Mesoamerican Archaeology

[Forum Monk]

Below is an image of the Sun Pyramid and the Avenue of the Dead. Using the location of the apex of the sun pyramid as a reference point and crunching some numbers I have found the following:
Latitude approx: 19* 41'
Ecliptic angle at epoch 200CE: 23.6698933
Azimuth of summer solstice -
SS Rise = 64.76*
SS Set = 295.24*

Azimuth of winter solstice -
WS Rise = 115.24*
WS Set = 244.76*

Since the pyramid north face is aligned to 15.5* the east face will point to azimuth 105.5 and the west to 285.5

The white lines on the image show the alignment angles of the pyramid and the yellow lines show the cardinal points and the azimuths of the solstice rise and set points. Clearly the pyramid is not aligned with the cardinal or solstice azimuths.

Based on my calculations, the east face of the pyramid will align with the rising sun on October 28 and the west face will align with the setting sun on August 12. (each plus or minus one day)

What conclusions can I draw? I need to know a lot more than I care to about Mayan cosmology and calendars in order to understand this odd alignment. As for the explanation of some of these topics I refer to you chapter 5 of the following link http://www.dartmouth.edu/~izapa/CS-MM-TC.htm written by Vincent H. Malmström -- Dartmouth College

If anyone is interested in the math, PM me and I will send you a spreadsheet detailing my calculations.

[Forum Monk]

According to some of what I have read from the archaeoastronomers, the important date which must have marked the new year was the date the sun was directly overhead. This was easy to verify when the length of the shadow of a vertical gnomon had zero length. At the above site this supposedly occured on August 13, 52 days after the summer solstice. (But it would also occur prior to the solstice as well).

The position of the setting sun on the day the sun was directly overhead is marked by the alignment of the west face of the pyramid. I personally have not confirmed the mathematics which places the zenith crossing on August 13. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

[War Arrow]

Fascinating stuff, FM. I've nothing to add, though it raises a curious and perhaps unrelated point. The Mexica ruler Cuauhtemoc surrendered to Cortes on 13th August 1521 (Julian calendar - 23rd august Gregorian) and it was noted that the remaining Mexica might have had a better time of it had they surrendered a few weeks earlier, given that defeat had long been obvious as inevitable. The reason for the delay is generally thought to be that they were holding out for a propitious day upon which they might surrender with the least unfortunate outcome in terms of fate and the divinatory calendar - thus they waited for Ce Coatl (The day 1-Serpent) before throwing in the towel.
Hmmm. I've just realised your 13th August is very probably Gregorian, thus rendering this post somewhat superfluous. Damn.
Sorry about that. Please continue. I'm just thinking aloud here...

[Forum Monk]

Yes, you are correct. I used the Mar 21 gregorian equinox date for familiarity even though the ecliptic calculation works in the Julian system which is mathematically simpler and used in virtually all astronomical calculations.

*sigh*

I have enough trouble keeping Julian and Gregorian conversion correct. Why further confuse myself with mayan calendars.

One interesting fact If the mayan calendar was synchronized by zenith crossings (pure speculation on my part as I have not studied it), such a system is only possible within the narrow band between the tropics of cancer and capricorn. Therefore the system could not have been introduced from another part of the world which existed outside of that zone. So they didn't learn it from the egyptians for example, they must of figured it out on their own. (or from sun worshipping aliens )

[kbs2244]

Come on, Monk! Why would aliens worship our sun?

But what about some calendar history from India?
Isn't there evidence of India/Mesoamerica contact?

Is there any similarity between the alignment of things in India and Mesoamerica? Either building or timekeeping?

[War Arrow]

Yes, you are correct. I used the Mar 21 gregorian equinox date for familiarity even though the ecliptic calculation works in the Julian system which is mathematically simpler and used in virtually all astronomical calculations.

*sigh*

I have enough trouble keeping Julian and Gregorian conversion correct. Why further confuse myself with mayan calendars.

