STARGAZER #490 for Oct. 18, 2008


Mayan Astronomy

Dr. John Fox, an anthropologist who lives in Waco, has studied the ancient
Mayan civilization for more than 30 years. Last year he made me an offer I
couldn't resist.

The Mayas had a keen interest in the night sky, and while Dr. Fox and his
colleagues have learned much about Mayan astronomy, he wants to dig deeper.
Although an expert on the Mayas, his knowledge of astronomy is limited, so he
approached me about working collaboratively with him. He didn't have to ask but
once.

Throughout the past year I have been doing crash reading in
archaeoastronomy--the study of the astronomy of ancient cultures. At first, it
was tempting
to think of the ancients as simple-minded primitives--people less
sophisticated than modern-day humans and only a notch or so beyond the
proverbial
cavemen.

But as anthropologist Anthony Aveni reminds us about the ancients: "Their
brains were no less advanced than ours, their minds no less inquiring." Thus
while living hundreds and even thousands of years ago, the ancients were our
intellectual equals--just as smart, just a curious, and seeking answers to the
same profound questions of existence we are still asking.

If we seem smarter it's due to our having benefit of humankind's great
accumulation of knowledge and our incredibly sophisticated technology. (What
more
might Galileo have discovered had he had my 8" telescope, or Pythagoras had
he had my laptop computer?)

Back to the Mayas. While their Asian ancestors arrived in North America
thousands of years ago, the Mayan civilization flourished from about 1000 BCE
to
the 1520s CE in what today is southern Mexico and Guatemala. What they came
to know about the heavens was impressive. They knew more about the workings of
the night sky than the average person today knows. As a reasonably
sophisticated amateur astronomer, it is humbling to realize these ancients
could have
taught me many things about astronomy.

Their astronomical achievements were many. They independently discovered the
365-day year. They developed an advanced calendar, accurate to within one
day in 500 years, and projected it forward and backward thousands of years.
They created tables for predicting solar and lunar eclipses.

Venus had great significance to the Maya, so they knew it well. They
understood its 584-day cycle from morning star to evening star and back to
morning
star, and discerned that its appearances follow a 2,920-day (8 year) cycle
during which its night-to-night movement in the sky repeats five distinct and
successive patterns (something I had not known).

Next year I hope to accompany Dr. Fox to Guatemala to visit several Mayan
archeological sites, paying special attention to the night sky as they might
have seen it. We'll see if together we can glean any new insights into Mayan
astronomy, and if we do, you'll read about them in future columns.

Next Two Weeks. Avg. sunrise: 7:39 a.m.; avg. sunset: 6:46 p.m. (exact for
Waco, TX)
* Mon. night the Orionid meteor shower peaks with best viewing from dark
until moonrise at midnight.
* The Moon is at 3rd quarter Tues.
* The morning of Oct. 25 the crescent Moon is to the lower right of Saturn
low in the east.
* The evening of Oct. 26 Venus is to the upper right of the star Antares low
in the southwest.
* The Moon is new Oct. 28. Oct. 31, Halloween, is a traditional
cross-quarter day celebrating the middle of fall, and a thin crescent Moon is to
the
upper left of the star Antares with Venus above low in the southwest 45 minutes
after sunset.

Naked-eye Planets. Evening: Venus is twilight's "evening star" low in the
west with Jupiter the brightest object in the southwest. Morning: Saturn rises
two hours before sunrise and Mercury climbs to its highest above the rising
Sun Oct. 22.

Star Party. The Central Texas Astronomical Society's free monthly star
party is tonight at the Waco Wetlands beginning at 7 p.m., weather permitting.
For directions see my Website.

=======================================================


Stargazer appears every other week in the Waco Tribune-Herald and other
Texas newspapers. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco.
Write him at 918 N. 30th St., Waco, TX 76707, call or fax at (254) 753-6920, or
e-mail at paulderrickwaco@....

Copyright 2008 by Paul Derrick. Permission is granted for free electronic
distribution as long as these paragraphs are included. Please obtain
permission from the author for publication in any other form. To be added to
(or
removed from) the free e-mail distribution list, send your e-mail address (and
name) to _paulderrickwaco@..._ (mailto:paulderrickwaco@...) .


* * See the Stargazer Web site at http://www.stargazerpaul.com. * *





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