Chapter II THE MAYAN CIVILIZATION |
The wonderful culture of the Mayan Indians to which we will now turn our attention was developed in the humid lowlands of Central America and especially in the Yucatan Peninsula. Artists are everywhere of the opinion that the sculptures and other products of the Mayas deserve to rank among the highest art products of the world, and astronomers are amazed at the progress made by this people in the measuring of time by the observed movements of the heavenly bodies. Moreover, they invented a remarkable system of hieroglyphic writing by which they were able to record facts and events and they built great cities of stone that attest a degree of wealth and splendor beyond anything seen elsewhere in the New World. The Mayan culture was made possible by the agricultural conquest of the rich lowlands where the exuberance of nature can only be held in check by organized effort. On the highlands the preparation of the land is comparatively easy, owing to scanty natural vegetation and a control vested in irrigation. On the lowlands, however, great trees have to be felled and fast-growing bushes kept down by untiring energy. But when nature is truly tamed she returns recompense many fold to the daring farmer. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the removal of the forest cover over large areas affects favorably the conditions of life which under a canopy of leaves are hard indeed. Plate XIV. Photographs by Peabody Museum Expedition. (a) View of the Plaza at Copan from the Northwestern Corner. This view shows the monuments in position and the steps which may have served as seats. (b) View Across the Artificial Acropolis at Copan. A sunken court is shown and the bases of two temple structures of the Sixth Century. The principal crops of the Mayas were probably much the same as on the highlands, with maize as the great staple. Varieties favorable to a humid environment had doubtless been developed from the highland stock by selective breeding as agriculture worked its way down into the lowlands. Archaic art appears along the edges of the Mayan Area in the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, and in the Uloa Valley, Honduras. In both these regions are also found clay figurines that mark the transition in style between the archaic and the Mayan, as well as finished examples of the latter. There can be no doubt, then, that the archaic art of Mexico marks an earlier horizon than the Mayan. Whether or not it was once laid entirely across the Mayan Area cannot be decided on present data but it seems unlikely. We have already seen that this first art was distributed primarily across arid and open territory. With their calendarial system already in working order the Mayas appear on the threshold of history 600 years before the Christian Era, according to a correlation with European chronology that will be explained later. The first great cities were Tikal in northern Guatemala and Copan in western Honduras, both of which had a long and glorious existence. Many others sprang into prominence at a somewhat later date; for example, Palenque, Yaxchilan or MenchÉ, Piedras Negras, Seibal, Naranjo, and Quirigua. The most brilliant period was from 300 to 600 A. D., after which all these cities appear to have been abandoned to the forest that soon closed over them. The population moved to northern Yucatan, where it no longer reacted strongly upon the other nations of Central America and where it enjoyed a second period of brilliancy several hundred years later. Plate XV. (a) Model of the Temple of the Cross, Palenque, designed to show the Construction. The building has three entrances separated by piers. The middle partition is thickened to support the weight of the roof comb which is a trellis for stucco decoration. The sanctuary is a miniature temple in the inner chamber. The walls are built of slabs of limestone set in lime cement. (b) Detail of Frieze on the Temple of the Cross. The upper band is the sky with stars and planets. A reptilian monster occupies the main panel with human figures as supplementary decorations upon his legs. The Temple of the Cross represents the highest achievement of the First Empire architects, Fifth Century after Christ. Fig. 20. Groundplans of Yaxchilan Temples: Architecture. The idea of a civic center is admirably illustrated in Mayan cities, particularly those of the first brilliant period. The principal structures are built around courts or plazas and there is usually an artificial acropolis which is a great terraced mound serving as a common base or platform from which the individual pyramidal bases of several temples rise. At some sites this acropolis is a natural hill which has been trimmed down or added to, but at other sites it is entirely artificial. At Copan there is an especially fine example of artificial platform mound rising from one end of the Great Plaza and affording space for several temples, as well as for sunken courts with stepped sides that may have been theatres. The river washing against one side of this great mound has removed perhaps a third of it and made a vertical section that shows the method of construction. It is apparent that the mound was enlarged and old walls and floors buried. Fig. 21. Cross-section of Typical Mayan Temple in Northern Yucatan: a, upper cornice; b, medial cornice; c, upper zone; d, lower zone; e, wooden lintels; f, exterior doorway; g, interior doorway; h, offset at spring of vault; i, cap stone. Mayan buildings are of two principal kinds. One is a temple pure and simple and the other has been called a palace. The temple is a rectangular structure crowning a rather high pyramid that rises in several steps or terraces. As a rule the temple has a single front with one or more doorways and is approached by a broad stairway. The pyramid is ordinarily a solid mass of rubble and earth faced with cement or cut stone and rarely contains compartments. Some temples have but a single chamber while others have two or more chambers, the central or innermost one being specially developed into a sanctuary. The so-called palaces are clusters of rooms on low and often irregular platforms. These palaces may have been habitations of the priests and nobility. The common people doubtless lived in palm-thatched huts similar to those used today in the same region. The typical Mayan construction is a faced concrete. The limestone, which abounds in nearly all parts of the Mayan Area, was burned into lime. This was then slaked to make mortar and applied to a mass of broken limestone. The facing stones were smoothed on the outside and left rough hewn and pointed on the inside. It is likely that these facing stones were held in place between forms and the lime, mortar, and rubble filled in between. The resulting wall was essentially monolithic. The rooms of Mayan buildings are characteristically vaulted but the roof is not a true arch with a keystone. The vault, like the walls, is a solid mass of concrete that grips the cut stone veneer and that must have been held in place by a false work form while it was hardening. The so-called corbelled arch of overstepping stones was doubtless known to the Mayan builders but was little used. Taking the single rectangular room as the unit of construction the width was limited to the span of the vault, which seldom exceeded twelve feet, while the length was indeterminate. Plate XVI. A Temple at Hochob showing Elaborate FaÇade Decorations in Stucco. Probably ninth century. The design over the door represents a grotesque front view face of which the eyes can still be plainly made out. At either side of the door the design represents a serpent head in profile. Photograph by Maler. The first variation from the temple with one rectangular room was the two-roomed structure with one chamber directly behind the other. In this case there were two vaulted compartments separated from each other by a common supporting wall pierced by one or more doorways. The inner room was naturally more dimly lighted than the other one and as a result was modified into a sanctuary, or holy of holies, enhanced by sculptures and paintings, while the outer room developed gradually into a portico. The outer wall was cut by doorways till only pier-like sections remained, and finally these piers were replaced by square or round columns. The development of the Mayan temple may be traced through a thousand years of change and adjustment. Much attention was paid by Mayan builders to the question of stability which was accomplished directly by keeping the center of gravity of the principal masses within the supporting walls rather than by the use of binding stones. The cross-section of a two-roomed temple of late date will illustrate how this was done. There are three principal masses, one over the front wall, one over the medial partition, and one over the back wall. The roof where these sections join is of no great thickness. The central mass is symmetrical and, if the mortar has the proper cohesiveness, very stable. For the front and back masses the projection of the upper or frieze zone tends to counterbalance the overhang of half the vault. In the earlier temples the upper zone of the faÇade often slopes backward so that the balance is not so perfect. Plate XVII. A Sealed Portal Vault in the House of the Governor at Uxmal, a Building of the Second Empire, probably Thirteenth Century. The veneer character of the cut stone comes out clearly. Peabody Museum photograph. So far we have given brief space to the question of elevations. Taken vertically there are three parts to the Mayan building: first, the substructure or pyramidal base; second, the structure proper; third, the superstructure. In the case of temples the structure proper is one story in height. Two and three stories are rather common in palaces, but the upper stories are in most cases built directly over a solid core and not over the rooms of the lower story. The upper stories, therefore, recede, so that the building presents a terraced or pyramidal profile. One building at Tikal is five stories in height, in three receding planes, the three uppermost stories being one above the other. In a tower at Palenque we have an example of four stories but this is unusual. On top of the building proper, especially if it is a temple, we frequently find a superstructure. This is a sort of crest, or roof wall, usually pierced by windows. When this wall rises from the center line of the roof it is called a roof comb or roof crest, and when it rises from the front wall it is called a flying faÇade. The highest temples in the Mayan Area are those of Tikal that attain a total height of about 175 feet, counting pyramid and superstructure. Massive Sculptural Art. The decoration of Mayan buildings may be considered under three heads: first, interior decoration; second, faÇade decoration; third, supplementary monuments. In many temples at Yaxchilan, Tikal, etc., are found splendidly sculptured lintels of stone or wood. At Copan we see wall sculptures that adorn the entrance to the sanctuary and at Palenque finely sculptured tablets let into the rear wall of the sanctuary. Elsewhere are occasional examples of mural paintings, sculptured door jambs, decorated interior steps, etc. The faÇade decorations of the earlier Mayan structures are freer and more realistic than those of the later buildings. In many cases they consist of figures of men, serpents, etc., modeled in stucco or built up out of several nicely fitted blocks of stone. Grotesque faces also occur. In the later styles, decoration consists largely of “mask panels,” which are grotesque front view faces arranged to fill rectangular panels, but there is an increasing amount of purely geometric ornament. The masked panels represent in most instances a highly elaborated serpent’s face which sometimes carries the special markings of one of the greater gods. These panels, considered historically, pass through some interesting developments. Angular representations of serpent heads in profile are sometimes used at the sides of doorways. Fig. 22. Mask Panel over Doorway at Xkichmook. Yucatan. The supplementary monuments are stelÆ and altars. These are monolithic sculptures that are often set up in definite relation to a building either on the terraces or at the foot of the stairway. The stelÆ are great plinths or slabs of stone carved on one or more sides with the figures of priests and warriors loaded down with religious symbols. The altars are small stones usually placed in front of the stelÆ. Many stelÆ and altars are set up in plazas and have no definite architectural quality. Plate XVIII. (a) Realistic Designs on Vases from ChamÁ, Guatemala, representing the Best Mayan Period in Pottery. (b) The Quetzal as represented on a Painted Cylindrical Vase from Copan. Bands of hieroglyphs are commonly found on Mayan Pottery. Fig. 23. Design on Engraved Pot representing a Tiger seated in a Wreath of Water Lilies. Northern Yucatan. Fig. 24. Painted Design on Cylindrical Bowl showing Serpent issuing from a Shell. Salvador. Minor Arts. While the richly ornamented temples and the great monoliths attract first attention as works of art, the humbler products of the potter, the weaver, and the lapidary also attained to grace and dignity. The Mayas were expert potters and employed a variety of technical processes in the decoration of their wares, such as painting, modeling, engraving, and stamping. We can only take time to examine a few examples of the best works, leaving the commoner products practically undescribed. Suffice it to say, that tripod dishes were much used, as well as bowls, bottle-necked vessels, and cylindrical vases, and that the common decorative use of hieroglyphs serves to mark off Mayan pottery from that of other Central American peoples. The realistic designs are drawn in accordance with the highest principles of decorative art. Serpents, monkeys, jaguars, various birds, as well as priests and supernatural beings, are used as subjects for pottery embellishment. Geometric decoration is also much used. The polychrome pottery is rare and exceptionally beautiful, with designs relating to religious subjects. The background color of these cylindrical vases is usually orange or yellow, the designs are outlined in black, and the details filled in with delicate washes of red, brown, white, etc. The surface bears a high polish made by rubbing. Plate XVIII reproduces the design units on two vases from ChamÁ, Guatemala. The first example pictures a seated man with a widespreading headdress made of two conventional serpent heads from the ends of which issue the plumes of the quetzal. The hieroglyphs are Mayan day signs—Ben and Imix on the left and Kan and Caban on the right. The second example presents a god before an altar. This god has the face of an old man and his body is attached to a spiral shell. This divinity was probably associated with the end of the year. Fig. 25. Mayan Basket represented in Stone Sculpture. In the next illustration an engraved design on a bowl from northern Yucatan is given. A jaguar attired in the dress of man is seated in a wreath of water lilies. After the vessel had been formed, but before it had been fired, this design was made by cutting away the background and incising finer details on the original surfaces. Other designs in relief were obtained by direct modeling or by stamping. The stamps were moulds or negatives made from bas-relief patterns. The textile arts of the ancient Mayas can be recovered in part from a study of the monuments since the designs on many garments are reproduced in delicate relief. The designs are mostly all-over geometric patterns, but borders reproducing the typical “celestial band,” a line of astronomical symbols, are also seen. The techniques of brocade and lace were understood by the ancient weavers. In the minor textile art of basketry the products must also have ranked high; a typical basket pictured on a lintel is given in Fig. 25. Jade and other semi-precious stones were carved by the Mayas into beautiful and fantastic shapes. There was a considerable use of mosaic veneer on masks and other ceremonial objects. Metal was unknown during the first centuries of Mayan florescence, later it was rare and could not be used for tools, but the working of gold and copper in the manufacture of ornaments was on a high plane. Having now passed in brief review the objective side of Mayan remains, let us turn our attention to the subjective. The Serpent in Mayan Art. Mayan art is strange and unintelligible at first sight, but after careful study many wonderful qualities appear in it. In the knowledge of foreshortening and composition, the Mayas were superior to the Egyptians and Assyrians. They could draw the human body in pure profile and in free and graceful attitudes and they could compose several figures in a rectangular panel so that the result satisfies the eye of a modern artist. But, unfortunately for our fuller understanding, the human form had only a minor interest because the gods were not in the image of man and the art was essentially religious. The gods were at best half human and half animal with grotesque elaborations. The high esthetic qualities were therefore wasted on subjects that appear trivial to many of us. But, as we break away more and more from the shackles of our own artistic conventions, we shall be able to appreciate the many beauties of ancient American sculpture. Fig. 26. Typical Elaborated Serpents of the Mayas. The serpent with a human head in its mouth is from Yaxchilan. In this example the writhing movements of the serpent’s tail are probably intended by the added scrolls. The plumed serpent is from Chichen Itza. The serpent motive controlled the character of Mayan art and was of first importance in all subsequent arts in Central America and Mexico. The serpent was seldom represented realistically, and yet we may safely infer that the rattlesnake was the prevailing model. Parts of other creatures were added to the serpent’s body, such as the plumes of the trogon or quetzal, the teeth of the jaguar, and the ornaments of man. The serpent was idealized and the lines characteristic of it entered into the delineation of many subjects distinct from the serpent itself. Scrolls and other sinuous details were attached to the serpent’s body and human ornaments such as earplugs, noseplugs, and even headdresses were added to its head. Finally, a human head was placed in the distended jaws. The Mayas may have intended to express the essential human intelligence of the serpent in this fashion. The serpent with a human head in its mouth doubtless belongs in the same category as the partly humanized gods of Egypt, Assyria, and India. It illustrates the partial assumption of human form by a beast divinity. The features combined are so peculiar and unnatural that the influence of Mayan art can be traced far and wide through Central America and Mexico by comparative study of the serpent motive. Fig. 27. Conventional Serpent of the Mayas used for Decorative Purposes: a, body; b, ventral scale; c, dorsal scale; d, nose; e, noseplug; f, incisor tooth; g, molar tooth; h, jaw; i, eye; j, supraorbital plate; k, earplug; l, ear pendant; m, curled fang; n, tongue; o, lower jaw; p, beard; q, incisor tooth. Fig. 28. Upper Part of Serpent Head made into a Fret Ornament: a, Ixkun; b, Quirigua; c, d, g, Copan; e, Naranjo; f, Seibal. A typical serpent head in profile (with the human head omitted) as developed by the Mayas for decorative purposes is reproduced in Fig. 27 with the parts lettered and named. It will be noted that the lines of interest in this design are either vertical or horizontal, although the parts themselves have sinuous outlines. Two features of the typical serpent’s body enter widely into the enrichment of all kinds of subjects. One of these is the double outline which is derived from the line paralleling the base of the serpent’s body and serving to mark off the belly region. The second feature is the small circle applied in bead-like rows to represent scales. The profile serpent head is also seen in scrolls and frets that elaborate many details of dress worn by the human beings carved on the monuments. The front view of the serpent’s head is usually extended to fill an oblong panel and is often used to decorate the base of a monument or the faÇade of a building. There are several monsters closely connected with the serpent that will be discussed as the description proceeds. The Human Figure. The human beings pictured on Mayan monuments are captives, rulers, and priests or worshippers. The captives are poor groveling creatures, bound by rope, held by the hair or crushed under foot to fill a rectangular space over which the conqueror stands. The rulers and priests are hard to distinguish from each other, perhaps because the government was largely theocratic and the ruler was looked upon as the spokesman of divinity. The spear and shield of war served to mark off certain human beings from others who carry religious objects such as the Ceremonial Bar and the Manikin Scepter. Fig. 29. Sculpture on Front of Lintel at Yaxchilan showing Man holding Two-Headed Serpent with a Grotesque God’s Head in each of its Mouths. Elaborate thrones on several monuments are canopied over by the arched body of the Two-headed Dragon that bears symbols of the planets. Over all is seen the great Serpent Bird with outstretched wings. Upon the throne is seated a human being who may safely be called a king and a line of footprints on the front of the throne may symbolize ascent. On other monuments the commanding personage wears the mask of a god and wields a club to subdue or scatters grain to placate. On the great majority of monuments the human beings, richly attired in ceremonial regalia and carrying a variety of objects, possibly present the great warriors and priests of the day. Many of the early sculptures are stiff and formal, but in a number of instances the quality of actual portraiture is convincing. Fig. 30. Types of Human Heads on the Lintels of Yaxchilan. Design, Composition, and Perspective. It is difficult to compare directly the graphic and plastic arts of different nations where the subject matter is diverse unless we compare them in accordance with absolute principles of design, composition, and perspective drawing. The Mayas produced one of the few really great and coherent expressions of beauty so far given to the world and their influence in America was historically as important as was that of the Greeks in Europe. Set as we are in the matrix of our own religious and artistic conventions, we find it difficult to approach sympathetically beauty that is overcast with an incomprehensible religion. When we can bring ourselves to feel the serpent symbolism of the Mayan artists as we feel, for instance, the conventional halo that crowns the ideal head of Christ, then we shall be able to recognize the truly emotional qualities of Mayan sculptures. Fig. 31. Sculpture on Upper Part of Stela 11, Seibal. The man wears an inlaid mask, an elaborate headdress, and a collar of shell and jade. Plate XIX. Stela 13, Piedras Negras. This shattered monument is one of the finest examples of Mayan sculpture, showing a fine sense of composition and a considerable knowledge of perspective. Dated March 27, 511 A. D. It is generally recognized that design to be successful must contain order of various sorts (in measurements, shapes, directions, tones, colors, etc.). In the simpler forms of decorative art the restrictions of technical process, as in basketry, may impose order, but in freehand sculpture it must come from an educated sense of beauty involving selection and the reproduction of the finest qualities. Design at its highest is embodied in the Mayan hieroglyphs. Given spaces had to be filled with given symbols and the results attained were uniformly excellent. Although the influence of the serpent led to the great use of tapering flame-like masses in nearly all Mayan designs, still dominant vertical and horizontal lines of interest were maintained. The panel and lintel sculptures show composition achieved by simple and subtle methods. The sweeping plumes of headdresses were skilfully used to fill in corners, while blocks of glyphs were placed in open spaces that might otherwise distract the