The Serpent Series: Precession in the Maya Dresden Codex Michael J
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Dedicated to Martha J. Macri -ii- The Serpent Series: Precession in the Maya Dresden Codex Michael J. Grofe, Ph.D. Table of Contents Acknowledgements iv Abstract vii Preface 1 Chapter I: Introduction 4 The Dresden Codex and Maya Astronomy 4 The Persistence of Colonial Interpretations 16 Astronomy and Astrology 19 Chapter II: Precession 30 The Nature of Precession 30 A Brief History of Precession 33 Astro-Mythology and pan-Babylonianism 37 Precession in Mesoamerica? 41 Chapter II Figures 50 Chapter III: The Serpent Series Introductory Distance Number: The Tropical Year and Solar Sidereal Precession 52 Maya Time Reckoning and the Serpent Series 53 The Serpent Series 56 A New Reading for the Serpent Series Introductory Inscription 60 Tropical Year Calculation in Classic Period Copán: the Second Solar Zenith 67 The Tropical Year and the Haab’ in the Serpent Series 74 A Note on Tzolk’in Base Days within the Serpent Series 78 The 9 K’an 12 K’ayab’ Base Date and the Summer Solstice 83 Precession in the Serpent Series 86 The 13 Mak Base Date 94 Precession and the 9 K’an 12 K’ayab’ date 97 Chapter III Figures 110 Chapter IV: The Lunar Calculations in the Serpent Series 123 The Lunar Pawahtuns 123 The Lunar Calculations 128 OCH as Subtraction 130 The B’ak’tun Component and the Lunar Winik Verb 132 The Components of Lunar Calculation 139 The Eclipse Half-Year 140 The Lunar Nodes and the Calculation of the Eclipse Year 152 The 1,820-day cycle 154 Glyph Y and the 1820-day cycle 160 The Supplementary Series in the Classic Period 161 Glyph G and the Lunar Nodes 163 Glyph G1 167 Glyphs G2 and G3 168 Glyph G4 169 Glyph G05 170 Glyph G6 172 Glyphs G7 and G8 174 Glyph F 175 Implications of the Lunar Calculations 178 Chapter IV Figures 180 Chapter V: Serpent Series Dates 202 The 819-day Count Verb 206 The Astronomical Significance of the Serpent Numbers 211 3 Ix as the Nodal Passage of the Sun 215 The Serpent Pairs and their Inscriptions 220 The First Serpent 220 The Second Serpent 226 The Third Serpent 228 The Fourth Serpent 231 The Ring Numbers 237 62E 241 62F 246 63A 247 63B 251 63C black 259 The Fifth Serpent and the Water Tables 261 The Upper and Lower Water Tables, Ring Numbers and Long Counts 265 70A top 269 70B top 270 70A bottom 272 70B bottom 273 70C 274 Implications of the Serpent Series Dates 280 Chapter V Figures 282 Chapter VI: Conclusion 328 References 338 Acknowledgements In the journey that has taken me to the completion of this dissertation, I have received immeasurable encouragement, support, and inspiration from my family, friends, mentors, and colleagues. To all of them I owe tremendous gratitude. It was my father, Jerrold Grofe, who first taught me about the stars, and to appreciate both the wonders of the natural world, and how to foster a sense of unending curiosity. My mother, Kathryn Steppacher, similarly taught me an appreciation of music, reading, and learning from books. She read stories to us from a very early age, and I remember my excitement when she would take us on our regular trips to the library. My grandmother, Jeanette Greenwood, opened up the world for me by keeping me supplied with the latest books from National Geographic, and her unfailing support and belief in me has been a great inspiration. To my brother, Robert Grofe, I owe my inspiration to be a writer, and I still have the very first book we wrote together on an electric typewriter when I was eight years old. All of my family have been a tremendous emotional and financial support throughout my experience in graduate school, and for that I am deeply grateful. My extended family includes my loved ones and friends, and their presence in my life has been a blessing. I am all too aware that the time I have taken in researching and writing this dissertation has come at the price of my absence from their lives for a time, and I look forward to the opportunity to see all of them more often. I am forever grateful to Richard Buggs for years of support and understanding, and for weathering through so much of this with -iv- me. Likewise, I am thankful to my friends Judy Alexander, Skye Bergen, Ben and Tahnee Burgess, Sara McClelland, Gregory Geiger, Dina Fachin, Jane Haladay, Damian Kellogg, Rocky and Amy Vogler, and Lisa Woodward for their ongoing companionship and support. In my academic life, I have been very fortunate to have Martha Macri as my major professor, my mentor, and my friend. Martha’s passion for learning, her prolific scholarship, and our shared mutual interests made my exploration of Maya hieroglyphic writing and astronomy possible. Through her perennial guidance, her support, and her genuine interest in my research, she has encouraged me to pursue my chosen career. I am deeply honored to have had the opportunity to be her student. Martha introduced me to her colleague Matthew