I have a story for you.  Fifteen years ago, My husband’s Aunt Mary Died.   Aunt Mary lived in a large, three story duplex in Cleveland.  She lived alone in that house which she inherited from her parents and spent her post retirement years garage sailing.  At the time of her death, Aunt Mary’s entire house, garage and car were stuffed to capacity with her treasures.   I was one of many people who helped my mother-in-law clean out that house.   It took us six months.

     The first problem we encountered was that there was no room to make piles of the sorted stuff anywhere because every inch of space was already occupied.   We started by putting all the costume jewelery in the bathtub.   I also remember that the smell of moth balls everywhere and to this day, the smell instantly brings back the memory of that house.   Megan remembers that we found seven old fashioned hair dryers, multiple games of scrabble and more bars of soap than could be counted.  I remember spending an entire day throwing out the junk mail that accumulated.    (she never threw that out either).

      What does this have to do with weird object Friday you ask?   I was very choosy as to what I took out of that house, and my one significant treasure was this reproduction of an Aztec calendar.  Here is the product info that I found at Amazon.com.

Aztec Solar Calendar Wall plaque

Product Description
Antropological Museum, Mexico City. 1500 A.D.

The Aztec calendar set out the mathematical formulas according to which the whole universe was organized and which governed the actions of men and Gods alike. The calendar is actually two: the Xiupohualli or the count of the days and the Tonalpohualli or the count of destiny. The calendar had to be consulted through the priests before engaging in any activity whether it was farming, warfare, religion or commerce. In addition to the count of the days, it also has astronomical data like the phases of the moon and Venus and the years of Mercury and Mars. The calendar also mentions the four eras of humanity known as “suns” before our own: all ended in cataclysm. The sun that is now ours, the fifth one, Nahui Ollin (”four earthquake”) is supposed to end by cataclysmic earthquakes. The Aztecs attributed the invention of the calendar to the God Quetzalcoatl. The calandar weighs 25 tons and has a diameter of eleven feet.

Want more of weird object Friday? Follow these three links: Margaret’s blog  Jessica’s blog   &  Ben’s blog   (Margaret’s brother Ben not my son Ben) Would you like to join us?