A SoIar-Lunar Calendar

      

The Maya Meetings held at the University of Texas at Austin between March 8 and March 17, 2001 proved to be very interesting this year. I was in the Mixtec (Nuttall Codex) session and I was one of the presenters for our group, There were only four of us at the end of the session.. Not wishing to present, I told Father Williams that I would just tell every one that 8-Deer traveled 39 days to go to (13 days), the meeting, (13 days), and out of, (13 days) the Kingdom of the Sun and that there were several rain storms during that time. I had read in Susan Milbrath's book, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars that the idiomatic phrase for a full moon was a bowl of water. The rainy season came about when that bowl had been tipped over. There were four of these water elements in the section of the Nuttall that we were working on (p. 74-76). but they were "name" glyphs. The comment proved to be a disaster! Wow!

Father Bob and Annie held my attention with a hard stare and asked "What does that have to do with the journey? Your 39 day division by three was great, but the rain idea has no place here." I did not know anything else to say. Properly chastised, I headed for home.

Arriving home and seeing my books lying about, I knew that I WAS going to present something the next day. Yet, I had no idea what more information I could give. The group had approved of my comment on the 39 day sequence, but I also wanted to include the concept of the full moon as a bowl of water that when tipped over produced rain. It fit in nicely with the Inca version of the rain vase when broken also produced rain.

I worked with the PC for a while and as I waited for things to happen there, I began to leaf through the magazines that Jan Adams had given me. And there it was! In a magazine called the Mountain Astrologer, (June-July, 1997) it told how to build a Sun/Moon Calendar in one's backyard using stones as the markers. At first I passed over it, but as I flipped the page, I noticed that there was an angle of thirteen degrees (39 divided by 3 equals 13). Reading through the text, I felt that astrology and the menses had nothing to do with the Nuttall, however when I saw the 56-stone layout, I knew that I had a valid concept in front of me. The next day I gave Father Bob an overhead with the main points, as listed is below.

1. I discovered that 39 days divided by 3 equals 13.

2. The Moon moves 13 degrees counter-clockwise (over two stones) every night from a fixed reference point.

3. The Sun moves counter-clockwise every 13 days. Also passing over two stones each time. However, one must also move the Moon marker by one unit whenever the Sun reaches a Solstice or an Equinox unit.

4. When the Moon reaches a sun marker, it jumps over that marker.

5. The Sun moves 39 days while the Moon makes a 39 degree jump.
Here, of course was an explanation of Eight Deer's 39 day journey to and from the realm of the Sun God.

This type calendar gives both the partial journey of 260 days of the Sun together with the yearly 28 mansions of the moon of 13 degrees each. The second count (28 x 13) gives us only 364 days within the 360 degree circle. At the Summer Solstice, the Sun marker must be moved after 14 days instead of 13; Every fourth year, at the Summer Solstice do it after 15 days. Or one can wait, as the Mesoamericans are thought to have done, until the end of four years and add 5 Dead Days to the calendar round.

This strange double count of the Sun and Moon's passages not only agrees with the Nuttall's journey to the realm of the Sun God, but also appears to duplicate the footprints directionals found in the first pages of the Borgia calendar. . It is interesting to note that the number of calendar pictures on the first four double pages of the Borgia Codex equals 364 total when the top and bottom borders (104 pictures) are included in the count. Apparently they are part of the calendar because some of the footprints do enter the 104 units of the border areas. On each doublepage there are 91 picture frames which when multiplied by four (4) equals 364. This number of days is exactly the same as in the calendar of stones set into the ground shown above.

The larger border pictures total 104, while the day name markers count 260. For more on the Borgia see Comets and Meteorites in the Borgia Codex

The Moon, on the other hand, had a different journey during the year. Every time the Sun marker passed over a solstice or equinox unit, the Moon advanced by one unit. In this way the Moon advanced four times during each year. In this way eclipses wwere created around the world.

6. An eclipse (of the Sun or the Moon) may not occur in a specific area every time it occurs. One eclipse may be seen in the Yucatan, but the next eclipse might be seen in Canada or Europe.

An eclipse is called "chasing the dragon who swallows the Moon or the Sun." See The Serpent-Dragon Who Ate the Stars.