One interesting fact If the mayan calendar was synchronized by zenith crossings (pure speculation on my part as I have not studied it), such a system is only possible within the narrow band between the tropics of cancer and capricorn. Therefore the system could not have been introduced from another part of the world which existed outside of that zone. So they didn't learn it from the egyptians for example, they must of figured it out on their own. (or from sun worshipping aliens )

To be honest, my own brain is presently fried from reading this hardcore text on the Mexica calendar (Feather Crown by Gordon Brotherston) and comparing it with a calendar wheel I've made (hard bloody work I can tell you) so, at present, I don't even understand my own trousers let alone your last paragraph (or at least the why of it) but if correct, it very much sounds like a point worth remembering, so well done. As an aside, it's the zenith* that's giving me trouble with my own calendrical mucking about. Gordon Brotherston's "TTTM Correlation" (named after four different native texts in which the same bit of information appears) links the Autumn equinox to the first day of the Teotleco festival. Given that the Mexica were pretty keen on timekeeping this presents grey areas elsewhere. Teotleco is the first of the nine twenty day winter festivals, and the spring equinox will fall on the first of the nine twenty day summer festivals but only if you include the five day Nemontemi period amongst the summer months. Furthermore, the winter solstice falls at the exact halfway point of the winter festival cycle, again providing Nemontemi is assigned to the summer group. Different accounts place Nemontemi at different times (regional variations I suspect) but all fall before the spring equinox. The problems seem to be that there is no record of Nemontemi occuring at the point of the cycle where it would make the most sense, bringing other points of the calendar into line with what's going on in the heavens, AND whatever you do, the summer solstice remains on an otherwise unremarkable date, drifting back and forth in the fifth of the nine summer festival periods - this seems to me the most unlikely part of it. Surely the summer solstice would be the most important part of the calendar?.
Sorry if that sounds like gobbledegook but that's what my head is full of at the moment.
Anyway, if it's of any use, thus far it would seem that Mexica time hinged upon the autumn equinox, for what that's worth. Though I could be wrong. In fact I could be completely wrong.

I really should start working on that time machine.

* = edit: sorry, no it isn't. It's the solstice. Uggghhhh........

[Beagle]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/trav ... d4337.html

TAMUIN, Mexico — Deep in the Huastec jungle the enormous carved stone monolith stands, suspended over the pool of water where a team of archaeologists discovered it. A powerful woman stands at the center of the carving, flanked by two smaller decapitated women. A stream of liquid flows from the headless women toward the woman in the center.

The discovery was especially surprising given that the Huastec people were thought to be a relatively recent culture. Now archaeologists are wondering whether the Huastecs — or their predecessors, the Proto-Huastecs — might have played a bigger role in the development of Mesoamerica than previously thought. It has also raised questions about whether the Olmecs might have had an influence in the region, since there are cultural similarities, or whether there might have been a third group of people, the so-called Mother Culture, that dominated the area first.

From Archaeologica News.

[War Arrow]

That article was a bit of a let down. Huastec culture is deserving of far more than the scanty investigation that time and money has afforded it thus far, but a lot of the other stuff there is either wrong or (I thought) common knowledge that's been in even the mainstream textbooks for several decades. The preponderance of the number 13 in Mesoamerican culture is no big deal - in fact it's been pretty hard to miss. Likewise images of warrior women (specifically the Cihuateteo) are nothing new, indeed it's long been believed that the related Goddess Tlazolteotl derives from the Huastec region. Language streams (of which I first read in a book published in 1968) have shown that it's fairly likely that Huastec culture is at least as old as the Zapotec. And the suggestion that at last they have found a calendar dating to before the oldest known one - that of the Mexica in 1400, doesn't even deserve a response.
Would have been nice to see some photos though.

KB - you can probably guess what I'm going to say, but here it is anyway. There was a lot of support for an Indian influence theory during the early 20th century, and one Donald A. MacKenzie wrote a book on this which, unfortunately for the author's case, tended to rely on either coincidental parallels (In myths and so on) or superficial resemblance of certain sculptural objects. For example, his "smoking gun" seems to have been Mayan "elephants" carved upon certain buildings - except the "elephants" turned out to be depictions of Chac (or Tlaloc) the Rain God characterised by his mask formed from coiling serpents, one of which was, in this case, taken for a trunk. Even though that sort of thing has kind of had its day, I guess the idea persists. I don't buy it myself, though if there's any evidence to be had at all, I doubt it would be amongst the examples cited by MacKenzie.

[kbs2244]

I will have to dig to find the photo, but there is a Hindu temple in India with one of the goddess statues holding an ear of maize.
Pretty old temple. Long before Europeans were crossing the Pacific and mixing up the flora and fauna.