attention. Many compositions appear overcrowded to us, but this fault decreases with knowledge of the subject matter. Also, the Mayas appear to have painted their sculptures so that the details were emphasized by color contrast. In perspective as applied to the human figure the Mayas were far ahead of the Egyptians and Assyrians, since they could draw the body in front view and pure profile without the distortions seen in the Old World. They were even able to make graceful approximations of a three-quarters view, as may be seen in Plate XIX, where the raising of the nearer shoulder has a distinct perspective value. Fig. 32. The Ceremonial Bar. A Two-Headed Serpent held in the Arms of Human Beings on StelÆ: a, Stela P, Copan; b, Stela N, Copan. The Mayan Pantheon. We have seen that during the earliest culture of Mexico and Central America there were no figurines of individualized gods, simply straightforward representations of human beings and animals. With the Mayan culture, however, we enter upon an epoch of rich religious symbolism. The serpent, highly conventionalized as we have just seen, and variously combined with elements taken from the quetzal, the jaguar, and even from man himself, appears as a general indication of divinity. The Ceremonial Bar, essentially a two-headed serpent carrying in its mouths the heads of an important god, is one of the earliest religious objects. The heads that appear in the mouths are usually those of a Roman-nosed or of a Long-nosed god. Other representations of divinities are combined with the Two-headed Dragon that also has reptilian characters; still others appear as headdresses and masks on human figures. Strange to say, the gods are supplementary to the human figures on all the early sculptures. In the codices, however, they are represented apart from man, as engaged in various activities and contests. Mayan religion was clearly organized on a dualistic basis. The powers for good are in a constant struggle with the powers for evil and most of the benevolent divinities have malevolent duplicates. In actual form the gods are partly human, but ordinarily the determining features are grotesque variations from the human face and figure. While beast associations are sometimes discernible, they are rarely controlling. Sometimes, however, beast gods are represented in unmistakable fashion, good examples being the jaguar, the bat, and the moan bird. All of these have human bodies and animal heads. Fig. 33. The Manikin Scepter, a Grotesque Figure with one Leg modified into a Serpent. The head position in the Mayan pantheon may with some assurance be given to a god who has been called the Roman-nosed god and who is probably to be identified with Itzamna. According to Spanish writers Itzamna was regarded by the Mayas as the creator and father of all, the inventor of writing, the founder of the Mayan civilization, and the god of light and life. This Zeus of the Mayas is represented in the form of an old man with a high forehead, a strongly aquiline nose, and a distended mouth, toothless, or with a single enlarged tooth in front. On the ancient monuments he is frequently seen in the mouths of the Ceremonial Bar and also in association with the sun, moon, and the planet Venus. In the codices he is shown as a protector of the Maize God and in other acts beneficial to man. There is, however, a malevolent aspect of this god or possibly another being who imitates his features but not his qualities. This being may be an old woman goddess who wears a serpent headdress and who is associated with destructive floods, the very opposite of life-giving sunshine. Of almost equal importance to the Roman-nosed god is a god whose face is a more or less humanized serpent. His proper name is Ah Bolon Dzacab. Fig. 34. The Two-Headed Dragon, a Monster that passes through many Forms in Mayan Sculpture. It apparently symbolizes calamities at inferior conjunction of Venus and the Sun. Copan. On the early monuments this god is shown in connection with the Ceremonial Bar. He also appears at a somewhat later date as the Manikin Scepter, an object in the form of a manikin that is held out by a leg modified into a serpent’s body. Since a celt is usually worn in the forehead of the manikin it has been suggested that this curious object represents a ceremonial battle-ax. The face of the Long-nosed god is frequently worn by high priests and rulers either as a headdress or, more rarely, as a mask. It is possible that this divinity was regarded as primarily a war god but in the codices he is evidently a universal deity of varied powers. Especially he is shown in connection with water and maize and it seems likely that his principal function was to cause life-giving rain. A malevolent variant of the Long-nosed god has a bare bone for the lower jaw, a sun symbol on his forehead, and a headdress consisting of three other symbols. This head is associated with the Two-headed Dragon, a monster which brings calamity at times of the inferior conjunction of Venus and the Sun. Fig. 35. Gods in the Dresden Codex: God B, the Long-Nosed God of Rain; God A, the Death God; God G, the Sun God. Ah Puch, the Lord of Death, was the principal malevolent god. His body as figured in the codices is a strange compound of skeletal and full-fleshed parts. His head is a skull except for the normal ears. His spinal column is usually bare and sometimes the ribs as well, but the arms and legs are often covered with flesh. As added symbols black spots and dotted lines are sometimes drawn upon his body and a curious device like a percentage sign upon his cheek. The Death God in complete form is rarely shown in the earlier sculptures, although grinning skulls and interlacing bones occur as temple decorations. As has already been pointed out, Mayan religion was strongly dualistic and the evil powers are usually to be identified by death symbols such as a bare bone for the lower jaw, or the percentage symbol noted above on the cheek. Death heads of several kinds are frequent in the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Plate XX. (a) Top of Stela 1 at Yaxchilan, dealing with the Heavens. The Sky God is seen in the center with the moon at the left and the sun at the right. Below these is the Two-Headed Dragon bearing planet signs and additional heads of the Sky God. (b) Analogous Detail of Stela 4, Yaxchilan. The moon is at the right and the sun at the left. The figure in the sun is male and that in the moon, female. The faces of the Sky God hang from the lower part of the Two-Headed Dragon, being attached to it by symbols of the planet Venus. The Maize God, figured so frequently on the ancient monuments and in the Mayan codices may be the same that in the time of the Conquest was called Yum Kaax, Lord of the Harvest. He is represented as a youth with a leafy headdress that is possibly meant to represent an opening ear of maize. The kan sign, a grain of maize, is constantly associated with him. He appears to be at the mercy of the evil deities when not protected by the good ones. Space considerations forbid a further study of Mayan gods. Suffice it to say that several other divinities are shown in the sculptures and codices including a somewhat youthful appearing war god, as well as a more mature and grotesque war god called Ek Ahau, the Black Captain. There is an old god with a shell attached to his body, a god with the face of a monkey who is associated with the North Star, a god in the form of a frog and another in the form of a bat. In the Spanish accounts we can also glean scanty information concerning Ixchel, Goddess of the Rainbow and mate of Itzamna; Ixtubtun, patroness of jade carvers; Ixchebelyax, patroness of the art of weaving and decorating cloth, etc. How Mayan History has been Recovered. The arrangement of Mayan remains on a time scale is now an accomplished fact thanks to a correlation which permits us to read the dates on ancient monuments in terms of the Gregorian calendar and the Christian era. Early attempts to achieve this result met with widely varying results. Most of these attempts were made by developing a single line of evidence and some were based on assumptions that can now be disproved. But no single line of evidence should be deemed sufficient to decide this all important question. The general course of Mayan history is indicated unmistakably by four principal lines of evidence capable of being correlated with each other. These are:— 1. Stratigraphic sequences in pottery, stylistic sequences in sculpture, structural sequences in architecture, etc. 2. Traditional history preserved in the Books of Chilam Balam and representing a knowledge of past events at the time of the Spanish Conquest. 3. Dates inscribed on a great number of monuments in terms of the ancient Mayan time counts. 4. Astronomical checks on these inscribed dates. The artistic position of a monument may be used to validate the contemporaneous character of an inscribed date, otherwise interpretable as referring to the past or future, or it may serve to fix a repeating date in a single historical setting. The events in the traditional history of the Books of Chilam Balam, meager enough when taken alone, have the valuable quality of reaching back into the time of the First Empire when the use of dates on temples and monuments was much in vogue. They permit a richly documented past to be tied in, as it were, to a poorly documented terminal period. Fig. 36. The Front Head of the Two-Headed Dragon on StelÆ at Piedras Negras showing the Increase in Flamboyant Treatment. The interval between (a) and (b) is 125 years, that between (b) and (c) is 45 years. Before the matter of the ancient inscribed dates can be understood, however, the somewhat complicated mechanism of the Mayan calendar must be explained, as well as the system of hieroglyphs and the notation of numbers. Then there is the problem of correlation which necessitates delicate adjudications of evidence. Finally we must take up the proofs which demonstrate the astronomical achievements of the Mayas which, in reverse, provide checks upon the correctness of the day for day correlation itself. We must proceed slowly and carefully, without much following of by-ways, however attractive they may appear. We will begin with stratigraphy and stylistic sequence. Sequences in Art. The study of Mayan ceramics reveals developments as regard shapes, fabrics, and designs. Specimens recovered from sealed cysts under stelÆ at Copan establish true associations with the higher forms of art and can be used far and wide in comparison with pottery finds in Salvador, Guatemala, etc. Vaillant has found stratigraphic sequences in a collection of funerary vessels obtained at Holmul, where graves occurred under the floors and within the filled-in chambers of a buried temple. As regards sculpture we find at Copan a remarkably homogeneous series of stelÆ on which a royal or priestly personage stands erect and in front view. A Ceremonial Bar is held symmetrically in the two arms and the body is partly covered with rich and elaborate ornament. The amount of relief, the proportions of the body, the forms of the Ceremonial Bar, etc., all pass through a harmonious development. The earliest monuments show a crude block-like carving of the face, with protruding eyes, while the latest monuments have fully rounded contours. At Tikal the stelÆ show, for the most part, human figures in profile, but unmistakable development can be seen in general quality of carving as well as in specific details. Plate XXI. Development in Style of Carving at Copan. Stela 9 (9.10.10.0.0, 383 A. D.). Stela 5 (9.13.15.0.0, 447 A. D.). Stela N (9.16.10.0.0, 502 A. D.). Stela H (9.17.12.0.0, 523 A. D.). Details of architecture showing analogous development. Fig. 37. Grotesque Face on the Back of Stela B, Copan. In making comparisons in art it is always necessary to consider similar things. At many other Mayan cities than the two named above it is possible to obtain satisfactory evidence of sequence in art forms by cutting out similar details from different masses. Thus at Naranjo, when we examine all the Ceremonial Bars, we find a remarkable development of