Showing posts with label Paris Codex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paris Codex. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Constellations and the Ancient Maya

A photo taken at Arches
National Park.

Did the ancient Maya have constellations? It is believed they did – and the constellations may have been on the ecliptic, the route the sun "takes" annually. However, archaeologists still haven’t been able to figure out what ancient Maya constellations were exactly.

Constellation Evidence
One example of evidence that the ancient Maya had constellations is in their structures. Archaeologists have found that the Maya would build structures so that they lined up with a constellation during its cycle through the sky. For example, at Utatlan, they have found buildings that are lined up with Orion when it is “setting.” But evidence for ancient Maya constellations also seems to show up in ancient Maya art as well.

One example of what’s thought to be evidence for ancient Maya constellations is in the codices. For example, in the Paris codex, page 23 and 24 have drawings of animals, each biting an eclipse glyph. These are possible constellations. Each drawing has the number 168 next to it. ("168" might mean 168 days.) And it’s not just in the codices – images of groups of animals thought to be drawings of constellations have been found in buildings.

Examples of structures where you can find images groups of animals thought to represent constellations include the East Wing of the Nunnery at Chichen Itza, the Governor’s Palace at Uxmal, and at Acanceh’s Palace of the Stuccoes.

These groups of animals don’t all show the same animals, or the same number of animals. And, at least with the Paris Codex, there is some disagreement about which animals the ancient Maya were drawing.

Possible Identities
Two people who study ancient Maya astronomy, Victoria and Harvey Bricker, created a list of possible constellations, using the list in the Paris Codex’s animals. In this list they thought the constellations the ancient Maya may have had were:

  • The Pleiades, drawn as a rattlesnake
  • Aries, drawn as an ocelot
  • Gemini, drawn as a bird they called a cox bird or bird 2
  • Pisces, drawn as a skeleton
  • Scorpio, drawn as a scorpion
  • Aquarius, drawn as a bat
  • Libra, drawn as an animal they called bird 1
  • Sagittarius, drawn as a fish-snake
  • Capricorn, drawn as an animal they called bird 3
  • Virgo, drawn as an animal they couldn’t identify
  • Orion, drawn as a turtle
  • Leo:
    • eastern stars: a peccary
    • western stars: a frog


Outside this list, you'll find sources that say the ancient Maya saw the stars of Orion’s belt as a constellation. It seems there was more than one idea about this group of stars. It looks like one idea they had – at least at Quirigua and Palenque -- was that it was a group of hearthstones connected to creation. (They called it the “three-stone place.) Another idea was that it was a turtle.

Speaking of turtles, there’s another view about what constellation the ancient Maya saw in Gemini: a turtle. And that’s not the only other view: there’s another idea that says when the ancient Maya looked at Gemini, they saw a peccary.

As for the Pleiades, you may see it theorized that a rattlesnake's rattle was a symbol of the these stars. (On a related note, Diego de Landa's writings say that that's what the Maya he spoke with saw in the Pleiades. He also says that along with Gemini, the Pleiades was a constellation that the Maya he spoke with liked to keep track of the most.)

Zodiac
The ancient Maya may have had a zodiac as well as constellations. One theory says the Maya had a zodiac that had 13 constellations. This theory also says that each constellation was connected to a period of 28 days.


References:
Google Books: "Encyclopedia of the Ancient Maya"; Walter R.T. Witschey (editor); 2016

 Mesoweb: "The PARI Journal" Volume XV; Winter 2015

(Link goes to what the site calls: Paris Codex: 23-24 Frame: 1)


Image Credits:
NPS/William Pedro
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Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Ceiba: A Sacred Tree

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department
of Commerce. Taken by Maxfield Weiss, NOAA NMFS IA.
Two kinds of ceiba live where the Maya lived and live: Ceiba aesculifolia and Ceiba pentandra. Of the two, the species scientifically known as Ceiba pentandra is the one that it seems archaeologists think the ancient Maya held as a sacred tree. Let's look at the tree itself and what the ancient Maya may have believed about it.

Names
This tree has a lot of names. For example, it has two other scientific names: Bombax pentandrum, Ceiba pentandra, and Eriodendron anfractuosum. And as for common names, it is also known as the white silk-cotton tree, bonga, ceibo, kapoctree, kapok tree, bongo and silk cotton tree.

Then there's the ancient Mayan name for the ceiba. It may be yáaxche' or ya'axche -- the first means "first tree," while the second one is "green/blue-green/blue tree." The common opinion, from the sources thus far found, seems to prefer the second name. (You may also see sources give the name/spelling of yaxche' or yaxte' as the ancient Mayan name for this tree.)
One way to draw what's thought to be the
ancient Maya name for ceiba. 

