Mark Van Stone

Mysterious Maya Mathematics & Astronomy

Abstract

Archaeoastronomers find that each ancient culture developed its own unique way of interacting with the sky. Chinese or Alexandrian or Babylonian astronomers (for example), each emphasized certain aspects of the science of the Sky. A commonality they all shared was the habit of projecting their stories and aspirations onto the map of the heavens.

The ancient Maya, however, proved maddeningly individualistic. Their cities and temples are great cosmograms, yet not in any way consistent across the land. The priests of each city chose unique, arcane ways to align and reflect the local geography and the sky. Yet, though they spoke dozens of distinct languages, they did share a sophisticated writing and mathematical system across their realm. Like the Babylonians, they employed a place-value system of counting that allowed them to manipulate enormous quantities with ease. (Every other ancient people encumbered themselves with counting-systems based on letters or sets of unrelated arbitrary signs.) This system allowed them, uniquely, to count the days between events— centuries, millennia, even millions of years apart. Not even the Babylonians were such fanatics for counting. Only modern astronomers, with our Julian Day Numbers, count large time-intervals so precisely.

The Maya put their calendar-mathematics in service to numerology. The intervals they record between events often incorporate multiples of celestial cycles and numerological ‘magic’ numbers. From their use as factors in these large intervals, it is clear that they knew precisely not only eclipse and planetary cycles, but both the Sidereal and Tropical Year.

Biography

Mark presented at INSAP VIII (New York) on Maya Mathematical and Astronomical knowledge. He earned his Ph.D. from University of Texas in Maya Hieroglyphs, and is an expert in the history and techniques of Writing Systems.

He is mostly an autodidact; after earning a BA in Physics and working in the University of New Hampshire Space Science Laboratory, his long and winding road included teaching calligraphy, apprenticeship in ivory sculpting in Japan with netsuke-carver Saito Bishu, and working as a Claymation® animator. He now teaches art history at Southwestern College in California.