Mesoamerican calendars was of ritual significance to a number of Mesoamerican cultures. A third major calendar form known as the Long Count is found in the inscriptions of several Mesoamerican cultures, most famously those of the Maya civilization who developed it to its fullest extent during the Classic period (ca. 200–900 CE). The Long Count provided the ability to uniquely identify days over a much longer period of time, by combining a sequence of day-counts or cycles of increasing length, calculated or set from a particular date in the mythical past. Most commonly, five such higher-order cycles in a modified vigesimal (base-20)
Mesoamerican cosmovision heavily during the Colonial Period that they used their origin story as justification to claim native lands. Ancestor worship is a common theme in Mesoamerican cosmovision. The northern, Nahautl-speaking people all shared a common origin story, which is depicted in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan. This map serves not only to center the Mesoamerican world through the stories of its ancestors and rulers, but also depicts urban centers, which reflect worldmaking. Finally, the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan also reveals ceremonial rituals, an essential component of worldrenewing. All of these themes are clearly important to native Mesoamericans right up through the Colonial Period.