Botany
Ceibas rise around 65.6 and 131 feet to 164 feet tall -- some are even 200 feet tall! The tree has gray bark and has buttresses -- wedges around its base that help the tree keep from falling over. Its leaves are made up of stalks off of which smaller leaves grow -- the tree looses these leaves every year, starting in January and going until March.

Though not every year, when its loosing its leaves, the ceiba grows night-blooming flowers that are pollinated by creatures including bats and -- in the morning -- birds like hummingbirds. The flowers' color range includes beige, an extremely pale pink and white.

Another notable feature is inside the seed pods. There is a type of soft fiber in them -- which is called kapok silk -- in which are seeds. Kapok silk is like cotton, though not easy to spin, because it doesn't naturally stick to itself as well as cotton. For ceiba trees, the point of the silk is to have something that floats the seeds away from itself, so that ceibas may grow in other places. But for people -- possibly including the ancient Maya -- the silk is useful in other ways, such as for batting in cushions. (A little more on this substance in the next section.)

These trees also have a surprising feature -- spines shaped like cones can grow right out of their trunks. It's believed that these spines keep away animals that eat plants. More often, you'll find it easier to see these spines for yourself by looking for ceibas that aren't very old.

Possible Ancient Maya Uses
There are different ideas that talk about possible uses the ancient Maya may have had for  the ceiba. One idea is that the ancient Maya may have used ceiba wood to make canoes.

Other ideas, focus on kapok silk. One idea wonders if the Maya used the fiber to stuff cushions for thrones. Another wonders if they spun it along with cotton to help compensate its inability to stick to itself like other fibers used to make cloth.

Ancient Maya Cultural Connection
The ancient Maya thought this tree was the World Tree. They believed that there was a ceiba that touched all three of the worlds that they thought existed: the upper world, the world of humans and the underworld, where the tree's roots were. The ancient Maya also thought the ceiba kept these worlds as the separate levels. (However, it must be noted that there are images of the World Tree as a different being, such as a crocodile.)

Ceiba Trees in Art/Writing
Some examples of ancient Maya representations of the ceiba tree can be found at the site of Palenque, where they liked to draw it kind of like a cross. (Why a cross? An explanation is that when ceiba trees aren't very old, that's what they kind of look like.) You may have seen one of these already: it's part of the coffin of the famous ruler, Pakal. Very noticeable among the coffin top's carvings is an image thought to be a ceiba.

If you look through the Maya codices, you can find pictures and sentences involving the ceiba. Using the search engine in the site The Maya Hieroglyphic Codices, it looks like drawings of as well as references to ceibas can be found in the Dresden Codex and the Madrid Codex. (The Paris Codex has, at least now, only references to ceibas, and the Grolier Codex didn't show up in the results.)

And there are even more artifacts. Some ancient Maya incense burners or incensarios as well as funerary urns may also be connected to the ceiba. Why? Because the artists who made them used spikes as part of the design, which may have been meant to look like ceiba spines.


References:
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: Plants Databas: Plants Profile: Ceiba pentandra (kapoctree)

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute: Bocas del Toro: Species Database: Ceiba pentandra

University of California, Santa Barbara: Institute of Social, Behavioral and Economic Research (ISBER): MesoAmerican Research Center: Trails of El Pilar: Plants of El Pilar: Ceiba

Integrated Taxonomic Information System: ITIS Report Page: Ceiba pentandra

USDA Forest Products Labratory: Center for Wood Anatomy Research: Technology Transfer Fact Sheet: Ceiba pentandra

"Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities"; Karen Bassie-Sweet; 2008

"Animals & Plants of the Ancient Maya: A Guide"; Victoria Schlesinger; 2001

"Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City"; Alexander Parmington; 2011

Google Books: "The Origins of Maya States"; Loa P. Traxler, Robert J. Sharer (editors); 2016

The Maya Hieroglyphic Codices: Search Results  (for ceiba)

"Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies"; Rosemary A. Joyce, Susan D. Gillespie (editors); 2000

"Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil"; Scott R. Hutson (editor); 2017

Florida State University: DigiNole: "Highland Maya Effigy Funerary Urns: A Study of Genre, Iconography, and Function"; Kathleen Garrett McCampbell; 2010

University ofAlbany SUNY: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 17"Postclassic Pottery Censers in the Lowlands: A Study of Form, Function and Symbolism"; Bradley W. Russell; 2017

Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing No. 54: "The Idol-Makers in the Madrid Codex"; Mary A. Ciaramella; 2004

FAMSI: Maya Codices: The Dresden Codex (pages 60 to 74)

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Friday, October 12, 2012

Itzamná (God D)




In the Postclassic Period codices, this god used to be called (and in some books still is) god D. Worshiped at least as far back as the Preclassic Period, Itzamná -- a name spelled various ways -- was a god whose name translates as "one who does itz." ("Itz" seems to be a word that means any sacred liquid -- such as water, sap, and blood.)

