Why is «The Ring of the 20 Day-Signs» only in Spanish?

Because «The Ring of the 20 Day-Signs» rests on sixteenth-century sources quoted in their own words. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation. The Spanish page is linked from here.

The rings of the Sun Stone

The Ring of the 20 Day-Signs

The signs of the days

The whole disc, with this ring lit: the twenty day-signs around the stone. Each ring carries the number of elements its own entry declares; the hollow centre is where the stone puts the face of Tonatiuh.

What it covers

The twenty day-signs around the Sun Stone, in their order, and how they are identified.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of the ring of the 20 day-signs. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

Qué es
Cómo se lee

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «The Ring of the 20 Day-Signs», The rings of the Sun Stone. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/anillo/veinte-tonales/