Between 250 and 500 CE, the Mayans began documenting the skies. Many of their calculations and reports of astronomical objects' positions are found in the Dresden Codex, which is a book of 78 pages of astronomical tables. The image below shows some of the pages of the Dresden Codex.
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| The Mayan Dresden Codex Image Credit: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/maya/codex-dresden.jpg |
To the Mayans, the stars were signs from the gods that showed their will and desires, and they were considered to be telling of human life on Earth. Various astronomical objects represented different Gods. The Sun was representative of the Sun God, Kinich Ahau, who was believed to shine during the day, and then turn to a jaguar to go to the underworld at night. The Mayans kept close watch of the Sun and had very accurate knowledge for predictions of the Equinoxes, Solstices, and Solar eclipses.
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| Mayan Sun God, Kinich Ahau Image Credit: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDs2EH9PxW16Tb58LkglJCirFoxSV0TRNaE155uraugwKy-hLE9RqxFRF4mXwkdBOk3Rwo4ZU6RSG2gNRf_dV-CumMWfb1CVZQEikJE21zh4M9tyKTd0UFdZnD3o5musro0Xs_BJ4eBM/s1600-h/2484925157_3978c19c0d_o.jpg |
The most important planet to the Mayans was Venus. This planet's position in the sky was used to determine when war would occur, and when sacrifices of captured warriors and leaders would take place. The Mayans were able to calculate a year on Venus to be 584 days long (with respect to the Earth, since they believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe), compared to the current value: 583.92.
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| Mayan Temple Image Credit: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2012/11/science-110912-001-617x416.jpg |
Many of the temples dedicated towards different gods were aligned to objects such as the Sun or Venus, so that on a certain date and time of the year, the Sun would shine directly onto the temple stairs, as in the example of Chichén Itzá. Additionally, Mayan observatories were specially placed so that they would be illuminated on certain dates. The Xochicalco observatory is underground with a hole in the ceiling. The Sun shines directly over this observatory on two dates of the year, projecting an image of the Sun on the floor.
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| The Mayan calendar was a system of interlocking cycles. Image Credit: https://explorable.com/mayan-astronomy |
The Mayan civilization is perhaps best known for their calendars. They had two calendar systems, one which was for ceremonies, called the Tzolk'in, which was based on a 260-day cycle, and the other calendar was called the Haab, which was based on the Solar year. This calendar was fairly accurate and with the Solar year calculated to be 365 days. It was separated into 18 months of 20 days and an additional five day long month. You probably remember just a few years ago on December 21, 2012, the world was supposed to end because the Mayan calendar came to an end (it obviously didn't, but that is besides the point). Observing the skies and creating a calendar helped the Mayans keep track of the seasons, which provided them with dates for harvest and helped in other agricultural areas. As we can see, astronomy is a field which has been present for over a millennium and has been incorporated into mythology and utilized as a indicator of time.
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Whoah, this is fascinating!
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