, the traditional reading is its strength; we give no fixed character as the tradition's.
Our sentence: twelve is strong and experienced, the knowledge gathered before the cycle closes; the keyword is "strong, seasoned". Ours, as a reading aid.
Days and ceremonies
Its first day is 12 E, day 12 of the 260. Among the highland year bearers, 12 No'j bore the year that opened in February 2024.
12 E shares its sign with 9 E, the day after 8 B'atz' on which the Momostenango daykeepers ask for a good road and a good work; 9 E comes 140 days after 12 E in each round. The road is the sign's meaning on every E day; the number gives it its force.
The numeral
Two bars and two dots. Thompson identified the Classic head for 12 as a god wearing the sky sign, Lahun Chan, the Venus god he gave to the day Lamat.
The dots of twelve are the dots of two, set above the two bars of ten.
In the count
The number 12 falls on twenty days of the 260: days 12, 25, 38, 51, 64, 77, 90, 103, 116, 129, 142, 155, 168, 181, 194, 207, 220, 233, 246 and 259, with the signs E, Kan, Tijax, B'atz', K'at, No'j, Tz'i', Aq'ab'al, Ajmaq, Toj, Iq', Tz'ikin, Q'anil, Imox, I'x, Kej, Ajpu, Aj, Kame and Kawoq in that order. A sign comes back every twenty days and a number every thirteen, so the same pairing, such as 12 E, returns only after 260 days. Each year the highland year bearer's number rises by one, because 365 days are 28 runs of thirteen and one day more.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Strength, in the highland reports
- The number gives the day its force: low numbers gentle, high numbers strong (Tedlock at Momostenango and Bunzel at Chichicastenango, as reported) sourced
- Our band
- strong; the bands and their edges are EsoTerrier's grouping, not a published scheme our construction
- Our keyword and sentence
- "strong, seasoned"; Twelve is strong and experienced, the knowledge gathered before the cycle closes. our construction
- Head variant of the numeral, after Thompson
- a god wearing the sky sign, Lahun Chan the Venus god, the god he gave to the day Lamat sourced
- A fixed character for the number
- None established; which numbers are good differs from town to town disputed
How the schools read it
- Highland ethnography, as reported
- The number is the strength of the day, gentle in the low numbers and strong in the high.
- Thompson's survey of highland towns
- Which numbers count as good or bad differs from town to town.
- Classic scribes
- Wrote 12 as two bars and two dots, or as a god's head: a god wearing the sky sign, Lahun Chan the Venus god, in Thompson's identification.
- Dreamspell (1990)
- Gives each number a name of its own in a different modern count; not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- Strong in our bands; keyword "strong, seasoned". Our words, a reading aid.
Claims about it
-
The number 12 has a fixed traditional character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: The highland reports give the numbers strength, low gentle and high strong; fixed characters per number are modern, and our own keyword is labelled as ours.
-
Twelve is one of thirteen cosmic "tones" with a Maya name.
falseWhat the record shows: The tone names are Dreamspell's, from 1990. The Maya count has numbers 1 to 13.
