![]() ![]() In this sense, the Dresden Codex and other topics like it might have functioned both as astronomical tables and as divinatory almanacs.Image: This is an image from the Grolier Codex, the oldest known manuscript in ancient America. They needed to be able to predict the motions of Venus, for example, so that they could judge the time when the omens would be best for waging war and capturing warriors for sacrifice to the gods. The motivation for their interest in celestial cycles was, as we would see it, primarily astrological. We would see these as coincidences of nature but to the Maya they represented natural rhythms of the cosmos. It is also clear from the Dresden Codex that the Maya were obsessed with interlocking time cycles: they were well aware that five Venus cycles equaled eight years and also (nearly) 99 lunations 46 tzolkins (260-day cycles) equaled 405 lunations, and so on. Another table records intervals between “danger periods” when solar eclipses might occur. ![]() These numbers seem to correspond to the canonical lengths of the appearance and disappearance of Venus during each synodic cycle. One of the most famous is the Venus table, which was first identified as such from the repeated appearance of the number sequence 236, 90, 250, and 8. The Dresden Codex contains a number of tables that relate to particular celestial bodies. It contains one complete almanac and parts of three others, featuring depictions of the Moon Goddess. Among many other things, this work suggests that the Dresden Codex was actually a copy, probably made between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries c.e., of an original document as much as three or four hundred years older. ![]() A vast amount of careful scholarship has been concerned with the detailed analysis of the contents of the codex. The whole topic appears to be an astronomical (or rather astrological) almanac stuffed full of information about different celestial bodies. It is the first-the Dresden Codex-that holds the most fascination regarding astronomy. They are known, after the places where they were eventually discovered, respectively as the Dresden Codex, Madrid Codex, Paris Codex, and Grolier Codex. From the Maya region only four of these codices survive, but these give us tremendous insights into learning and ritual. Hundreds of “topics” in the form of folded strips of bark paper were burned to a cinder by the Spanish priests. Yet much of it doubtless existed on perishable media and has been permanently lost. As we now know, syllabic glyphs were combined to produce phonetic expressions of words in a language conforming to strict principles of grammar and syntax, principles that have passed down recognizably into modern Maya languages such as Yu-catec, spoken in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and in parts of northern Guatemala and Belize.Īncient Maya script was without doubt the most highly developed writing system in the whole of pre-Columbian America. That these texts contained true hieroglyphic writing was not generally accepted until the later part of the twentieth century but is now beyond dispute. Many inscriptions contain calendrical dates, and these helped researchers establish the nature of the Maya calendar long before the remaining parts of the inscriptions began to be deciphered. Classic-period inscriptions and murals typically describe key events in the lives of kings and gods, but the later ones are increasingly concerned with warfare, conquest, and the sacrifice of captives. Sometimes textual commentaries were associated with striking carved friezes and vivid painted murals. Most of our knowledge of Maya writing comes from monumental inscriptions in stone-public pronouncements carved into the walls of buildings or on stelae that stand like sentinels by a particular temple-pyramid. ![]()
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