A medieval Maya text purporting to predict solar eclipses has puzzled Western readers for centuries, but a pair of researchers have finally understood how it actually works.
Indigenous civilizations in Mexico and Guatemala maintained calendars for more than two millennia before Europeans invaded the Americas, helping them predict the timing of important events in the heavens and on Earth with extraordinary accuracy.
Unfortunately, much of this knowledge – and the texts it contained – were destroyed during the Spanish Inquisition, leaving only a few bits and pieces from which to reconstruct these advanced methods for celestial divination.
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dates back to the 11th or 12th century dresden codex One of only four hieroglyphic Maya codices to survive European colonization.
The Bark Paper Codex is a 78-page accordion-style treatise, with each page hand-written and illustrated in brilliant color, detailing astronomy, astrology, weather, and medical knowledge.
Predicting solar eclipses – which occur when sunlight is obscured by the Moon, casting a shadow on the Earth’s surface – was serious business in Maya society, which was built and operated around astronomical events.
“If you keep track of what happened at the time of certain astronomical events, you can be warned in advance and take appropriate precautions when the cycles repeat themselves,” University of Texas historian Kimberly Breuer explained in an article for The Conversation.,
For example, when the Sun hid behind the Moon, darkening the sky during the day, members of the Maya elite would hold bloodletting ceremonies to provide power to the Sun God.
“Priests and rulers would know how to act, what rituals to perform and what sacrifices to offer to the gods to ensure that the cycles of destruction, rebirth and renewal would continue,” Breuer explained.
a table within dresden codex The Maya calendar allowed experts, known as “daykeepers”, to predict these eclipses for approximately 700 years. This table spans 405 lunar months (11,960 days), but how exactly it works has eluded scientists until now.
In a new article, linguist John Justeson of the University at Albany in the US and archaeologist Justin Lowry of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh have proposed a concrete explanation for the proper use of the calendar. Science advancement.
Jutson and Lowry rejected the long-held belief that the table was reset to its last location (that is, it was intended to be used on a continuous loop, returning to month 1 after month 405 was reached).
The problem is that using a table this way doesn’t really work.
Jutson and Lowry write, “The application of the next table or two may lead to unexpected eclipses if the last station of one table is used as a basis for the next composition, and becomes increasingly frequent with each successive resetting.”
Instead, he proposes that a new table be started in the 358th month of the current table. With this approach, the table’s predictions are only 2 hours and 20 minutes in advance for both Sun and Moon alignments.
“This process will also include that, at times, the first date in the succession table will be set to month 223, approximately 10 hours and 10 minutes later relative to that alignment, to adjust for the slowly accumulating deviation of resetting at month 358,” the authors write.
By comparing the table with our modern knowledge of eclipse cycles, he found that with this method, the Maya would be able to accurately predict each solar eclipse. can be seen in their area Between 350 and 1150 CE, because it corrects small errors that accumulated over time.
The authors say, “Such revisions would maintain the table’s feasibility indefinitely, with a difference of less than 51 minutes over 134 years.”
It is a fascinating insight into the vital role of Maya daykeepers and the advanced mathematics developed in service of this lost civilization’s spiritual connection with the universe.
This research was published in Science advancement.