science

Lords of the Night

Lords of the Night is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lords of the Night rather than just read about it. In short: In Mesoamerican mythology the Lords of the Night (Classical Nahuatl: Yohualtecuhtin) are a set of nine deities who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over.

Key takeaways

Lords of the Night belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lords of the Night to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lords of the Night from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In Mesoamerican mythology the Lords of the Night (Classical Nahuatl: Yohualtecuhtin) are a set of nine deities who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over. The lords of the night are known in both the Nahua and Maya calendar, although the specific names of the Maya Night Lords are unknown. The glyphs corresponding to the night gods are known and Mayanists identify them with labels G1 to G9, the G series. Generally, these glyphs are frequently used with a fixed glyph coined F. The only Mayan light lord that has been identified is the God G9, Pauahtun the Aged Quadripartite God. The existence of a 9 nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 for the European academic theater by Eduard Seler. The Nahua names of the Deities are known because their names are glossed in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Tudela. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine levels of the underworld and ruled the corresponding hour of the nighttime; this argument has not generally been accepted, since the evidence suggests that the lord of a given night ruled over that entire night. Zelia Nuttall argued that the Nine Lords of the Night represented the nine moons of the Lunar year. The cycle of the Nine Lords of the Night held special relation to the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights each, and also, approximately, 9 vague lunations of 29 days each. The Nine Lords of the Night in Aztec mythology are:

Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turquoise Lord/Lord of Fire") Tezcatlipoca ("Smoking Mirror") Piltzintecuhtli ("Noble Lord") Centeotl ("Maize God") Mictlantecuhtli ("Underworld Lord") Chalchiuhtlicue ("Jade Is Her Skirt") Tlazolteotl ("Filth God[dess]") Tepeyollotl ("Heart of the Mountains") Tlaloc ("Rain")

Sources

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lords of the Night

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lords of the Night claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lords of the Night before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lords of the Night ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lords of the Night

In research: Lords of the Night appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lords of the Night in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lords of the Night is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aztec calendars, Aztec mythology and religion, Maya calendars, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lords of the Night outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lords of the Night in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lords of the Night means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lords of the Night out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lords of the Night in simple terms?

Why does Lords of the Night matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lords of the Night?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lords of the Night.