Eb’ (E)
The twelfth Maya day sign, a head whose mark is the element where the ear would be. Its names are read as stairway, tooth and path; K’iche’ daykeepers call the day E, the path.
Meaning
Eb’ is the twelfth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count; in K’iche’ it is E. The K’iche’ daykeepers of Komon Tohil, in Zunil, Guatemala, in an account of the days that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian reproduces on its Living Maya Time site, derive E from “path”. It is the time when the ancestors are ready to listen, they write, a day to ask for a person’s physical and moral well-being, and the day on which a man can ask for a woman’s hand in marriage.
Origin and history
On the monuments, Eric Thompson wrote, Eb’ is a human head with a prominent jawbone and elements of the Kawak (rain) sign round the temple; Morley found the carved and painted heads only remotely alike, but with the same “essential element”, the one in the position of the ear. The Aztec day in the same place is Malinalli, grass (see Aztec day signs). Thompson combined the rain and the jawbone of death into a reading of his own: Eb’ was “the day of the malignant rain deity” who sends the mists and damp that cause mildew in the crops. He added that Roys was “less convinced”, and that the Yucatec augury for the day is “entirely favorable”. Kettunen and Helmke leave the Classic Maya name blank.
Stairway, tooth or path
The names do not agree with each other or with the glyph. In Yucatec eb means stairway, “although there is no allusion to this in the glyph”, Thompson wrote; he took the K’iche’ E to mean tooth and supposed it corrupted. The Komon Tohil daykeepers give E as “path”.
One of the four year bearers
Eb’ is one of the four days that can begin a year: Morley lists Ik, Manik, Eb and Caban (Ik’, Manik’, Eb’ and Kab’an), and Wagley, cited by Thompson, recorded the year bearers at the Mam village of Santiago Chimaltenango as Ik, Cheh, Ek and Noh.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsB’en (Aj)The thirteenth Maya day sign, the reed and the growing maize. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Aj, the cane and the corn, and a day of triumph.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
See also
Manik’ (Kej), Kab’an (No’j), Men (Tz’ikin), Kukulkan, Chaac, Itzamna.
Sources
- Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction (J. Eric S. Thompson, 1950), J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 589 (Washington, 1950), chapter 3, “The cycle of 260 days”; Internet Archive full text, Internet Archive, pp. 70 and 80–81, “Eb, E, Euob”
- An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs (Sylvanus G. Morley, 1915), Sylvanus Griswold Morley, An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57 (Smithsonian Institution, 1915), chapter III and figs. 16–17; Project Gutenberg eBook 43491, Project Gutenberg, chapter III, Table I; pp. 40 and 53
- The Meaning of the Days in the Maya Sacred Calendar (Komon Tohil, Living Maya Time), Group of K’iche’ Day Keepers Komon Tohil, Zunil, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, “The Meaning of the Days in the Maya Sacred Calendar”, reproduced with permission in Living Maya Time, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (PDF), National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, p. 1, E
- Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs (Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke, Mesoweb, 2020), Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke, Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th revised edition (Wayeb and Mesoweb, 2020), Appendices, Tables X–XI, “Day names in the Tzolk’in calendar”, Mesoweb, Table XI
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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