Maya astronomy
The solar year has 365.2422 days and by 1582 there was an appreciable discrepancy between the winter solstice and Christmas and the vernal equinox and Easter.
This knowledge was not only used for agricultural planning but also played a significant role in religious ceremonies and royal legitimization.
[4] This calendar was of the most sacred to the Maya, and was used as an almanac to determine farming cycles, and for religious practices to specify dates for ceremonies.
[6] The Maya and European calendars are correlated by using the Julian day number of the starting date of the current creation — 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ajaw, 8 Kumk'u.
The most infamous example of this was the burning of a large number of these in Maní, Yucatán by Bishop Diego de Landa in July 1562.
The Madrid Codex mainly consists of almanacs and horoscopes that were used to help Maya priests in the performance of their ceremonies and divinatory rituals.
The Paris Codex contains prophecies for tuns and katuns (see Mesoamerican Long Count calendar), and a Maya zodiac.
Kinich Ahau would shine in the sky all day before being believed to transform himself into a jaguar at night to pass through Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.
[24] The Dresden Codex The upper and lower seasonal tables (pages 61–69) unify the Haab', the solstices and equinoxes, the eclipse cycle and the year bearer (0 Pop).
[29] In addition to the astronomical tables preserved in the Dresden codex, there are illustrations of different deities and their relation to the positions of the planets.
It's possible that the God C almanacs are equivalent to the seasonal tables in the Dresden Codex and the God C almanacs in the Paris Codex[34] The Books of Chilam Balam The Book of Chilam Balam specifically refers to the Half Year, the solstices and equinoxes.
[35][36] Anthony Aveni and Horst Hartung published an extensive study of building alignments in the Maya area.
[37] Further systematic research has led to the recognition of several orientation groups, most of which refer to agriculturally significant sunrise and sunset dates.
Aveni[47] and Fuls[48] analysed a large number of these inscription and found strong evidence for the Palenque system.
Most of them are concentrated on the Northeast Coast of the Yucatan peninsula, where the cult of goddess Ixchel, associated with the Moon, is known to have been important.
The Almanac also refers to the summer solstice and the Haab' uayeb ceremonies for the tenth century AD.
The table lists the tzolkin days for the four appearance/disappearance events during each of the 65 consecutive Venus cycles, a period of approximately 104 years.
The Almanac also refers to the summer solstice and the Haab' uayeb ceremonies for the tenth century AD.
[58] Building alignments The Caracol at Chichen Itza contains the remains of windows through which the extreme elongations of the planet can be seen.
Four of the main orientations of the lower platform mark the points of the maximum horizontal displacement of the planet during the year.
About 4.5 km from the door is a pyramidal hill, from where Venus northerly extremes could be observed over the Governor's Palace.
[65] The Bonampak murals depict the victory of king Chaan Muan with his enemies lying down, pleading for their lives on a date which was the heliacal rising of Venus and a zenith passage of the Sun.
The text refers to an eclipse season (when the moon is near its ascending or descending node) that coincided with the retrograde motion of mars.
[70] The Dumbarton Oaks Relief Panel 1 came from El Cayo, Chiapas – a site 12 kilometers up the Usumacinta River from Piedras Negras.
[71] Susan Milbrath has extended Lounsbury's work concerning Jupiter to other classic and post-classic sites.
These animal representations are pictured in two almanacs in the Madrid Codex where they are related to other astronomical phenomena – eclipses and Venus – and Haab rituals.
Astronomical information includes references to eclipses, the synodic cycles of Venus and zodiacal constellations.
Its most prominent feature is a large dust cloud that forms a dark rift in its southern and western part.
Beyer was the first to notice that the Serpent Series is based on an unusually long distance number of 1.18.1.8.0.16 (5,482,096 days – more than 15,000 years).
[90] Grofe believes that this interval is quite close to a whole multiple of the sidereal year, returning the sun to precisely the same position against the background of stars.
