WHITECROW BORDERLAND

Mayan Astronomy

Note 9a: The Maya Lunar Series. 10/13/99

Eric Thompson, in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing (U of Oklahoma Press, 1970), asserts that every correlation proposal must pass a consistency test against the age of the moon as it was recorded by the Mayas in their monumental inscriptions in the Lunar Series clause that usually accompanies the Long Count (LC), or Initial Series (IS), notation in their typical date recording structure. Briefly stated, the Lunar Series notation expresses precisely which day (1-29) of a lunar phase cycle any particular date occupies in real time. A problem arises in this context, however, because the Classic Period Maya did not specify in any way now recognized which day of the lunar phase cycle was considered by them to be the first-day of the moon's actual real time age. In other words, while it is true that the Lunar Series clearly expresses the moon's age as being one particular number of days after the first-day of the cycle, the Lunar Series does not tell us on which day of the lunar cycle the count from 1 to 29 began. Thompson admits this in the first sentence of his discussion when he says that "[t]he point from which the moon age is counted is not surely known" (236).

He goes on from that point to assemble a number of pieces of evidence to support the notion that the first-day of the lunar cycle was most likely to have been perceived by Classic Period Maya astronomers as "disappearance of the old moon, conjunction [with the sun], or appearance of the new moon" (236). Thompson briefly reviews the history of the scholarship and points out that a number of contemporary Maya communities favor the beginning of the lunar cycle at new moon. He notes that this position is consistent with the evidence gathered by various Europeans at the beginning of the sixteenth century (to which statement I would add--in as much as any of them were interested in preserving such knowledge accurately). One must always remember that Bishop Landa, and others, worked to destroy native culture and pursued that goal with extreme prejudice and achieved considerable success.

Thompson also notes that only two scholars have ever favored a position other than new moon for the beginning of the Maya lunar phase cycle: Spinden and Ludendorff (236). He dismisses the possibility that the position could have been full moon, as both scholars argued, on the ground that "so far as is known, no American Indian group reckoned luminations from full moons" (236-237), a fact which would seem to preclude that possibility out of hand except for the fact that such determinations can only be taken to refer to naive American groups known to Europeans and not to ones who reckoned their luminations prior to the invasion of the Western hemisphere by practitioners of Eurocentric ideology. Thompson's argument, of course, is overdetermined by linguistic cause, as it were, because "new moon" by definition must occur at the beginning of the lunar cycle and not in the middle of it. Put simply: the European perception of lunar phase cycles has always been determined by the image of the triple goddess, virgin-mother-crone, and the possibility that a different view of the progression of the "feminine" life-cycle symbolized by the lunar cycle might exist elsewhere or elsewhen as a legitimate expression of reality is an idea simply impossible for most Europeans to accept.

An obvious fact here, and one which probably goes without saying, is that the correlation number I have proposed in these pages, and the one which I believe is valid, namely, Julian Day #563334 as the zero base-day of the Maya Long Count notation on April 29, 3171 B. C., does not pass Thompson's consistency test with a new moon set at the beginning of the Lunar Series' cycle of lunar phases. In fact, and perhaps regrettably, the correlation number that places every lunar and solar eclipse on the day-name structure the Mayas wrote for them in the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table fixes the beginning, or first-day, of the lunar phase cycle, as expressed by date in the Maya Lunar Series, on the day after full moon. This is regrettable because Spinden was accused, and probably justly so, of fabricating certain kinds of data to make it conform to his own correlation proposal. This circumstance so outraged Maya scholars at the time, and again justly so, that astronomy itself, as a means of comprehending Maya calendrical concepts, fell under suspicion as a technical apparatus that was meant by anyone who used it to generate and sustain false arguments in the cause of personal scholarly gain. In other words, anyone who said astronomy became Spinden. That attitude still persists in some quarters today and I can only fear that I will be so branded because I dare express the opinion that the day after full moon was the most likely first-day of the Maya lunar phase cycle.

Nevertheless, I also believe, but do not fear, that the factual "truth" will prevail.