Looper, and I have likewise enjoyed and benefited from Matthew’s wide-ranging knowledge and superior scholarship, and his valuable insights concerning this project. Furthermore, my work with Martha and Matthew on the construction of the Maya Hieroglyphic Database Project has allowed me to gain a valuable understanding of the hieroglyphic script, with rapid access to the corpus of Maya inscriptions. In his passion for teaching and intellectual pursuits, Stefano Varese has served as a model for me in my chosen career as a teacher and scholar. I am grateful for his belief in me, for valuing my work, and for offering me invaluable opportunities as a co-author and co-presenter in the Tercera Mesa Redonda de Monte Alban. Stefano has always been a source of positive encouragement and warm hearted support. -v- I would also like to thank Victor Montejo. Much of my initial experience in the Native American Studies doctoral program was influenced by the many conversations I had with Victor, which helped to shape some of my theoretical framework within the discipline of Maya Studies. I am grateful for his encouragement to explore this subject from a critical perspective, and for our ongoing dialogue about Maya knowledge. In the writing of this dissertation, I have received important feedback and encouragement from many of my esteemed colleagues, including Gerardo Aldana, Alonso Mendez, Carol Karasik, Ed Barnhardt, Christopher Powell, John Justeson, Anthony Aveni, Susan Milbrath, Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernandez. I look forward to continuing our collective discussions in the future. All images of the Dresden Codex used within this dissertation are taken from the online Förstemann version, made available on the FAMSI website. I am grateful to FAMSI for posting the Dresden Codex as a public resource. I would also like to thank Imaginova Canada, Ltd. for Starry Night Pro, Version 6.0.0 astronomical software. All of the astronomical simulations used in this dissertation were created using this elegant and invaluable program. Only through using Starry Night Pro was I able to visualize, reconstruct, and understand what Maya astronomers were capable of understanding using only their paint, bark paper, and hundreds of years of thoughtful observations. -vi- Michael John Grofe June, 2007 Native American Studies The Serpent Series: Precession in the Maya Dresden Codex Abstract The Postclassic Maya Dresden Codex contains extensive astronomical records in the form of calendrical and chronological intervals concerning multiple cycles of the sun, the moon, and several visible planets. Hermann Beyer (1943) first demonstrated that a sequence of unusually long intervals of time found within the Dresden Codex describe specific dates separated by intervals of over 30,000 years. Beyer first named this sequence the Serpent Series because its component numerals are written within the coils of undulating serpents. This dissertation project examines the Serpent Series in detail, beginning with a new interpretation of the initial repeated distance number on pages 61 and 69. This unique interval of more than 15,000 years is almost exactly a whole multiple of the sidereal year, returning the sun to precisely the same position against the background of stars, while the position in the tropical year shifts dramatically. Such an accurate calculation suggests that the Maya were observing and recording the precession of the equinoxes. Because it takes approximately seventy-one years for the annual sidereal position of the sun to shift by one day of precession, an accurate calculation of precession requires hundreds of years of recorded observations. The remainder of the dates in the Serpent Series strongly support this proposal, demonstrating not only repeating sidereal positions of the sun over tens of thousands of years, but also an extensive knowledge of lunar -vii- motion, eclipse cycles, and planetary cycles of Mars, Saturn, and Venus that are comparable to current measurements. Furthermore, the data contained within the Serpent Series can be used to reconstruct the means used by the Maya to calculate precession. Namely, Maya astronomers recorded their observations of the sidereal position of total lunar eclipses at fixed points within the tropical year. These observations can be compared to those of Hipparchus, who first recorded the precession of the equinoxes in ancient Greece. However, the values calculated for precession within the Serpent Series are far more accurate than those of their contemporaries, surpassed only by Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler in the late sixteenth century. -viii- 1 Preface This project began as an analysis of the cosmological inscriptions of Palenque, in which I found several examples of dates separated by thousands of years when the sun was in the exact same sidereal position, defined as the position of the sun against the background of stars.