Maya (All Terms)
Authors: ASE Tech Team
Maya culture was one of the most sophisticated civilizations in the pre-columbian american continent. They developed a writing system which let them store and use their knowledge in a variety of forms: e.g. on how to perform rituals or delivering particular messages to an audience (political and sacred facts from rulers to the people, sculpted in monuments and stelae). These records allow us explore, through the laborious work of many researchers, their cosmovision and how they thought the cosmos came to be. Their knowledge was recorded in books (academically known as “codex”), like the Dresden codex (which describes the dates that Venus would pass through each of its visibility phases and also a table of lunar and solar eclipses), the Paris codex (which is believed to describe some of their constellations), the Madrid codex (which relates astronomy and agriculture data) and lately, the Grolier codex (it was thought that it was an abbreviated version of the Dresden codex, but it is not accepted yet as original by some scholars).[1][2][3][4]
All Mayan codices are thought to have been taken to Europe by the first explorers of the New World, as evidence of their discoveries. The Paris Codex in particular was then long forgotten, until priest Leon Rosny found it in 1859 in a chimney corner of the National Library of Paris. It has suffered substantial damage, as can be seen in page 23 shown below. In spite of this, the Paris codex describes asterisms and constellations seen by the mayas, some of them probably related to a group of zodiacal constellations (Love, 1994)(Freidel et al., 1993)[2](Aveni, 2005)[3], while others do not (Špoták, 2015)[5].
Since in the Paris codex they seem to "swallow" the Sun, so they are placed as close as possible to this line while trying to adjust the star patterns to the images of the different animals thought to represent zodiacal constellations. Other constellations are placed according to what ethnographic sources state are their most probable location. Constellation lines were drawn trying to adjust to the images taken from the above mentioned sources and they appear according to the interpretation of the contributors of this culture.[6]
Solar System Names
| Mayan | English | commentary |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | ||
| Moon | ||
| Mercury | ||
| Chac 'Ek | Venus | |
| Mars | ||
| Jupiter | ||
| Saturn |
List of terms (asterism names)
| Mayan Term | Meaning | Designation |
|---|---|---|
| kib' chuplinik | Two brilliant ones, Peccaries | Castor and Pollux |
| jun ch'umil | Single Star | Regulus |
| xukut ch'umil | Corner Star | Alpha Centauri |
| Ch’oom | Vulture | unidentified |
| Xoc | Shark | |
| Kulte' | Owl | |
| B'alaam | Jaguar | |
| Kimi | Death | |
| Siina'an | Scorpion | Antares |
| Kaan | Snake | |
| Zool | Bat | |
| Uo | Toad | Virgo |
| Aak | Turtle | Orion’s Belt |
| Way Paat Ahiin | Hole-backed Caiman | Milky Way in a vertical position |
| Paddler Gods | Alnitak, Saiph and Rigel | |
| Oxib'Xk'ub | Primordial Fire | Orion's nebula (M42) |
References
- References (general)
- ↑ Eduardo Rodas-Quito and Javier Mejuto (online). Anutan sky culture in Stellarium, https://github.com/stellarium/stellarium , printed in Hoffmann and Wolfschmidt (eds., 2022), Astronomy in Culture --Cultures of Astronomy. Astronomie in der Kultur--Kulturen der Astronomie.: Featuring the Proceedings of the Splinter Meeting at the Annual Conference of the Astronomische Gesselschafb Sept. 14-16, 2021, tredition, Ahrensburg (Germany): 702-705.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Freidel, D., Schele, L., Parker, J.(1993) Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years On The Shaman's Path, New York: William Morrow and Company Inc.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Aveni, A.(2005) Observadores del Cielo en el Mexico Antiguo, Mexico D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Economica.
- ↑ Tedlock, B.(1999) Maya Astronomy: What We Know and How We Know It, Archaeoastronomy, The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, XIV(1), pp.: 39-58.
- ↑ The Paris Codex: Complex Analysis of an Ancient Maya Manuscript (Dissertation) by Jakub Špoták
- ↑ Garcia Barrios, A. (2015) El mito del diluvio en las ceremonias de entronización de los gobernantes mayas. Agentes responsables de la decapitación del saurio y nuevas fundaciones, Estudios de cultura maya, 45(45), pp. 9-48. pdf