 Itzamná was the first shaman and a creator god (though some books say that he was an aspect of a creator god or one-half of a god.) He had a lot of avatars, was connected with various things such as rulers, writing and possibly god N.  He also seems to have connections to the gods of rain, corn, and the sun as well as the world tree.

 History of Importance
As history passed, Itzamná became a very important god to the ancient Maya. Then the Classic Period collapse happened, and he became less important. His importance went down because the Maya had begun to stop believing in rulers that were connected to the gods -- they were switching to councils. Later on, in the Yucatan Peninsula, Itzamná's importance increased again.

 Appearance
Itzamná appears to be elderly and male. His nose is big, and a description you may see of it is "Roman." The shape of his eyes was drawn either square or round, depending on the artifact.There are also certain things the ancient Maya tended to draw as part of their depictions of Itzamná. One is his headdress, which has a flower with an ak'bal symbol (ak'bal means dark/night) in it. Another thing they tended to show him wearing was a necklace made of shell.

 Art with Itzamná in it shows him doing things like creating the sky or being a ruler that's managing a ritual. Also, it was common for the ancient Maya to draw him sitting on a throne.

 Function
Among other gods, rulers may have looked to Itzamná's supernatural court as something to imitate as a form of 'correct' behavior. If true, this included how they set up their cities as well as how they acted themselves. (It seems that other gods' lives were possibly imitated as well.)

 Quirigua's Stela C appears to be an example of the belief that Itzamná helped make the current world. It seems like the stela says that Itzamná -- which the stela calls Six Sky Lord -- and three other gods set three "throne stones" for a hearth in the sky. (Itzamná's throne stone was the water or waterlily throne stone.) Part of this stela also shows Quirigua's Ruler I in a ceremony, dressed up as Itzamná -- dressing up as gods as part of rituals was something the Maya did, and one of the gods they're known to have imitated in rituals was Itzamná. (There's a theory that rulers used quetzal feathers as part of their headdresses to copy the Principal Bird Deity, one of Itzamná's aspects.)

 The ancient Maya in the Postclassic Period went to him (among certain other gods) when the coming year was predicted to be an unfortunate year, with disasters such as crop failure. They would ask him to keep the year from having disasters.

 Itzamná was a god of scribes -- and he was a scribe himself. He was also a god of knowledge.

 This god was also connected to some more pointedly mystical things. One of these was foretelling the future. The other was the ability to look at things that you couldn't normally see as a person.

 Curiously, it seems Itzamná had a bad side too. This negative part of him would destroy crops.

 Aspects
Four aspects of Itzamná are a peccary, a turtle with a k'an sign on its shell, a possum, rattlesnake and the crocodile-like creature that makes up the earth -- that is, the part that people live on, in between the upperworld and underworld. (There is a theory though that Maya art that shows animals as being the land on which people walk should not be taken literally.) Itzamná also has a group of four aspects, each connected to one of the four cardinal directions and a color. And another aspect of his was the Milky Way.

The goddess Chak Chel (you might come across books that refer to her as Ix Chel) may be an aspect of Itzamná, or perhaps they were two parts of one deity. The ancient Maya may have given Itzamná and Chak Chel credit for being the creators of people as well as time. The two may have been seen as the gods of healing as well.

 In the Classic and Postclassic Period at least, another aspect  -- or perhaps spirit animal companion -- of Itzamná was a supernatural bird that has the same headdress as him. Images of the bird also tend to have it holding a snake in its beak. Archaeologists sometimes call this bird the Principal Bird Deity (PBD for short) or the Itzamná bird. Because of how it looks, there's a theory that this bird's appearance may have been based off of a real species of bird called the laughing falcon or guaco (Herpetotheres cachinnans) -- but not everyone agrees on what bird the Principal Bird Deity is supposed to be like though. 

 (There's a also theory that  Itzamná (god D) is actually a a mix of of Pauahtun (god N) and the Principal Bird Deity.)

