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Etz'nab (Tijax): The Flint Day, Eighteenth Sign of the Maya Calendar

Prepared by the Mayan Astrology Calculator editors · Sources below · Reviewed 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1

Quick answer. Etz'nab is the eighteenth of the 20 day signs in the 260-day Maya calendar; in K'iche' it is Tijax. Its glyph shows a pressure-flaked blade of flint or obsidian, and the central Mexican day in the same position is "flint knife". Colonial Yucatec lists associate it with the healer who bleeds a fever; in the K'iche' highlands it is a day for confessing quarrels. "Mirror", common online, is the Dreamspell name, not a traditional meaning. [1][3][5]

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Etz'nab at a glance
Position in the 20-day cycle 18 of 20 [1]
How often it returns Every 20 days; a pairing such as 1 Etz'nab returns every 260 days [2]
Yucatec name Etz'nab (16th-century spelling Etznab) [1]
Classic-period reading Unknown [1]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche') Tijax; Tihax in colonial calendars [3]
Other names Chinax (Chiapas) [5]
Meaning of the names Etz'nab, "a sharpened implement"; Tijax and Chinax may contain a word for "mouth" or "bite" [5]
What the glyph depicts A pressure-flaked flint or obsidian blade [5]
Central Mexican counterpart Tecpatl, "flint knife" [5]
Haab' days it can share Only day 1, 6, 11 or 16 of a Haab' month [1]
How we calculate it GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [7]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987) "White Mirror", seal 18; a separate system with a different count [8][9]

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Where Etz'nab sits in the 260-day count

Etz'nab follows Kaban and precedes Kawak; 4 Kaban is followed by 5 Etz'nab. [1] In the 365-day Haab' Etz'nab can only fall on positions 1, 6, 11 or 16 of a month, the same set as Ak'bal, Lamat and Ben. [1]

The glyph: a flaked blade

Of all the day signs, Etz'nab may be the easiest to recognize. Thompson wrote in 1950 that "the standard glyph of Etz'nab has been identified as a picture of a pressure-flaked blade", the same design often drawn on stone or obsidian spearheads, and that in early examples "the resemblance is much more apparent". [5] Pressure flaking is the technique used to finish the finest blades of flint and obsidian.

The Yucatec name fits the picture. Thompson cites the Yucatec scholar Alfredo Barrera Vásquez, who showed that Etz'nab "is a sharpened implement", with words in the colonial Motul dictionary that suggest pressure-flaking. [5]

The highland names: Tijax and Chinax

The K'iche' name is Tijax (Tihax in all three colonial calendars edited by Weeks, Sachse and Prager), and in Chiapas the day was Chinax. [3][5] Thompson suggested that both contain a word for "mouth", noting that flint and obsidian blades in Mexican codices are often drawn "with a mouth and a formidable set of teeth", as if the knife bit into flesh. He cites Schultze Jena's link between Tijax and a K'iche' root meaning "to bite", and the friar Ximénez's gloss "death cutting asunder", "obsidian knife". [5] Christenson's dictionary lists Tijax as a day in the sacred calendar. [6]

Flint in the ancient texts

A healer's blade. In the colonial Kaua manuscript the augury for Etz'nab reads, in Barrera Vásquez's translation: "The bleeder for fevers. The sharpened flint. The mot-mot bird is its augury. In good health. Medical bleeder, medical healer also. Valiant also." Thompson added that bleeding for fever with a chip of flint or glass was still practiced among the Maya of his time. [5]

A myth at Palenque. The hieroglyphic platform of Temple XIX at Palenque, dedicated in 734 CE, tells how the god GI decapitated a crocodile in mythical time "on a day 1 Eznab" (1 Etz'nab), and how its spilled blood caused a flood. The anthropologist Canek Estrada Peña summarizes this from the epigraphers David Stuart and Erik Velásquez. [4] The crocodile ties the story to Imix, the first day sign.

A god of sacrifice? Thompson proposed that Etz'nab was the day of "some god connected with the flint or obsidian knife", possibly a deity of sacrifice. [5] This was a guess, and he said so ("perhaps"); we report it only as his hypothesis.

Tijax in highland tradition

The 260-day count is still kept in highland Guatemala by Ajq'ijab' (daykeepers). [2] Tijax is linked to conflict and to repairing it:

  • 1854 manuscript. Vicente Hernández Spina's calendar calls Tijax a "good day, the same as the preceding". [3]
  • 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), describe it as "the day of quarrels and evil words. The day 8 Tijax is a good day to confess sins, especially quarrels with one's wife, relatives, or parents." [3]

The pairing is worth noticing: the day that names quarrels is also the day set aside for settling them. These records describe practice, not the temperament of people born on Etz'nab. We are not daykeepers. Our reports use the image of the blade, which cuts and also heals, as modern reflective writing about honesty and repair.

Why "Mirror" is not a traditional meaning

Many websites, including earlier versions of this one, label Etz'nab "Mirror". That name comes from the Dreamspell, a modern system begun by José and Lloydine Argüelles in 1987 and published as a kit in 1990, where this slot is seal 18, "White Mirror", with the keywords Endlessness, Reflects and Order. [8][9] Maya and central Mexican sources point consistently to flint and obsidian. [5] Polished obsidian was used for mirrors in Mesoamerica, which may explain the modern choice, but we found no traditional source that names the day "mirror".