flamboyant detail on the later monuments. At Quirigua the faces on the tops of the altars may be compared with the same result. At Piedras Negras the heads of the Two-headed Dragon that occur in exactly similar positions on four monuments likewise show a steady modification towards flamboyancy as may be seen from Fig. 36, where the front heads are put side by side. Fig. 38. Jaguar in Dresden Codex with a Water Lily attached to Forehead. Still other lines of evidence on historical sequence are to be gained from a study of architecture. Not only is it possible to determine the general developments that hold true of the entire Mayan Area but also in a given city it is sometimes possible to arrange the buildings in their order of erection according to dependable criteria, both decorative and structural. Fig. 39. Late Sculpture from Chichen Itza. The headdress resembles that worn by the rulers on the highlands of Mexico. The earliest temples have narrow vaulted rooms, heavy walls, and a single doorway. The rooms increase in width, the walls decrease in thickness, the doorways multiply till the spaces between them become piers and finally columns. The support for the heavy roof comb taxed the structural ingenuity of the Mayan architects. The solving of this problem is marked by successive advances and since mechanical science goes forward rather than backward the relative order of structures is fairly certain. Moreover, many buildings are closely associated with dated monuments, tablets, lintels, or stelÆ. Still another evidence of architectural sequence is seen in structures that have been enlarged by the addition of wings or by the enclosing of the old parts under new masonry. Books of Chilam Balam. We now turn to a very different kind of history, the digests of ancient chronicles in the Mayan language but in Spanish script which managed to survive in the so-called Books of Chilam Balam along with other texts, ceremonial and medical. There are five chronicles, the two longest covering 68 katuns before the coming of the Spaniards in 1517. We now know that these katuns were time units consisting of 7200 days, or nearly 20 years, and that they were designated by their final day which was always a day called Ahau associated with a number, 1 and 13, in a peculiar sequence. A katun with the same designation returns in 13 × 7200 days or about 256 years. Such a completion, counted especially from a Katun 8 Ahau, was called the “doubling back of the katuns” or, as we would say, the completion of a cycle. The count of the katuns used in the chronicles was really part and parcel of a fuller count just as a year ’22 implies a position in one of the centuries of our Christian era. The chronicles unfortunately give few names of chieftains and cities and few outstanding events. Chichen Itza is the city most fully concerned and an early occupation is recorded, then an abandonment for some two and a half centuries. After its re-establishment the Toltecs enter Yucatan and capture this capital. The first part of the chronicles has the atmosphere of myth rather than history, but a calendarial adjustment of some kind is mentioned in one place. This was an event which took place in 503 A. D. as we shall see in another place. The first rough correlation between the time count on the ancient monuments and the time count in the chronicles was made on the theory that a dated lintel at Chichen Itza had to be placed in the first occupation of the city: when this was done the beginning of the chronicles was found to proceed from an important round number in the old day count while the abandonment of Chichen Itza coincided with the abandonment of all the cities of the Mayan First Empire. We must now turn attention to the famous calendar. The Mayan Time Counts. The passage of time, seen in finer and finer degree in the course of human life, the succession of summer and winter, the waxing and waning moons, the alternation of day and night, the upward and downward sloping of the sun, and the swinging dial of the stars, are phenomena that no human group has failed to notice. Longer periods than those included within the memory of the oldest men (presenting an imperfect reflection of the memory of men still older) are found only in those favored centers where a serviceable system of counting has been developed. Mythology has a content of history but hardly of chronology. Tradition, when organized by the priesthood, may be reasonably dependable for perhaps two hundred years. The year and the month are the basis of all primitive time systems, the former depending on the recurring seasons, the latter on recurring moons. Both of these are expressed in days. Unfortunately, the day is not contained evenly in either the month or the year, nor do these larger time measures show any simple relation to each other as regards length. The history of the calendar is one of compromise and correction. The Mayan calendars were made possible by: first, the knowledge of astronomical time periods; second, the possession of a suitable notation system; third, the discovery of a permutation system of names and numbers. Elements of the Day Count. There is reason to believe that the Mayas had first a lunar-solar calendar of twelve months of thirty days each, making a year of 360 days, and that they reduced the number of days in the formal month to 20 and raised the number of months in the year from 12 to 18. These changes permitted a close adjustment of the units of time with their vigesimal system of counting. With a truer knowledge of the length of the year an extra five day month was added to make a year of 365 days. Beyond this the “leap year” error was calculated but not interpolated. As proof that the lunar month of thirty days preceded the formal month of twenty days, it need only be pointed out that the name for this period, uinal, seems to be connected with the name for moon, u, and that the hieroglyph for moon has the value, twenty, in the inscriptions and ancient books. Fig. 40. The Twenty Day Signs. The first example in each case is taken from the inscriptions and the second from the codices. Before entering into a fuller discussion of the astronomical and notational facts let us turn for a moment to the third fact, the permutation system. The origin of the cycle[1] known by the Mayan name tzolkin and the Aztecan name tonalamatl, book of the days, has never been satisfactorily explained. It is a permutation system with two factors, 13 and 20. The former is a series of numbers (1-13) and the latter a series of twenty names as follows:— - 1. Imix
- 2. Ik
- 3. Akbal
- 4. Kan
- 5. Chicchan
- 6. Cimi
- 7. Manik
- 8. Lamat
- 9. Muluc
- 10. Oc
- 11. Chuen
- 12. Eb
- 13. Ben
- 14. Ix
- 15. Men
- 16. Cib
- 17. Caban
- 18. Eznab
- 19. Cauac
- 20. Ahau
These two series revolve upon each other like two wheels, one with thirteen and the other with twenty cogs. The smaller wheel of numbers makes twenty revolutions while the larger wheel of days is making thirteen revolutions, and after this the number cog and name cog with which the experiment began are again in combination. Thus, a day with the same number and the same name recurs every 13 × 20 or 260 days. This 260 day cycle corresponds to no natural time period and is an invention pure and simple. It is the most fundamental feature of the Mayan time count and of the time counts of other nations in Mexico and Central America. We may perhaps assume that the twenty names were originally those of the twenty days in the modified lunar months. But the thirteen numbers have no recognized prototype. The formal book of days generally was considered to begin with 1 Imix for the Mayas and with a corresponding day for the other Mexican and Central American nations. But it can be made to begin anywhere and proceed to an equivalent station that is always 260 days removed. PERMUTATION TABLE | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 1 | | 1 | Imix | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | | 2 | Ik | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | | 3 | Akbal | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | | 4 | Kan | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | | 5 | Chicchan | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | | 6 | Cimi | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | | 7 | Manik | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | | 8 | Lamat | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | | 9 | Muluc | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | | 10 | Oc | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | | 11 | Chuen | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | | 12 | Eb | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | | 13 | Ben | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | | 14 | Ix | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | | 15 | Men | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | | 16 | Cib | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | | 17 | Caban | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | | 18 | Eznab | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | | 19 | Cauac | 6 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | | 20 | Ahau | 7 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 7 | The Conventional Year. It has been stated that the Mayas arrived at a conventional 365 day year made up of eighteen months of twenty days each plus a short period of five days that fell after the eighteen regular months had been counted. The Mayan month names are as follows:— - 1. Pop
- 2. Uo
- 3. Zip
- 4. Zotz
- 5. Tzec
- 6. Xul
- 7. Yaxkin
- 8. Mol
- 9. Chen
- 10. Yax
- 11. Zac
- 12. Ceh
- 13. Mac
- 14. Kankin
- 15. Muan
- 16. Pax
- 17. Kayab
- 18. Cumhu
- 19. Uayeb (five additional days)
Fig. 41. The Nineteen Month Signs of the Mayan Year. The first example in each case is taken from the inscriptions and the second from the codices. The last details are signs for zero. Since there are twenty days or positions in the month and likewise twenty distinct day names in the tzolkin, falling in regular order, it follows that each day would always occupy the same month position were it not for the offset at the end of each year caused by the short Uayeb period. As it is, any day name occupies the same month position during the course of an entire year and a position five days in advance during the course of the following year. Since five is contained four times in twenty there can be only four shifts, the fifth year showing the same arrangement as the first. The following table gives the month positions of each day name during the changes of four consecutive years as these are recorded in the ancient inscriptions. Plate XXII. Scheme of the Mayan Calendar as presented in the Codex Tro-Cortesianus. In the center is Itzamna, the God of the Sky, and his spouse, under what has been called the celestial tree. The band of hieroglyphs that frames in this picture contains the twenty day signs of the Mayan month. The figures on the outside are arranged in four groups, according to the four directions of the compass. At the top or east we again see Itzamna and his mate. In the north, or right hand quarter, human sacrifice is shown and the Death God sits opposite the God of War. In the east and in the south are also shown pairs of divinities. A series of dots running from one day sign to another covers the tzolkin or 260 day cycle of names and numbers. | Ik | Manik | Eb | Caban | 0 | 5 | 10 | 15 | | Akbal | Lamat | Ben | Eznab | 1 | 6 | 11 | 16 | | Kan | Muluc | Ix | Cauac | 2 | 7 | 12 | 17 | | Chicchan | Oc | Men | Ahau | 3 | 8 | 13 | 18 | | Imix | Cimi | Chuen | Cib | 4 | 9 | 14 | 19 | Thus Ik occupies 0 position the first year, 5, the second year, 10 the third, 15 the fourth, and 0 the fifth. While Manik that belongs to the same set has position 5 the first year, 10 the second, etc. It will be noted that Imix, the first day of the formal permutation of the tzolkin is never the first day of a month. The Calendar Round. But this assignment of particular day names to particular places in the month does not close the problem. Each day name is associated in the tzolkin, or permutation, with