In order to demonstrate the validity of correlation number 563334 in the context of the Maya Lunar Series notation, I will discuss only a single Maya inscriptional date because if you have a valid one you really have no reason to mention or discuss any others. This is true because the Mayas used a unified system in the Lunar Series (as Thompson points out) after a certain date, and since every Maya inscription is calculated from the same zero base-day, the position the correlation fixes for the first-day of the lunar cycle in the Lunar Series is necessarily consistent for every appearance of that linguistic clause in every inscription that was recorded after the point of the unification. The date I have selected for analysis is the widely recorded Katun-ending position expressed as 9.17.0.0.0 13 Ahau 18 Cumku. According to Thompson, two of its appearances with the Lunar Series, Quirigua E and Piedras Negras 13, which he characterizes as referring to the "completion of the moon" (240), and which he identifies as being expressions of the "disappearance of the moon or perhaps to conjunction" (240), as one would expect, and which he stipulates as being difficult to read clearly because of erosion, suggest that on that date (9.17.0.0.0 13 Ahau 18 Cumku) the lunar phase cycle reached its point of completion. I am perfectly willing to accept the idea that the lunar phase cycle did reach a completion point on 13 Ahau 18 Cumku but I reject Thompson's assumption that the position recorded was close to the moon's conjunction with the sun.

The data in the following table illustrates the reason I am drawn to argue that the completion of the Classic Period lunar cycle, as expressed by the Lunar Series, must necessarily be signified by the day after full moon:

What this demonstrates, of course, is that the 32nd triad-position of the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table, the first day of which falls 1,418,399 days after the zero base-day (Julian Day #1981733 - 563334 = 1,418,399), or the day before the Katun-ending date signified by 9.17.0.0.0. 13 Ahau 18 Cumku (1,418,400), captures a lunar eclipse on September 9, 713 A. D. precisely as it was counted by Maya astronomers during the Classic Period, and does so in every way specified by the Eclipse Table's structure from its proper base-day at 9.16.4.10.8 12 Lamat 1 Muan (Julian Day #1976182 on June 29, 698 A. D.). What this means, of course, is that the Maya both found and expressed a single LC notation that simultaneously recorded the end of a Katun (9.17.0.0.0) and the terminal position of the lunar phase cycle as it was recorded by the Lunar Series notation. It is no accident, furthermore, that the position recorded for that supremely significant conjunction between Calendar Round (13 Ahau 18 Cumku), LC notation (9.17.0.0.0), and Lunar Series, is also a formal triad position in the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table. That is Maya designer astronomy par excellence!

To borrow a phrase from Chaucer: "There is namoore to say."

A final note, however, would not be inappropriate in a purely calendrical sense. The first day of the lunar phase cycle, where 13 Ahau 18 Cumku terminates the 29-day sequence, shifts to the next day in the Maya Calendar Round, 1 Imix 19 Cumku, which combines the first day of the 260-day almanac and the final named day of the 365-day Haab, since the next day (9/12/713) seats the first of the five unnamed days of the Uayeb. That circumstance completes the calendrical connections one can associate with this astronomical complex since it involves significant positions in the 260-day almanac (first day), the 365-day Haab (last named day), the Calendar Round, the Long Count notation (Katun-end) with the last and first day of the lunar phase cycle as it was expressed by the Lunar Series inscription on a widely remarked date in the Maya calendrical system. The fact of its being a formal position in the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table, properly and accurately counted from the base-day of that Table, simply solidifies the probability that the day after a full moon was the terminal position in the lunar phase cycle recognized by Maya astronomers during the Classic Period. Stronger evidence than the kind offered by Thompson (et. al.) must be found and presented to obviate the fact that the correlation number used here to identify this astronomical complex also and simultaneously fixes every lunar and solar eclipse on the day-names the Maya recorded in the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table. The Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation, which identifies a position near new moon for the Lunar Series terminal point, does not accomplish that eclipse record in real time and therefore should probably be rejected.

To reach [Note 1]; [Note 2]; [Note 3]; [Note 4];[Note 5]; [Note 6]; [Note 7]; [Note 8]; [Note 9];[Note 10]; [Note 11]; [Note 12]; [Note 13]; [Note 14]; [Note 15]; [Note 16]; [Note 17]; [Note 18]; in this series of essays.

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