The counts also differ: Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [9][10] 27 Oct 2026 is 5 Etz'nab in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 62, White Planetary Wind. The next Dreamspell "White Mirror" day, 23 Oct 2026 (Kin 58, White Rhythmic Mirror), is 1 Ix in the traditional count. [Link: Dreamspell vs traditional converter → /dreamspell-vs-traditional-maya-calendar]

Colors, directions and "elements"

  • Direction. Prehispanic calendars assigned the days to east, north, west and south in turn, which places the eighteenth day in the north. [11] Contemporary K'iche' practice gives the north to Imox instead. [11]
  • Color. The north is white in colonial Yucatec texts; assigning that color to one day is a modern reconstruction. [12] Dreamspell also colors this seal white. [8]
  • Element. Some charts, including earlier versions of this site, give Etz'nab the element "air". We found no traditional source for Greek-style elements on day signs; on this site it appears only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Etz'nab days

Calculated with the GMT 584283 correlation, the same method as our calculator, as of 10 October 2026: [7]

Gregorian date Tzolk'in (traditional) Haab' Dreamspell, for comparison only
27 Oct 2026 5 Etz'nab 11 Sak' Kin 62, White Planetary Wind
16 Nov 2026 12 Etz'nab 11 Keh Kin 82, White Self-Existing Wind
6 Dec 2026 6 Etz'nab 11 Mak Kin 102, White Spectral Wind
26 Dec 2026 13 Etz'nab 11 K'ank'in Kin 122, White Overtone Wind
15 Jan 2027 7 Etz'nab 11 Muwan Kin 142, White Crystal Wind
4 Feb 2027 1 Etz'nab 11 Pax Kin 162, White Rhythmic Wind
24 Feb 2027 8 Etz'nab 11 K'ayab Kin 182, White Cosmic Wind

The date tables use your local date when JavaScript is available. Without it, they stay at the 10 October 2026 snapshot.

Each falls on day 11 of its Haab' month, one of the four positions (1, 6, 11, 16) open to Etz'nab. [1]

Etz'nab with each of the 13 numbers

Each number links to its page. 1 Etz'nab is the day of the Palenque crocodile myth; 8 Etz'nab (8 Tijax) is the highland day for confessing quarrels. [3][4]

Etz'nab and relationships

Our compatibility tool compares two full birth signatures with a modern reflective method, not a documented historical Maya formula. [Compare two birth dates → /compatibility]

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FAQ

Are Etz'nab and Tijax the same day? Yes. Etz'nab is the Yucatec name and Tijax the K'iche' name for the eighteenth day. [1][3]

Does Etz'nab mean "mirror"? No. "White Mirror" is the Dreamspell name. Traditional sources describe a flint or obsidian blade. [5][8]

What does Etz'nab mean? "A sharpened implement", according to Barrera Vásquez; the glyph shows a flaked blade. [5]

Is "White Mirror" the same as Etz'nab? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list, but Dreamspell's count differs, so a "White Mirror" birthday is usually not an Etz'nab day. [8][9]

Why does another calculator give me a different day sign? It may use the Dreamspell count, or a correlation constant other than 584283, which shifts results by a day or two. [7][13]

Is Etz'nab a zodiac sign? No. It names a day that recurs every 20 days. → How we calculate

Sources

  1. Kettunen, Harri, and Christophe Helmke. Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th rev. ed. Wayeb, 2020, pp. 49, 51, 57. https://www.mesoweb.org/resources/handbook/IMH2020.pdf
  2. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. "The Calendar System." Living Maya Time. https://maya.nmai.si.edu/calendar/calendar-system
  3. Weeks, John M., Frauke Sachse, and Christian M. Prager. Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 3 (Table 1.1), 16. https://www.upcolorado.com/media/acfupload/9780870819969.pdf
  4. Estrada Peña, Canek. "Anima' ri cho, anima' ri plo: Imox y el agua entre los k'iche'." Estudios de Cultura Maya 45 (2015): 191–224, p. 210 (citing Stuart 2010: 60, 68; Velásquez 2006: 1). https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2813/281336894007.pdf
  5. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, pp. 86–87.
  6. Christenson, Allen J. K'iche'–English Dictionary. FAMSI, s.v. "Tijax". https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf
  7. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
  8. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
  9. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (citing Argüelles & Argüelles, Dreamspell kit, 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
  10. Argüelles, José. Rinri Project Newsletter II.2.1. Foundation for the Law of Time. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
  11. Estrada Peña 2015 (as source 4), pp. 202–203.
  12. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Imix / Imox." Maya Decipherment, 14 Aug 2025 (on the colors of the imix che' world trees). https://mayadecipherment.com/2025/08/14/day-sign-notes-imix-imox/
  13. Van Stone, Mark. "2012 FAQ." FAMSI. https://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html

Reviewed: 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1 · Corrections: contact us