a day number. While it is true that each day can occupy only four month positions in as many years, it must be remembered that the day numbers associated with these names can run the whole gamut of 13 changes. Thus, although Ik must always occupy the fifth position in the months during a certain year, nevertheless it will have numbers which fall in the sequence 1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13, 1, etc. The complete cycle of variations must run through the least common multiple of 260 (the permutation) and 365 (the conventional year) or 18,980 days. This cycle is commonly known as the Calendar Round. A Mayan day fixed in a month, or let us say a calendar round date, has four parts to its name, thus, 11 Ahau 18 Mac. We describe a day as Tuesday, July 4, meaning “Tuesday the third day of the seven day week occupies the fourth position in the month of July.” Similarly the Mayan date 11 Ahau 18 Mac may be read “the day named Ahau as eleventh day in a thirteen day week occupies the eighteenth position in the month Mac.” Owing to leap year corrections the European date given above does not recur at regular intervals, but a Mayan day recurs infallibly in 52 calendar years, never sooner, never later. So far we have considered two kinds of Mayan dates, first the tzolkin date, recurring every 260 days, secondly the calendar round date recurring every 18,980 days. Before we can understand a third and much more important kind of date, namely a date which states, in addition to the calendar round designation, the total number of days since a beginning day called 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, located far in the past, we must direct our attention to the matter of numbers and notation. Mayan Numbers. The three most common numerical systems in use in the world are all derived from man’s anatomy. The quinary system is based on counting the fingers of one hand, the decimal system on counting those of both hands and the vigesimal system, which prevailed in Central America, is based on counting all the fingers and all the toes. The vigesimal system is seen in imperfect form in our count of scores, where seventy years are three score and ten. The Mayan name for one was hun: they had simple names to 9 and composite ones from 10 to 19, much as in English, and twenty was hun kal, one score. The ascending values in the vigesimal scale were as follows:— | Mayan Numbers | Arabic Equivalents | | | hun | 1 | | 20 hun | = 1 | kal | 20 | | 20 kal | = 1 | bak | 400 | | 20 bak | = 1 | pic | 8,000 | | 20 pic | = 1 | cabal | 160,000 | | 20 cabal | = 1 | kinchil | 3,200,000 | | 20 kinchil | = 1 | alau | 64,000,000 | | 20 alau | = 1 | hablat | 1,280,000,000 | They invented signs for zero and discovered the principle of “local value” in the writing down of numbers centuries before these ideas (which are fundamental to higher mathematics) were known in the Old World. The notation of numbers had its simpler and more complicated phase. In the simpler phase 1 was represented by a dot, 2 by two dots, 5 by a bar, 6 by a bar and dot, 15 by three bars, etc. The commonest sign for zero was a shell while a picture of the moon stood for twenty. In the more elaborate notation a series of twenty faces of gods represented the numerals from 0 to 19. Fig. 42. Bar and Dot Numerals of the Mayas. The straight vigesimal system was doubtless used by the Mayas in ordinary counting, but in counting time a very important change was introduced in the third position. Also the names were modified: hun was called kin which means sun or day. In the second position kal was called uinal which means month and 18 of these were taken to form a tun, stone, which was the third unit. The tun then had a value of 18 × 20 = 360 days, making a conventional year about five and a quarter days less than a true year. Twenty tuns made a kaltun or katun and above this period the numeral system proceeded as before and in the ascending values the names already given were merely combined with tun, if Gates is right in his clever suggestion. For years it has been customary to speak of the fifth period as cycle for want of a native term: this will now be called baktun. One hablatun, the highest period with a name, has the astonishing value of 460,800,000,000 days. However, the highest numbers fall considerably short of this potential limit. In our decimal system the number 347,981, for instance, is really:— | 3 × | 100000 | | 4 × | 10000 | | 7 × | 1000 | | 9 × | 100 | | 8 × | 10 | | 1 × | 1 | When written out in a horizontal line each “position” has a value ten times that of the “position” to the right of it. It is understood that a digit which stands in a “position” is to be multiplied by 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc., as the case may be. The Mayas, using the principle of position, ordinarily write their bar and dot numerals in columns. But we can partially transcribe a Mayan number in imitation of our own system by putting dots or dashes between the positions or periods. The number in five positions given below is transcribed as 9.12.16.7.8. Mayan numerals | 9 × | 144000 | 1,296,000 | | 12 × | 7200 | 86,400 | | 16 × | 360 | 5,760 | | 7 × | 20 | 140 | | 8 × | 1 | 8 | | | 1,388,308 | We read this date: 9 baktuns, 12 katuns, 16 tuns, 7 uinals, and 8 kins. It is convenient to remember that a tun is a little less than a year, a katun a little less than 20 years and a baktun a little less than 400 years. But the count is really of days, not years. Fig. 43. Face Numerals found in Mayan Inscriptions. In most cases these are the faces of gods. Reading from left to right: the values are 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10. Fig. 44. The Normal Forms of the Period Glyphs. Reading from left to right: baktun, katun, tun, uinal, kin. Although the numerical values are expressed by position alone in some cases, in other cases use is made of Period Glyphs to make assurance doubly sure. These Period Glyphs represent the basic value of the positions which are to be multiplied by the accompanying numerals. For examples, see Figs. 44 and 45. Fig. 45. Face Forms of Period Glyphs. From left to right: introducing glyph, baktun, katun, tun, uinal, kin. Plate XXIII. Typical Mayan Inscription. - Introducing Glyph
- Initial Series
- 1. 9 baktuns (cycles).
- 2. 14 katuns
- 3. 13 tuns (written 12 by error)
- 4. 4 uinals
- 5. 17 kins
- 6. 12 Caban (day)
- Supplementary Series
- 7. glyph F
- 8. (a) glyph D, (b) glyph C
- 9. (a) glyph X, (b) glyph B
- 10. (a) glyph A (30 day lunar month)
- 10. (b) 5 Kayab (month)
- Explanatory Series
- 11, 12, 13 and 14a, possibly explain the dates
- Secondary Series
- 14b, 3 kins, 13 uinals
- 15a, 6 tuns (to be added)
- Period Ending Date
- 16. 4 Ahau 13 Yax (9.15.0.0.0)
The Long Count. Many early monuments of the Mayas have inscriptions with an enlarged Introducing Glyph containing a variable element indicating the title or principal subject matter of the inscription. Next follows the number of elapsed days from the epoch of a Mundane Era. This starting point is uniformly the day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu and the complete Initial Series date not only states the number of elapsed days, but also the name and number of the day reached and its position in a Mayan month. The Initial Series is normally followed by a Supplementary Series which concerns the lunar calendar, and often there are numbers of days to be added to or subtracted from the Initial Series date: these are called Secondary Series. Also Period Ending dates are used, these being merely abbreviated dates which correspond to indicated round numbers in the day count. The Initial Series analyzed in Plate XXIII actually records the number 1,401,217. This number does not, however, reach the day 12 Caban declared immediately after it or the month position 5 Kayab recorded in glyph 10b. When 13 tuns are corrected to 12 tuns on the theory that the sculptor did not follow copy, we do reach 12 Caban 5 Kayab. Another check comes when we add the Secondary Series of 2423 days and reach 4 Ahau 13 Yax ending an even katun. Dates of Dedication. Initial Series dates are especially common on stelÆ at cities of the First Empire, mostly located in the southern part of the Mayan Area. While it is impossible to read much of the texts which accompany these dates nevertheless it is a remarkable fact that when we arrange the monuments in their artistic order we find that the inscribed dates in the great majority of cases fall in the same order. This leads us to conclude that the dates are practically contemporaneous with the carving and setting up of the monuments. Now the above is especially true when the inscription gives a simple Initial Series date. When more than one date is given the historic one appears in most instances to be the latest, but in a few instances it appears to be a specially emphasized intermediate date. In addition, then, to contemporaneous dates there are some that refer to the past and others that refer to the future. Some writers have assumed that the stelÆ and other inscribed monuments were primarily time markers set up at the end of hotun (or five year) periods. This seems an unnecessarily narrow view. We can demonstrate that some inscriptions deal with astronomical facts covering long stretches of time. It is also apparent that many of the sculptures represent conquests and it is extremely likely that portraits of actual rulers are to be seen in certain carvings. It would be too much to expect events to happen regularly at the end of time periods and as a matter of fact we find at different cities repeated dates that do not occupy such positions. These repeated dates would seem to recall events of special importance to the city in question. The running co-ordination between the apparent order of the artistic styles and inscribed dates permits us to measure very accurately the rate of change in art which was rapid, indeed, at certain times. The style of carving, on the other hand, enables us to put into definite 52 year periods many of the calendar round dates—if these are to be regarded as contemporaneous. The result is that for the First Empire, as it has been called, there is an exceedingly accurate chronology. After the fall and abandonment of the great southern cities dates are rare and we have to fall back upon remnants of history preserved after the coming of the Spaniards. Hieroglyphs. Mayan hieroglyphs resemble the Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphs only in being “sacred writing” that is not based upon an alphabet. The styles and symbols are entirely different. No Rosetta Stone has yet been discovered to give us inscriptions in more than one system of writing in Central America. The great use of hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments was characteristic of the earlier period of Mayan history and at a later time the writing was reduced to books. Bishop Landa obtained what he supposed was a Mayan alphabet, but what he really obtained was a list of signs representing among other sounds the particular sounds he had asked for. The phonetic use of syllables rather than of simple sounds or letters is probably an important feature of Mayan writing. Many hieroglyphs are pictographic and consist of abbreviated pictures of the thing intended or of some object connected with it. Often a head stands for the entire body. The following list practically exhausts our knowledge of Mayan hieroglyphs:— 1. The signs for the twenty named days of the calendar. 2. The signs for the nineteen months of the Mayan year.
3. The face signs for numbers from zero to nineteen inclusive. 4. Period glyphs in two styles for place values in the numerical notation. 5. The symbols for the four directions and for the colors associated with them. 6. The hieroglyphs of several gods and ceremonies. 7. The symbols of Heaven and Earth, the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and a few astronomical phenomena such as conjunctions. 8. Hieroglyphs for special times of the year such as solstices and equinoxes. 9. Signs meaning era, or base from which a numerical count is made, completion, etc.