[Cognito]

KB, the maize photos may be found here:

http://geography.uoregon.edu/carljohann ... earch.html

[kbs2244]

Thanks Cognito,
But if the temples date to the 1200's and 1300's that is way to late for any kind of India influence in the creation of the Mesoamerica calendar, isn't it?

[Forum Monk]

I'm sure Ishtar would have some comments about Vedic influence on the Mesoamerican calendars, that is if there is influence. She drops in from time to time.

[War Arrow]

Mary Ellen Miller, The Art of Mesoamerica - From Olmec to Aztec (Thames & Hudson, 1996) page 39:

The 260-day cycle is the oldest and most important calendar in Mesoamerica. Stone monuments in Oaxaca indicate its use as early as the sixth century BC when Zapotecs began to chart achievements publicly, and it is still employed in Guatemala today for ritual divining.

Yup. Pretty old.

[Forum Monk]

Well W/A, I did a quick search on the 260-day calendar origins and realized in short order, after you discard copious numbers of pseudo-science, end-of-the-world myticism, ufologist and astrology resources, there is NO acceptable understanding of the basis for the 260 days. Just speculation by the serious researchers who ponder these things.

I was really hoping you, as the mesoam. expert would simply state "yeah they use such and such, based on this and that", and hopefully I could understand and relate it to astronomical phenomena. Guess that's not going happen, eh?

[War Arrow]

Well W/A, I did a quick search on the 260-day calendar origins and realized in short order, after you discard copious numbers of pseudo-science, end-of-the-world myticism, ufologist and astrology resources, there is NO acceptable understanding of the basis for the 260 days. Just speculation by the serious researchers who ponder these things.

I was really hoping you, as the mesoam. expert would simply state "yeah they use such and such, based on this and that", and hopefully I could understand and relate it to astronomical phenomena. Guess that's not going happen, eh?

Er... no. And I've never referred to myself as an expert except in jest, hoping that others will then kindly suggest I shouldn't put myself down, because I am an expert really. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge the 260 day cycle has never been linked to any astronomical phenomena. Generally it's thought to somehow reflect the 9 months (or lunar cycles) of human gestation - that is as in it reflects the duration of the time period (roughly) without actually being formaly synchronised to the moon. There's related concepts to support this (9 layers to the underworld, the earth as a womb and so on) but I imagine you may already have come across that. However, the timing of the 260 day cycle is dictated by the 365 day cycle in that the year is named after the day in the 260 day count which falls on a certain day in the 365 day cycle. So far as I'm presently able to tell, that day is the last (that is the 20th) of the 18 twenty day festival periods of the 365 day calendar, which are themselves hinged upon the equinoxes, so it seems. So in other words, the 260 days are tied to the heavens only by virtue of being tied into a cycle which is itself tied to the solar year.

Sorry. I've been at this all day and it feels like I've had a full frontal lobotomy. Today's session has, for example, thrown up questions of this nature:

Page 10 - I find myself slightly confused about the date of Cuauhtemoc's surrender, which I have always understood to be 13th August (Gregorian) - whilst this date makes more sense for a number of reasons, if accurate it implies that surviving records have all more or less compensated for the 1583 shift from Julian to Gregorian time, and earlier records would have given the date as 3rd August (F1.7.20.), yet St. Hippolytus Day remains fixed on the 13th in both Julian and Gregorian calendars. So if St. Hippolytus Day, 1521 (and thus F1.7.20) was really 3rd August in Gregorian terms, why does it throw the Gregorian version of the TTTM correlation out of sync with the autumn equinox date of F2.1.1. and winter solstice of F2.5.11? Yet if the date of surrender was, as some claim, not F1.7.20 but F1.8.10 (13th August Julian) this conforms the rest of the year to TTTM. Frankly, I'm confused.

Jesus.
Anyway, I've come back here 'cause I'm taking a break, but also because I came across another quote that may possibly be of residual interest. Brotherston quotes M. Edmondson The Book of Counsel: the Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala (1971):

...the calculation of the solar (tropical) year by the astronomers of Kaminaljuyu of 433 BCE was identical to the fourth decimal place with the corresponding calculations of modern astronomy. the era of 29 calendar rounds 91,508 years) completes 1,507 tropical years of 365.2422 days each...

In other words, they were pretty hot on observing the heavens. I was a bit surprised at the date but according to George Kubler there are signs of life at Kaminaljuyu dating back to the second millennium BCE. Actually, I'm not sure if that really adds anything at all, but there you go anyway.