 Consideration
Itzamná tends to be drawn with a hummingbird. In these images, the hummingbird is giving him things. This may mean that the hummingbird was Itzamná's messenger. It's not the only possible messenger of this god's though. Archaeologists have found evidence that there were times where the Principal Bird Deity delivered messages for Itzamná. The name for the Principal Bird Deity as a messenger could be Muut Itzamnaaj.
References:
Google Books: "Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time"; Alexus McLeod; 2018

Google Books: "Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya"; Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos"; 2017

 The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System: "High-resolution speleothem record of precipitation from the Yucatan Peninsula spanning the Maya Preclassic Period"; Medina-Elizalde, Martín; Burns, Stephen J.; Polanco-Martínez, Josué M.; Beach, Timothy; Lases-Hernández, Fernanda; Shen, Chuan-Chou; Wang, Hao-Cheng; March 2016

 Google Books: "The Origins of Maya States"; Loa P. Traxler, Robert J. Sharer (editors); 2016

"Re-Creating Primordial Time: Foundation Rituals and Mythology in the Postclassic Maya Codices"; Gabrielle Vail, Christine Hernández; 2013

 "Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities"; Karen Bassie-Sweet; 2008

 "Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya: Rituals of Body and Soul"; Andrew K. Scherer; 2015

 Five College Compass Digital Collections: "Birds and Environmental Change in the Maya Area"; Peter Stuart (with contrib. by David Stuart; 2015

 The University of Texas at Austin: Texas Scholar Works: University of Texas Libraries: "Framing the portrait : towards an understanding of elite late classic Maya representation at Palenque, Mexico"; Kaylee Rae; 2007

 Journal of Ethnobiology 32(1): 74-107: "Water Lily and Cosmic Serpent: Equivalent Conduits of the Maya Spirit Realm"; J. Andrew McDonald, Brian Stross; 2012




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Friday, July 13, 2012

The Paris Codex

Once part of Paris's the Bibliothèque Impériale and now a part of the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Paris Codex --  also known as the Codex Pérez and Codez Peresianus -- is one of the four known surviving Maya codices. Drawn and mentioned by various people it wasn't commonly known of for a while.
History
At some point after contact between the Spanish invaders and the Maya was established, the Paris Codex mysteriously ended up in Europe. In 1832 the Bibliothèque Impériale's bought the codex and this is where it remained for some time.
 
It was drawn about three years later by Augistine Aglio, and Aglio's work was put in Vol. 10 of Kingsborough Antiquities of Mexico. This volume wasn't published as Kingsborough died.
 
1849 saw a man named Joseph M.A. Aubin publish a reference to this codex. Six years later or so, a man named José F. Ramírez came into contact with the Kingsborough publication and saw the illustrations of the codex. After that he made the observation that the Paris Codex and the Dresden Codex shared features, but no one knew of his observation for nearly 100 years.
 
About four years later a man named José Pérez published two descriptions of the Paris Codex, and one of them had an illustration. That same year the Paris Codex was officially rediscovered by a man named León de Rosny. He found it in a chimney corner that had a basket of papers. During the 1860s brought public attention to it.
Physical Features
The Paris Codex has twenty-two pages: its eleven physical pages are painted on both sides. It understood to have been part of a larger codex. It is very damaged, as a sizeable amount of its plaster coating (on which the glyphs were drawn) having crumbled away.
Contents
In the first half of the Paris Codex, a series k'atuns is written down along with the rituals and ceremonies that must be done on them. Two pages -- page 19 and page 20 -- talk about year bearers, days that would land on the first day of Pop. The Paris Codex also talks about how k'u (god C) influences things. Other pages talk about the spiritual forces in the ancient Maya religion such as the Pauahtuns and the death gods. Still others talk about the weather. Beyond this, the codex has a zodiac that has 13 animal signs (they represent constellations the ancient Maya saw in the night sky.)
Consideration
In 1933 a man named Theodore A. Willard took pictures of the Paris Codex. These images from these pictures can be found at Northwestern University's digital library here.
 
References:
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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Codices: The Books of the Maya

The Maya crafted accordion-style books on what is called copo (or amatl in the Nahuatl language) -- paper created from the inside bark of fig trees -- whose pages they thinly coated with lime plaster. Instead of printing, Maya scribes would draw information and pictures of activities ranging from religious duties of the priests to crop production. Today, these books are called codices.

There are not many codices around now however. Due to the tropical climate of some areas of the Maya world, codices tended to rot away after a time -- though fragments of codices have been found in tombs. Also, after the Conquest, Franciscan “missionaries” such as Bishop Diego de Landa ordered Maya codices to be burned. Despite the climate
and the burn order, so far four codices have been brought to light.

These four codices are the Dresden Codex, the Paris Codex, the Madrid Codex and the Grolier Codex. This last codex was discovered fairly recently, in 1971. These surviving codices contain information on Maya rituals, divination and astronomy but do not contain much historical information.

University of Arizona Libraries: Mayan Codex Facsimiles

“The Ancient Maya”; Robert J. Sharer, Loa P. Traxler; 2006

Palomar College: Wayne's Word: Stranglers and Banyans
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