Some of these have recently been solved, thanks to mathematical and astronomical calculations, others rest on the calendarial forms given by Landa. There are some phonetic elements in Mayan writing and some ideographic elements. It seems likely that the gist of the Mayan inscriptions which deal with history will be solved in somewhat the same fashion as those that deal with astronomy. The matter is, however, most perplexing. So far not a single place name or personal name has been definitely recognized and translated. In spite of the hundreds of glyphs recovered at the sites called Copan and Palenque, for instance, we do not know the real names of these cities or even their symbols. We may expect to find signs referring to tribute and common objects of trade and others referring to birth, death, establishment, conquest, destruction, and other fundamentals of individual and social existence. These signs, taken with directives, connectives, and dates, would make possible the recovery of the main facts of history. There seems no possibility of purely literary inscriptions. While progress necessarily will be slow there is no reason for despair and without doubt the greater portion of Mayan inscriptions will finally be deciphered. Fig. 46. Hieroglyphs of the Four Directions: East, North, West, South. Fig. 47. Hieroglyphs containing the Phonetic Element kin: a-b, kin; c, li-kin; d, chi-kin; e-f, yax-kin; g, kan-kin. As an example of the phonetic use of signs in the building up of hieroglyphs let us take the common sign kin, meaning “sun.” This sign appears regularly in the glyphs for the world directions east and west, the Mayan names being likin and chikin, and also in the month sign Yaxkin, and sometimes in that for Kankin. It also appears as the sign for the lowest period in the time count having the value of a single day and called kin (Fig. 47). Now this kin sign also appears in many undeciphered hieroglyphs and in some of these it seems likely that it has a phonetic value. Other signs with definite values in several glyphs are yax, tun, zac, etc. This general method of writing is seen in more decipherable form among the Aztecs. The glosses of the early priests that have proved so great a help in the case of the Aztecan writing are absent from the few Mayan documents. Codices. Only three ancient Mayan books or codices are known to exist and these are more or less incomplete. They have all been reproduced in facsimile and are known by the following names: Dresden Codex, Peresianus Codex, Tro-Cortesianus Codex. These illuminated manuscripts are written on both sides of long strips of amatl paper, folded like Japanese screens. The paper was given a smooth surface by a coating of fine lime and the drawings were made in black and in various colors. From the early accounts we know that books were also written on prepared deerskin and upon bark. Concerning their subject matter we are told that the Mayas had many books upon civil and religious history, and upon rites, magic, and medicine. The three books named above have been carefully studied. They treat principally of the calendar and of associated religious ceremonies. A page of the Dresden Codex containing some interesting calculations is reproduced herewith. The numbers with the digits one above the other are transcribed in two diagrams. In the upper diagram the bar and dot numerals are simply put over into Arabic numerals and the Mayan system of periods or positions is retained. In the lower diagram these numbers are reduced entirely to the Arabic system. The columns are lettered at the top, the hieroglyphs are counted off in sixteen rows at the left and the separate groupings of numbers are shown in five sections at the right. Among the hieroglyphs the Venus sign is especially prominent. At the base of column B is given a number in five periods that, counted from the normal beginning day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu leads again to this day which is recorded at the bottom of column A. The long number in column C, similarly counted from 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, leads to 1 Ahau 18 Kayab, recorded at the bottom of B. The day 1 Ahau 18 Uo is reached by another calculation which will be explained later. At the base of A is a number in three periods which amounts to 2200. Not only is this the difference between the long numbers in B and C (1,366,560 - 1,364,360 = 2200) but it is also the number of days by which 1 Ahau 18 Kayab precedes 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu. In other words we deal in this passage with the end of the seventy-second calendar round after the original 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu and with a new point of departure 2200 days earlier, which is some way involved with the calendar of Venus. Let us now make a new beginning in the lower left hand corner of this page. In G5 we find the number 2920 which as we have already seen is exactly the number of days consumed in eight years of 365 days or five synodic revolutions of Venus of 584 days. We will now see how the Mayan scholars arrived at 13 × 2920 or 37,960, the calendar round of Venus. If we proceed towards the left in section 5 we find the second number, F5, is 5840 which equals 2 × 2920, the third is 8760 or 3 × 2920, and the fourth is 11,680 or 4 × 2920. The addition is continued in sections 4 and 3 till we reach 35,040 or 12 × 2920. To be sure the scribe made a slight error in one place, writing a 5 for an 8 but this is caught up by the day signs 9 Ahau, 4 Ahau, 7 Ahau, 12 Ahau, etc., that fall at regular intervals of 2920 days. Plate XXIV. Diagram showing partial reduction of Mayan numbers into Arabic numbers in the calculation shown on page 24 of the Dresden Codex (Plate XXIV). | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | 1 | Hieroglyphs | 1 | | | | 1 | | | | | 1 | 15 | 10 | 5 | | | 2 | | | | 1 | 16 | 10 | 5 | | | 3 | | | | 14 | 6 | 16 | 8 | | | | | | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | 4 | | | | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | | | 5 | | | | 1 | | | | 2 | | 6 | | | | 5 | 9 | 4 | 1 | | | 7 | | | | 14 | 11 | 12 | 5 | | | | | | 4 | 7 | 8 | 5 | | | 8 | | | | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | 9 | | | | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | | | | | | | 10 | | | | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | | | | | 17 | 9 | 1 | 13 | | | 11 | | | | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | | | 12 | | | | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | 13 | | | | 6 Ahau | 11 Ahau | 3 Ahau | 8 Ahau | | | 14 | | | | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | | | 9 | 9 | 4 | 16 | 8 | 0 | | | 15 | | 9 | 9 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | | | | 16 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | 16 | | | | 13 Ahau | 5 Ahau | 10 Ahau | 2 Ahau | | | 6 | 0 | 16 | 1 | 1 | | | 5 | | 2 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 4 | 16 | 8 | | | 0 | | | 5 [8] | 6 | 4 | 2 | | | 4 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | | 8 Cumhu | 18 Kayab | 18 Uo | 7 Ahau | 12 Ahau | 4 Ahau | 9 Ahau | Diagram showing complete reduction into Arabic numbers of the calculation shown on page 24 of the Dresden Codex (Plate XXIV). | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Hieroglyphs | 151,840 | 113,880 | 75,920 | 37,960 | 1 | | | | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | | | | | 185,120 | 68,900 | 33,280 | 9,100 | 2 | | | | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | | | | | 35,040 | 32,120 | 29,200 | 26,280 | 3 | | | | 6 Ahau | 11 Ahau | 3 Ahau | 8 Ahau | | | | | 23,360 | 20,440 | 17,520 | 14,600 | 4 | | 2,200 | 1,366,560 | 1,364,360 | 13 Ahau | 5 Ahau | 10 Ahau | 2 Ahau | | | 4 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 1 Ahau | 11,680 | 8,760 | 5,840 | 2,920 | 5 | | 8 Cumhu | 18 Kayab | 18 Uo | 7 Ahau | 12 Ahau | 4 Ahau | 9 Ahau | | From section 3, the calculation jumps to section 1 where the numbers in the original are partly destroyed. They have, however, been restored with perfect assurance since the days in all instances are 1 Ahau and therefore must be separated by multiples of 260 days. The number in G1 has been restored as 5-5-8-0 or 37,960 or 13 × 2920. It contains 260 an even number of times and therefore every successive period of 37,960 days begins with the same day, 1 Ahau. It also equals 13 × 8 × 365 days or 104 years and 13 × 5 × 584 days or sixty-five revolutions of Venus. Fig. 48. Mayan Ceremony as represented in the Dresden Codex. The figure at the left beats a drum while the one on the right plays a flageolet. The sound is indicated by scrolls. The head on the pyramid is that of the Maize God and it rests upon the sign caban, meaning earth. The three numbers to the left in F1, E1, and D1 are respectively 2, 3, and 4 times 37,960. The last number, 151,840 days is therefore equal to 416 years or exactly 8 calendar rounds of 18,980 days. The numbers in section 2 are more difficult to explain but they possibly have to do with corrections and correlations of astronomical periods. If we add to 1 Ahau 18 Kayab the number of days in E2, (68900), we arrive at a day 1 Ahau 13 Mac. This day is prominent in more detailed calculations elsewhere in the Dresden Codex. If we add to the same 1 Ahau 18 Kayab the number in D2 we arrive at 1 Ahau 18 Uo recorded at the bottom of C. Space permits no further explanation but the reader will see from the foregoing the method of experiment and cross checking that must be applied to the decipherment of the Mayan manuscripts. Fortunately, the relationships of numbers are absolute and the coincidences between the recorded numbers and astronomical periods are too close and frequent to be dismissed as accidental. In addition to rational calculations dealing with astronomy one sees in the Mayan manuscripts many arrangements of the tzolkin supposed to bring to light good and bad days and to forecast events. A section of the Dresden Codex showing a condensed tzolkin is presented along with a diagram of its parts. At the top and right are seventeen hieroglyphs containing the symbols of the four directions, and of at least three of the principal gods. At the right is a column of five day signs with the number 3 at the head of the column. The permutation is divided into five parts of fifty-two days each and each part is subdivided into four groups of thirteen days each. It begins with 3 Akbal, the day sign at the top of the column, and after the four subdivisions of thirteen days each have been counted we arrive at the day 3 Men, the second day sign in the column. The count is repeated till the 260 days have been exhausted and we come back again to 3 Akbal. In the diagram the red numbers of the codex are represented by Roman numerals and the black numbers by Arabic numerals. Since the count in this example begins with 3 and the addition is always 13, or exactly one round of numbers, the resultant days always have the number 3. Plate XXV. (a) Detail of the Dresden Codex showing Tzolkin used in Divination. (b) Analysis of the above Tzolkin, according to FÖrstemann. | III | 1 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 10 | 13 | | East | * | North | * | West | * | South | | 3 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 12 | 14 | | God B | † | Woman | Good Days | God G | ‡ | * | | 13 | III | 13 | III | 13 | III | 15 | | 1 | | | | | | | God E | | Akbal | | | | | | | 16 | | 2 | (Image 1) | (Image 2) | (Image 3) | Week of 13 days | | Men | | | | | | | 17 | | | | | | | | Ahau | | 3 | | Manik | | 4 | | Cauac | | | | | | | 13 | - Image 1: God B—rain and sky god of good powers. Holds Kan (maize) sign in his hand.
- Image 2: Goddess with serpent headdress possibly connected with floods. Holds Kan sign in hand.
- Image 3: God K—benevolent sun god.
- If space had been larger God E (the maize god) would probably have been drawn next.
