A Mixtec/Maya Star Grid

The Temple Star Grid

Every "find" in archeology seems to lead somewhere else. In drawing out the Mixtec Nuttall Codex, I discovered that some of the temple roofs had a grid pattern. For a long while I ignored them as just another temple variation I did not understand. But one day I realized I was drawing out the imprisonment of the North Star (Monkey Glyph). The grid was on a temple roof where an eagle man sat as ruler. The whole unit was on top of a monkey imprisoned within a mountain.

I remembered Jan Adams and her comments about her trip to the Maya lands in 1993. Apparently she had discovered another star tracking device of the Maya. It appears to agree with that found in the Nuttall Codex. Jan Adams gives her version below:

"I was in San Cristóbal in 1993, and visited the lovely home of Walter 'Chip' Morris. He has a beautiful new home, but as a part of his lush garden, he had left intact a very old structure. It is a small one-roomed, white masonry building with a reddish tile roof. The under-structure of the roof is a crisscross of smaller wood upon which the roof tiles rested.

"Chip" said that Thor Anderson investigated the following: Periodically a couple of Maya men come, remove the tiles, observe the sky, then return the tiles. What popped instantly to mind was the way Polynesians used sticks tied together to make a map of the sea. This roof structure, of course, is a perfect "map" of the sky. One could tell easily if anything in the heavens was out of order.

"The Mixtec illustrated roof grid temples with stars in the Nuttall Codex on pages 3,5,8 and 23 together with temple grids without stars on pages 2, and 33. They are suggestive of a grid like at the Chip Morris house. Page 23 shows Ten Monkey (The North Star?), with a star person constellation and a bird head together with Four Dragon and Four Flint person name signs. Page 33 may indicate a comet or a meteor shower. Most of these temple glyphs have 'AO' year signs associated with them."

One wonders if these structures are displaying the original use of the great roof combs of the Maya temples. "These temple areas were so designed that they apparently gave limited access only to 'specialists' in astronomy." In the Nuttall on page 74, Ms. Adams discovered a "specialized star watcher" who is kneeling on a such a grid.

"We know that the Maya endured catastrophes in the past which occurred in the heavens. When the poles shifted, so did the stars. Therefore, the Maya have good reason to watch the skies to make sure that the stars are still where they belong. When the North pole star shifted, and the rotation of the earth slowed they reported that the sun did not shine for several days. Naturally, their literature is rich with the trials and tribulations the Maya, Mixtec, Aztec people suffered in the process.

"Besides catastrophe, sightings of celestial observations also set the time of festivals, planting season, return of comets, equinox, solstice, new year, and was the keeper of the great cycles of the calendar.

"Every morning to this day the citizens of San Juan Chamula pray the sun up--to rise and shine and make another day. My own father, of Native American heritage, woke me every morning with: 'Good morning, Sunshine. It's time to rise and shine!'"