Etz’nab’ (Tijax)
The eighteenth Maya day sign, a pressure-flaked blade of flint or obsidian. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Tijax, the obsidian knife, and ask on it for protection against wrongdoing.
Meaning
Etz’nab’ is the eighteenth of the twenty day signs of the 260-day count, written Eznab by Morley; in K’iche’ it is Tijax. The Aztec day in the same place is Tecpatl, flint knife (see Aztec day signs), and the Yucatec auguries agree: “The bleeder for fevers. The sharpened flint.” 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 Tijax from “destiny”, “obsidian knife” and “spontaneous temptation”. On this day, they write, people ask for protection against social, community or personal wrongdoing.
Origin and history
Morley found the carved and painted forms practically identical. Eric Thompson recorded that the glyph has been identified as a pressure-flaked blade, the same design often drawn on the stone or obsidian heads of spears, and that Barrera Vásquez showed the name Etz’nab’ means a sharpened implement. Ximénez gave the K’iche’ Tijax as “death cutting asunder” and obsidian knife. Kettunen and Helmke leave the Classic Maya name blank.
Read next
- Next in Maya symbols and godsKawak (Kawoq)The nineteenth Maya day sign, the storm: its glyph carries the clustered circles of rain. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day Kawoq, from thunder, and ask on it for prosperity.
- The same shape in Tarot cardsJusticeTrump XI in Waite's deck and VIII in older ones: a seated woman with a sword and scales. A. E. Waite read it as equity and rightness.
See also
Kukulkan, Chaac, Itzamna, Maize God, Maya calendar, Maya numerals (bar and dot).
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. 86–87, “Etz’nab, Tihax, Chinax”
- 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; p. 40
- 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. 2, Tijax
- 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 crosses 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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