Guea gabi' shoon: eight year cycle

Guea gabi' shoon: eight year cycle

Size: 60x100cm 2x3ft

Master weaver: Justino Martínez Mendoza

Price: $10,000MXN pesos

Materials and methods: Jute yarns hand dyed with Beæ (Cochineal/Dactylopius coccus costa), Bilie' (Black Zapote/Diospyros nigra), Pomegranate rinds and Yauhtli (Tagetes Lucida, Mexican Tarragon). Handwoven on a Zapotec style loom of the 16th century adapted from European styles. Woven using a 7 threads per inch reed and wool rayon blend for warp.

Design, patterns and symbols. The eight pointed star represents Venus. The sun's cross represents the cycles of the sun; counting the middle the cross has thirteen square edges. Every eight cycles of the sun roughly corresponds to thirteen cycles of Venus and one of Scorpio, therefore they overlap in this design. Our ancestors kept the calendar of the Sun and Venus and realised that every 52 years the calendars coincide perfectly and Venus appears exactly in the same spot in relation with the Pleiads. Every 8 years there is a sunrise preceded by venus and the scorpio constellation. Our ancestors used this observation to make adjustments to their calendar counting system leading to a calendar system that has an error that is 10,000th of a day more exact than our standard modern calendar.