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Ancient Maya: Astronomy or Astrology

The ancient Maya civilization is one spread over a vast area. Many times, there was communication within this widespread area, but the ideas and stories of the Maya vary from location, as well as, across time. This article focuses on the Classical through Post-Classical and early Colonial period. With the majority of views originating from Chichen Itza in the Yucatan of Mexico. The ancient Maya civilization seem to have been a society obsessed with time. This is evident in many aspects of their culture. The Maya astronomers were great scientists who had advance mathematical skills. Yet, was the focus on their observations, or on the myths? The entanglement of myth and science is evident early, but did the science produce the myths, or did the myths get matched to the science? Through their consistent and daily observations of the night sky, without fail, for many years, the Maya found many mathematical factors in nature. Their most prized factors being the basis for the Maya Calendar, a complex calendar system, even by today's standards. These factors became linked to myth, religion and political propaganda. Their excellent observation and recoding methods are evident in the Maya codices. Unfortunately, a great crime against the Maya was committed by Diego de Landa when he burned several of these codices, now only a few remain. The astronomical observations of the Maya were linked in all aspects of life: from the Maya religion, to Maya mythology, the Maya calendar and even Maya rulers. The Maya observed many astronomical features of the sky. From the sun and moon, to the planets, they recorded everything they saw. The quadripartite cosmology of the Maya suggests that they had a geocentric focused worldview with four corners, themselves in the middle. They observed other astronomical phenomena, including the weather. The astronomer would analyze the data from the almanacs, looking any for patterns. Once found, they used their advanced mathematical skills to calculate future phenomena. This article focuses on the three brightest objects in the sky.

The Sun

Kinich Ahau as a ruler in the Classic period

The creation of the sun is described in the transformation of the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh. The importance of the solar year, 365 days, is evident in the in the calendar of the haab', which is a tun of 360 plus 5 unlucky days at the end of the year. The Sun or K'in influenced the Maya in daily life, but more than meaning sun, the K'in was time, itself. Without the sun they knew that plants would not grow, thus the agriculture of the Maya depended on knowing the patterns of the sun and weather. The Maya tracked the ecliptic of the sun, and noticed both the solstices, the equinoxes, and the solar zenith of the sun. Most importantly, they tracked when an eclipse would occur. Many festivals and rituals were performed in conjunction with the sun, including the building of monuments, some creating a hierophany, as in the Temple of Kulkulkan or, El Castillo, in Chichen Itza. This hierophany is still drawing many people there today. The alignment of the temple atop the pyramid may be a relation to the solar zenith and solar nadir. The astronomical observatory, El Caracol, has windows oriented towards the equinoxes and is irregularly shaped towards the solstices, with a view of the zenith sunset. The sun's path is shown in art, usually in the form of an umbilicus or a serpent, as in the designs the doorway of the North Temple of El Castillo. Thus, through the observation of the sun, they worshiped the sun god Kinich Ahau, depictions of the sun god are seen from temples, to images in the Dresden Codex, or in literature, such as the in the stories of Chilam Balam.

The Moon

The Moon Goddess with rabbit

The moon was considered the sun of the night. The creation of the moon is described in the transformation of the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh. The word for the month comes from the name of themoon. A numerical value of twenty is attributed to the moon glyph, and a unial is a period of twenty days. For 13 moons of 20 kins may have been the origin for the 260 day calendar, as 13 of the 20 name days associate to descriptions of those 13 months. The description of the moon as a young woman, in the early phase of the moon, to grandmother, in the later phase of the moon. The Maya calculated the lunar calendar of 81 synodic periods, which averages 29.5 days. The Maya tracked lunar eclipses, in conjunction with solar eclipses within tables of the Dresden Codex. The Maya moon goddess is not often depicted in stone, but many images of a young goddess are typically on ceramics, she is associated with a rabbit, and crescent.

Venus

The Mayan Dresden Codex which calculates the appearances of Venus

Venus was known as chac ek, or noh ek, the great star and is the only planet named. This star is the third brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon, and observations of this star are very detailed and accurate. The Maya viewed the sideral cycle of Venus as approximately 584 days, observing it as morning star and evening star for an average of 260 days each. The period between these events is approximately sixty-four days. In the Dresden Codex the cycle of Venus is laid out over five pages of one 584 cycle per page. The synodic period of Venus is five complete cycles of Venus, or approximately eight solar years. The accurate record keeping of this planet over the years, led to the observance of its' complete cycle. This is evident in the Temple of the Jaguars at Chichen Itza, which shows the five cycles of Venus, with eight scenes of battles. This shows the division of the synodic cycle into eight solar years. With a star-war being fought in accordance with Venus cycles. Also, the data shows that they fought in the dry season and avoided fighting when Venus was invisible during superior conjunction. The helical rise of Venus seemed to be the most important to the Maya for they aligned it with 1 Ahau on the Tzolkin. They noticed that this rise took place, blindly, or during the retrograde period, the time when the planet goes in the opposite direction the rest of the planets. The feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl at Chichen Itza may be linked to Venus as the morning star, as stories tell of his transformation into this star.