number
Thirteen
The integer after twelve. Unlucky tables and lunar counts have used it; those uses are local, not a universal thirteenth law.
Nahua tradition
Thirteen appears in Nahua tradition.
Sahagún’s Florentine Codex Books 4–5 record thirteen among trecena day-sign groups of the tonalpohualli — named thirteen as calendar count. A colonial-era Nahua ethnographic attestation, not a pan-Mesoamerican essence and not an unfiltered pre-invasion voice.
from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577
appears in · sourced · culturally specific
Thirteen is used in The Moon.
In Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, the circuit made by the moon thirteen times in twelve months is measured against the sun’s single yearly circuit — thirteen counts the moon’s returns in that measured year.
from Vitruvius; Morris Hicky Morgan (translation) · De Architectura, 1st century BCE; Morgan English 1914
used in · sourced · documented
Thirteen is associated with Twelve.
In Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, the moon circuits thirteen times in twelve months while the sun measures the same span once — thirteen and twelve are the paired moon-month counts of that year measure.
from Vitruvius; Morris Hicky Morgan (translation) · De Architectura, 1st century BCE; Morgan English 1914
associated with · sourced · documented
Thirteen is used in Twenty.
In Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, if columns are from fifteen feet to twenty, the height is measured off into thirteen parts for the architrave — thirteen is the part-count of that fifteen-to-twenty band.
from Vitruvius; Morris Hicky Morgan (translation) · De Architectura, 1st century BCE; Morgan English 1914
used in · sourced · documented
Fifteen is used in Thirteen.
In Agricola’s De Re Metallica, fifteen feet behind the second wall is constructed the first wall, thirteen feet high — fifteen feet of setback pairs with that thirteen-foot wall height.
from Georgius Agricola; Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (translation) · De Re Metallica, 1556 Latin; Hoover English 1912
used in · sourced · documented
Seventeen is used in Thirteen.
In Dunglison’s Medical Lexicon, seventeen grains of citric acid are paired with lemon-juice measures among effervescing doses — seventeen grains is that acid charge.
from Robley Dunglison · Medical Lexicon, 1874 (and earlier PD eds.)
used in · sourced · documented
sources
- Florentine Codex · Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators
Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain (Florentine Codex).
- De Architectura · Vitruvius; Morris Hicky Morgan (translation)
Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Morris Hicky Morgan (1914).
- De Re Metallica · Georgius Agricola; Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (translation)
Georgius Agricola, De Re Metallica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (1912).
- Medical Lexicon · Robley Dunglison
Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon (Dictionary of Medical Science).