Muisca calendar

The Muisca, inhabiting the central highlands of the Colombian Andes (Altiplano Cundiboyacense), used one (arranged by Bochica[4]) of the advanced calendrical systems of Pre-Columbian America,[5] the others being the Incan and Maya calendars, and the ones used by other Mesoamericans including the Aztecs.

[10] 21st century researchers are Javier Ocampo López[11] and Manuel Arturo Izquierdo Peña, anthropologist who published his MSc.

Their system went from 1 to 10 and for higher numerations they used the prefix quihicha or qhicha, which means "foot" in their Chibcha language Muysccubun.

The Muisca used two forms to express twenty: "foot ten"; quihícha ubchihica or their exclusive word gueta, derived from gue, which means "house".

That rather confusing system made it difficult to distinguish the 21st month from the 1st or 11th, but their naming of the three different years solved this.

[19][20] Izquierdo suggests, however, that the concept for a standardized week was alien to the Muisca indeed, who instead organized the days of the month in terms of the varying activities of their social life.

[21] The Muisca, like the Incas in the Central Andes, very probably took notice of the difference between the synodic month (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes); the time between two full Moons, and the sidereal month (27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes); the time it takes for the Moon to reach the same position with respect to the stars.

[25] Pedro Simón's differences on the accounts of the mythical arrival of Bochica to the Muisca territory brings clues about the nature of the Priest's Century.

Simón describes also an additional time period named the Bxogonoa which corresponds to 5 Priest's Centuries.

[29] The archeological evidence for the Muisca calendar and its use is found in ceramics, textiles, spindles, petroglyphs, sites and stones.