The three pictures of gods give us an inkling into the significance of this particular table of chances. All of the gods carry the kan or maize sign in their hands. The first god is the benevolent rain god and the third is the benevolent sun god. Between them is seated the malevolent goddess of floods with a serpent on her head. The maize god is not shown but his hieroglyph is given. This tzolkin probably deals with agriculture and may be an attempt to determine lucky days for planting. Correlation with Christian Chronology. The day for day correlation rests broadly on the placing of the date on the Lintel of the Initial Series at Chichen Itza in the first occupation of that city according to the chronicles. More specifically it rests upon statements in Mayan and Spanish documents relating to the completion of tuns and katuns in the never-languishing day count. Also consideration must be given the so-called Year-Bearers, these being the first days of current years which furnish the designations for such years. Bishop Landa has a specimen Mayan year with its equivalent days in the Spanish calendar; this is the year 12 Kan corresponding to 1553-1554 A. D. and the day 12 Kan is found in the Long Count position 12.9.17.9.4, 12 Kan 2 Pop, July 26, 1553, Gregorian Calendar. The Mayan Eras. The zero of the Mayan day count, reached by subtracting 12.9.17.9.4 or 1,799,104 days from the position declared above, is shown to be October 14, 3373 B. C. in the backward projection of the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian readings are preferable to the Julian because they preserve the actual times in the tropical year, but it is sometimes useful to use the days of the Julian Period which can always be found by adding 489384 to the Mayan number. Now Mayan history does not reach back to the zero date which must be regarded as a theoretical beginning or Mundane Era. The earliest object with a contemporary date is the Tuxtla Statuette with May 16, 98 B. C. It appears, however, that the really historic beginning of the day count was 7.0.0.0.0, 10 Ahau 18 Zac, August 6, 613 B. C. The calendar of months was probably inaugurated in 580 B. C. when 0 Pop, New Year’s day, coincided with the winter solstice. A third era, 9.0.0.0.0, 8 Ahau 13 Ceh, February 10, 176 A. D., is the one used in the Mayan chronicles. Astronomical Checks on the Correlation. The first astronomical checks which develop from the correlation explained above are dates which reach the equinoxes, solstices, etc., further marked by special hieroglyphs which are to be explained as ideographs of these stations in the natural year. For instance the most emphatic date in the three famous temples of the Sun, the Cross, and the Foliated Cross at Palenque is one written 9.12.18.5.16, 2 Cib 14 Mol, September 23, 430 A. D., which coincides with the autumnal equinox. In connection with this repeated date we find two glyphs both of which are admirable ideographs of the equinox. One is Ahau, a face explained as that of the Lord of Day, but here half covered with starry eyes, and the other is the Kin or sun symbol, half darkened with cross-hatching. At Comitan a round number date exactly coinciding with the equinox has a variant of this second ideograph. Other strong proofs concern Venus and the Moon. Hieroglyphs of these heavenly bodies are found in combination with dates and these later actually reach significant phases of the planets in question. For Venus the phase chosen is commonly the first appearance as Morningstar four days after inferior conjunction, or what is known as the heliacal rising. Records of the Moon are prominent when a new or full phase coincides with a round number in the day count. Astronomical Observatories. One of the most interesting pieces of evidence in support of the correlation explained above has to do with a giant sun dial at Copan. Two stelÆ stand on opposite sides of the valley establishing a line which runs about 9 degrees north of west. When observation is made from the eastern marker the sun sets behind the western stone two times during the course of a year, once shortly after the vernal equinox and once shortly before the autumnal equinox. Now the Mayan chronicles state that the calendarial New Year was “counted in order” during a certain Katun 13 Ahau which extended from 491 A. D. to 511 A. D. Altar U at Copan was observed to record two New Year’s dates equaling April 9 in conjunction with another date, equaling September 2, 503 A. D., and falling in the required interval covered by Katun 13 Ahau. These dates were such as might be reached by just such a base line as exists at Copan and it was first believed that they were exactly reached by it. Careful reconsideration of the evidence in the inscriptions and a re-survey of the line of sight led to the interesting conclusion that the sun dial of Copan was originally set up in 392 A. D. to give sunset coincidences on April 5 and September 6. About 490 A. D. the stones were re-adjusted to give the April 9 and September 2 which are recorded on Altar U and still later a third and present arrangement was effected giving April 12 and August 30. Each pair of dates is “reciprocal” in the sense that one member marks the same interval after the Spring equinox that the other does before the Fall equinox. The shifting seems to have been decided upon by astronomical congresses, and the purpose was to fix propitious times of planting the crops. Fig. 49. Diagram of the Astronomical Base Line at Copan giving readings at April 9 and September 2. Slight shifts were made in this line: at an early time it was arranged to read April 5 and September 6 and at a later time April 12 and August 30. Other Mayan observatories at Uaxactun and Chichen Itza have lines of sight which mark exactly the positions of the sun (the summer solstice, etc.), and all in all the evidence deduced from these observatories is in complete agreement with the correlation of the Mayan and Christian time counts originally effected on the evidence in sixteenth century documents. The True Year. The base line at Copan yielded accurate data on the exact length of the tropical year, a period varying by a difficult fraction from 365 full days. The tropical year is the time measured by the revolution of the earth around the sun and by the recurring seasons. No agricultural people could neglect this natural time period with its obvious relation to planting and harvest. Reference has already been made to the notational 360 day year (tun) of the Mayas and to their formal calendar year (haab) of exactly 365 days. The calendar year kept running ahead of the true year by the accumulating amount of the days which we intercalate on leap years but the Mayas wisely made no such intercalations since to have done so would have thrown their day count out of gear with the moon and other planets and the somewhat defective calendar based upon these minor heavenly bodies. Therefore the months of the Mayan year like those of the ancient Egyptian year slowly moved through the seasons. But the Mayas calculated an almost exact correction for the excess of the true year over the vague 365 day year. This excess amounts to about .24 of a day and their correction seems to have been one day in four years for short periods while for long periods they made 29 calendar rounds (1508 calendar years or 550,420 days) equal 1507 tropical years. This is a remarkably accurate adjustment, much closer, in fact, than that of our present Gregorian calendar. This great cycle is comparable to the 1460 year Sothic cycle of the Egyptians in so far as that relates to the flooding of the Nile, but the Egyptian arrangement has an error of about twelve days for the cycle while the Mayan arrangement is accurate to a very small fraction of a day. In the calendars of various Guatemalan and Mexican tribes the slow shifting of the months is attested by actual statements of early Spanish writers. But the conventional 365 day year was, after all, sufficiently accurate for most purposes since associations between the months and the seasons would hold reasonably true for the average lifetime. The Lunar Calendar. The apparent revolution of the moon around the earth was taken by the Mayas as the basis of a lunar calendar distinct from the civil calendar, but used in combination with it for various ceremonial purposes. Now the average duration of a lunar revolution is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.87 seconds. Twelve lunations amount to a little more than 354 days and are therefore far short of a true year. Primitive peoples whose principal interest is to keep the moon in adjustment with the seasons have an occasional thirteenth month in their luni-solar calendars. The Metonic cycle of the Greeks, an equation of 19 tropical years, 235 lunations and 6940 days, has been regarded as a remarkable achievement in observation. The Mayas discovered the same equation and with their system of designating days were able to use it with much greater ease than the Greeks since one katun minus one tzolkin gives exactly the required number of days:— | 1. | 0. | 0. | 0 = | 7200 days | | | 13. | 0 = | 260 days | | 19. | 5. | 0 = | 6940 days | This interval is used prominently in several calculations at Copan and Quirigua. On pages 51 to 58 of the Dresden Codex is found a remarkable lunar calendar covering 405 lunations or nearly 33 years. The lunar revolutions are arranged in groups of five or six, the former calculated at 148 days and the latter at 177 or 178 days. These are the necessary intervals between eclipses. The total amounts to 11,960 days which exactly contains the tzolkin and therefore forms a cycle. It is a remarkable fact that 405 lunar revolutions amount, according to modern calculations, to 11,959.888 or only O.112 of a day less than the Mayan lunar calendar. Therefore this re-entering series can be used nine times, or nearly 300 years, before an error amounting to one whole day has accumulated. There is also evidence that the Mayas used the great cycle of 29 × 52 calendar years, or 1507 tropical years, in connection with the moon and here the error for 18,639 lunations is about .64 of a day. The Supplementary Series in Long Count dates is probably to be interpreted as the statement of the day reached by the Initial Series in a lunar calendar with an accumulated error; that is, the Mayas had an uncorrected lunar count as well as an uncorrected calendar year. Glyph C records a number of complete lunations which is never in excess of six; Glyph D gives the number of days in the current lunation when these are 19 or less and Glyph E, which has the basic value of 20, finishes the count of a current lunation. There is some evidence that the Mayan lunar calendar in the fifth century A. D. had receded about four days from the true positions of the moon, the count being made from the new or conjunctional phase. When, however, a new or full phase actually coincided with an important round number in the day count special record of the fact was made. Fig. 50. Representations of the Moon: a, sun and moon hieroglyphs; b, moon from a “celestial band”; c, moon hieroglyph used for 20 in codices. Fig. 51. The Last Glyph of the Supplementary Series: a, moon glyph; combined with the numeral 9 or 10 to indicate a 29 or a 30 day lunar month. The lunar table in the Dresden Codex does not apply precisely to records of the First Empire but possibly may be adjusted to the times of the Second Empire. The indications are, however, too complicated to be examined in detail. Venus Calendar. Mayan astronomers reached a remarkable knowledge of the movements of the planet Venus and evolved a Venus calendar based essentially on the correspondence between 8 calendar years of 365 days each and 5 apparent or synodical revolutions of Venus of 584 days each. Venus whirling on an inside orbit actually makes thirteen revolutions around the sun in very nearly the same time that the earth makes eight revolutions and therefore passes between the earth and the sun five times (the difference between 13 and 8) during the course of this astronomical period of 2920 days. Just before inferior conjunction the planet disappears as evening star and a few days later emerges as morning star. The mean length of the synodical revolution of Venus is 583.92 days and the actual length may vary about four days from this mean. While the Mayas standardized the Earth year at 365 days and the Venus year at 584 days, they were fully aware of the amount of error in each case, and made proper correction for it without resorting to the devices of intercalation or excision. We have seen that the Mayas manipulated the year and the lunation in combination with the tzolkin or permutation