Recently John Drever, an amateur Maya researcher from Houston, asked me to look at some glyphs he found on an onyx bowl (Sotheby's 1986 Catalog #132 and also found in The Maya Vase Book, Volume 4, on page 686). As they came off the FAX, the first thing I noticed was the glyph at the end of the first group of glyphs. The right side of the glyph was dotted, the left side plain.(B-6) My immediate thought was: Night and Day. Then I saw a bowl with a "god" head tilted towards a set of glyphs that implied sky bands and a rat bone with black stripes (B-4) similar to the measuring pool markings both of the Aztec mural and of Jaipur. Althoug Jaipur is purported to be a concave sun dial, the bands of black are extremely wide, not at all like a sun dial . It is possible that these two pools, (or at least one of them) was used for astrology by placing the stars on a pool of water so that they could be triangulated by a bar measure across the flat surface. The refraction of the water would created straight lines across the pool{s} and make it easier for the astrologers to compute ones fortune.The onyx bowl glyphs were originally drawn by David Matsuda.
I recalled the story of the Nine Lords of the Upper World and the Nine of the Lower World. I decided that these glyphs referred to constellations in the heavens found within twenty degree increments of the 360 degree zodiac circle. The total of eighteen would have been viewed during the course of the year within the "bowl of water." Sure enough, as the rest of the glyphs became visible, the number nine (B-1) and the number eighteen (A-2) appeared at the beginning of this particular text.
There is another unconnected element that has been around for many years. It is a ceramic group statuette. The glyph (B-2) of the above inscription shows an a bowl on a slant with a face emerging from it. The statuette, part of the collect of the Museo Frissel de Arte Zapoteca, Mitla, Oaxaca, calls it a Priest Performing a Ritual.Part of this ceramic group shows a face emerging from a bowl on a slant.
This statuette also has a bead or ball hanging from the nose. This particular element of a bead hanging from a nose is only found on the monument within the Temple of the Sun at Palenque. The two seated figures holding up the shield both have a bead and feathers (fire) hanging from their noses. It is the same concept that is in the inscription of the onyx bowl. Is it possible that this statuette group is illustrating the function of an astronomer, performing a ceremony at the rising of a certain constellation?
The only identification that the constellation has is a small ball at the end of the nose. Does anyone remember what that might mean?The man in the group has a strange folded headdress, not usual for Mexico and a disk that may be a mirror around his neck. If he is an astronomer, the mirror would be just another way of reflecting the stars into the bowl of water (or reflecting the face of a person querying his astrological aspects) as a little bit of mystery and magic. The mystery and magic was just as necessary to impress those who asked about their future, as it is today.
A different book turned up in my library. It was about Eclipses in the back country of the Mexican mountains of the west coast. Each section has its own author. 
Sr. Benjamin Pérez González wrote about the purhépechaor the Tarascans who used receptacles of water that permits the observation of a sun eclipse without receiving the dangerous effects that would occur if a direct sighting was made. (Eclipses en México, Secretaría de Educación Pública, INAH,p. 92) It may agree with the above glyph and the statuette. The sun is just one of the many stars in the heavens. Viewing the stars in a receptacle of water apparently was a well-known action among the "los sabios" of the village. Although there is no known record of night viewing, there are many pictorial references to rulers who view mirrors on the vases and pottery. It is supposed to be their "wai" or protective spirit.
Most of the constellations of the modern Zodiac, such as Cancer, do refer to animal forms that impart their attributes to our personalities. Who has not heard of a man born under the Taurus sign that becomes a "raging bull" when he is angry? Does mean that the man was transformed by magic? Or was it only that he was a very angry person who just happened to be born under the sign of the Bull of astrology and astronomy?
The onyx bowl of the Maya, the depressions at the observatory at Jaipur,
India found in Aztec
Star Measures together with the half-visible measuring pools of the
Aztec Atetelco mural all appear to be ancient but useful methods of making
angular star measurements necessary for building, sailing, or for making
time calculations. Are these valid proofs?