of 20 days and 13 numbers. They also found a round of these elements in combination with the phases of Venus. Since the period of 2920 days is divisible by 20 but not by 13 it had to be taken 13 times before the round of the Venus calendar was reached. In the Dresden Codex five pages are devoted to this round of the Venus calendar. Each Venus year of 584 days is divided into four parts of 236 days for the phase of morning star, 90 days (superior conjunction), 250 days (evening star) and 8 days (inferior conjunction). These divisions agree closely enough with actual appearance. But we must remember that the observations were made without instruments and that the planet cannot be seen by the naked eye when close to the sun. Moreover we must expect beliefs as to the nature of this planet, personified as a god, to supplement the knowledge gained from actual observations. The obscuration of Venus at inferior conjunction seems to have been greatly dreaded especially when a round number in the day count fell within the eight days of its duration. A grotesque two-headed monster apparently ruled this fatal period: on the front head is seen the symbol of Venus and on the rear head the symbol of the sun, both associated with elements of death. The Venus calendar seems to have taken form in the sixth century B. C. on the basis of heliacal risings of the planet as morning star in sets of five making an eight year cycle. The dates in the Mayan calendar especially emphasized in connection with Venus are 19 Xul, 18 Kayab, 12 Yax, 6 Zip, and 5 Kankin standing exactly 584 days apart, while the corresponding dates in the Gregorian calendar are April 12, November 17, June 24, January 29, and September 5. When these sets of dates, one in a fixed and the other in a vague calendar are carried back to a common focus they are found to correspond very closely with the proper astronomical phase of Venus. The maximum difference of the true positions of Venus from the positions in the Venus calendar is then only two days, plus or minus. The coincidences of the 8 day period of obscuration of Venus at inferior conjunction with the following round numbers in the day count was memorialized by important monuments:— | 9.14.0.0.0, | 6 Ahau 13 Muan, | Feb. 4, 452 A. D. | Venus rises as morning star | | 9.17.0.0.0, | 13 Ahau 18 Cumhu, | Mar. 27, 511 A. D. | Venus invisible during conjunction | | 10.0.0.0.0, | 7 Ahau 18 Zip, | May 17, 570 A. D. | Venus invisible during conjunction | | 10.3.0.0.0, | 1 Ahau 3 Yaxkin, | July 6, 629 A. D. | Venus about to set as evening star | The Venus table in the Dresden Codex, the introductory page of which has been explained in an earlier section (see Plate XXIV) emphasizes the same Mayan and Gregorian positions of Venus as the ancient monuments but this table was evidently intended to be used between the Tenth and Thirteenth centuries A. D. The point of departure for the table is 9.9.9.16.0, 1 Ahau 18 Kayab, April 12, 363 A. D., which does not coincide with an heliacal rising of the planet, although April 12 and 18 Kayab occur in other connections at the time of the inauguration of the Venus calendar in the Sixth century B. C. But in the Lunar table we find 10.19.6.1.0, 4 Ahau 18 Kayab, November 20, 950, which does reach an heliacal rising of Venus as morning star. Summary of Mayan History. A brief summary of Mayan history is given below:— Protohistoric Period 613 B. C. to 176 A. D. 7.0.0.0.0 to 9.0.0.0.0 The counting of days apparently began on August 6, 613 B. C. and the civil calendar in perfected form was inaugurated about 580 B. C. when 0 Pop coincided with the winter solstice, while the Venus calendar emerged half a century later. The calendarial inventions, the numerical notation and the hieroglyphic system may, perhaps, be credited to the genius of one man afterwards deified as Itzamna. The earliest contemporary Mayan date occurs on a jade statuette from San Andres Tuxtla, and is May 16, 98 B. C. The next earliest one is on the jade tablet known as the Leyden Plate and is November 17, 60 A. D., having reference to the Venus calendar. This is followed almost immediately by several contemporary dates on monuments at Uaxactun which also are of astronomical import. The design on the Leyden Plate shows that the characteristic details of Mayan drawing had already been developed and we may surmise that during the protohistoric period the early carvings were on wood instead of stone and that the peculiar religion of the Mayas was even then beginning to crystallize around the serpent, the jaguar, etc. Early Period 176 A. D. to 373 A. D. 9.0.0.0.0 to 9.10.0.0.0 During these ten katuns the great cities of the south make rapid strides towards grandeur. Pyramidal mounds are erected and temples built upon them. Public squares are laid out and in these are set up stelÆ and altars. The leading early cities are Palenque, Tikal, and Copan, where the dated monuments and temples mark rapid progress in the arts of sculpture and architecture while the subject matter of inscriptions reveals growing ability in astronomy and mathematics. Low angular relief characterizes stone sculptures and the profile presentation of the human figure is now handled more skilfully than front view. Middle Period 373 A. D. to 471 A. D. 9.10.0.0.0 to 9.15.0.0.0 Some of the most beautiful monuments of the Mayas belong to this middle period. While archaism does not entirely disappear there is freshness, purity of style, and straightforwardness of presentation about the sculpture of this age. Flamboyancy is not apparent. At Copan the Great Mound was practically carried to completion during this period, an enormous undertaking which absorbed so much energy that few stelÆ were set up. The best series of monuments from the middle period are seen at Naranjo and Piedras Negras. Great Period 471 A. D. to 629 A. D. 9.15.0.0.0 to 10.3.0.0.0 Many cities flourished in the culminating years of Mayan civilization. In addition to those already mentioned Quirigua, Ixkun, Seibal, Nakum, Cancuen, Yaxchilan, ToninÁ, and KobÁ were important centers while a complete list of the sites with dated monuments would show many more names. The territorial extension reaches from northern Yucatan to the Guatemalan highlands and from southern Vera Cruz to central Honduras. Art passes through interesting changes with tendencies towards flamboyancy. Architecture makes great advances: rooms become wider, walls thinner and forms more refined and pleasing. The calculations deal more and more with complicated astronomical subjects and dates belong less and less in the category of contemporary history. The first age of Mayan civilization, called the First Empire, comes to an end with Katun 3 of Cycle 10, a date registered at Uaxactun which, strangely enough, also boasts the earliest stela with a contemporary date. It is indicated that Uaxactun was occupied for 561 years while the range of dates at Tikal is 394 years. Abandonment of all the sites of the First Empire took place within something like fifty years. What caused this collapse? Civil war? Social decadence? Failure of food supply? Or perhaps some overwhelming epidemic? There is good reason for believing that the sudden appearance of yellow fever may have had a part in the catastrophe. References in the Chronicles to the First Empire are very brief and do not help us find the answer to this mystery. Transition Period 629 A. D. to 964 A. D. 10.3.0.0.0 to 11.0.0.0.0 Most of the Mayas surviving the collapse of the First Empire seem to have found a second home in western Yucatan, especially in the region called Chakunputun in the Chronicles. Here the rainfall is much less and the forest environment not nearly so luxuriant. Certain cities, which probably date from this transitional period, such as Hochob, Dzibilnocac, Rio Bec, etc., have very beautiful architecture showing advances over that of the First Empire in some features. Dated documents are so rare as practically to be non-existent. It seems probable that Mayan learning had been reduced to books for there is ample evidence from the succeeding period that astronomical and calendarial knowledge had been conserved from ancient times. At the end of these lean centuries, the Mayas made their way still farther north. Chichen Itza which had been a provincial city of the First Empire was reoccupied and the Mayan renaissance known as the Second Empire began. Period of the League of Mayapan 964 A. D. to 1191 A. D. 11.0.0.0.0 to 11.11.10.0.0 The first phase of the Mayan renaissance was pretty clearly centered in Chichen Itza although the earliest date which may be contemporary is probably that of the Temple of the Initial Series at Holactun. The inscription shows a survival of the ancient method of counting time and is now believed to treat of the interval between March 9, 1012 A. D. and November 14, 1016 A. D. Other cities rising to splendor during the Second Empire are Kabah, Labna, Sayil, and Izamal. The time of foundation for Uxmal is rather difficult to determine. According to tradition it was the capital of Toltec immigrants into Yucatan, but when or how they arrived cannot be answered definitely. The League of Mayapan was organized as an alliance between Chichen Itza and Uxmal in the second half of the twelfth century, and Mayapan was built as a neutralized capital of church and state under the inspiration of a Toltec noble named Quetzalcoatl. Finally, Izamal and Chichen Itza rebelled and Inetzalcoatl conquered the latter city in 1191 and made it the capital of a Maya-Toltec state. Period of Mexican Influence 1191 A. D. to 1437 A. D. 11.11.10.0.0 to 12.4.0.0.0 The helpers of Hunac Ceel bore Mexican names and belonged to the Toltec nation. Hunac Ceel is identified in one place with Kukulcan, the name meaning “plumed serpent” in the Mayan language, and in another place with Quetzalcoatl which has the same significance in the Mexican language. In Chichen Itza sculptural art and architecture have many clear analogies to works in the Valley of Mexico. The building called the Castillo seems to have been built by Quetzalcoatl, being the first structure in which serpent columns and other structural ideas of this ruler were given expression. The Temple of the High Priest’s Grave is a developed example of the new style bearing the date December 31, 1339 A. D. The elaborate Group of the Columns with the famous Temple of the Warriors, may be still later. In the first half of the fifteenth century civil war and epidemic disease brought about a second depopulation of the stone-built cities including Chichen Itza, Mayapan, Uxmal, and probably also numerous other sites in the region of Uxmal. The last monument at Mayapan may declare the date September 28, 1437. Modern Period 1437 A. D. to the present day. After the second general abandonment of urban life the Mayas seem to have been divided into many warring factions. Temples were still regarded as sacred and some constructions in stone and mortar were still made, as we know from the first Spanish descriptions of towns on the east coast of Yucatan. Tulum probably represented this last phase and this site on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean is probably the city compared to Seville by the coasting expedition of Grijalva in 1518. A monument at Tulum is believed to record the last setting up of a katun stone by the Mayas on 12.8.0.0.0, 2 Ahau 3 Pop, August 5, 1516, almost exactly 2129 years after the Mayas began to count every day in order. At the present time certain ancient ideas still persist among the Lacandone Indians of the lowlands and among the QuichÉ, Cakchiquels, and several other tribes of the highlands. But the old glory of the Mayan civilizations has passed away never to return. A prophetic vision of this end is found in one of the Mayan Books of Chilam Balam which relates to events immediately after the founding of Merida. “It was then that the teaching of Christianity began, that shall be universal over our land. Then began the construction of the church here in the center of the town of Tihoo: great labor was the destiny of the katun. Then began the execution by hanging, and the fire at the ends of our hands. Then also came ropes and cords into the world. Then the children of the younger brothers (the Indians) passed under the hardship of legal summons and tribute. Tribute was introduced on a large scale and Christianity was introduced on a large scale. Then the seven sacraments of the word of God were established. Let us receive our guests heartily: our elder brothers (the white men) come!” Plate XXVI. General View of Monte Alban from the North. The mounds are arranged around courts in an orderly manner. |
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