[Aztlan] moon's cycle

[vgray (gotsky)]

Hi Karen

I have no doubt the Mayans pursued all kinds of agricultural practices 
related to the sun and moon, but primarily as farmers, and to be sure 
farmers were not necessarily also calendrists. There is no doubt the New 
Moon was important to both Mayan farmers and calendrists, but the calendric 
foundations of the calendar go far beyond the needs of farmers, and I see no 
need to insist that Mayan calendrists were necessarily also farmers. Mayan 
society was highly sophisticated and differentiated, and I am inclined to 
believe Mayan calendrists pursued an arcane knowledge, and that the farmers 
were perhaps not important participants, at least not as their primary 
concern as in the case of the calendrists themselves.

My research has shown that all four primary lunar stations were important - 
Full Moon (FM), New Moon (NM), last appearance (LA) and first appearance 
(FA) of the moon crescent. These lunar stations describe a lunar 
segmentation model with 13d on either side of Full Moon with a 3d to 4d 
period of invisibility about New Moon (i.e. {LA, 2, NM, 2, FA, 13, FM, 13, 
LA} lunar model). At times the interval on either side of Full Moon extends 
to 14 days, and the interval of invisibility about New Moon falls to just 1 
or 2 days, but New Moon was not the only or even the primary lunar reference 
station. The list of Mayan Lunar Series dates in Linda Schele's Texas Note 
29 plainly shows that other lunar references are also important, at least 
from the perspective of the Mayan calendrists if not the farmers themselves.

I very much doubt that a New Moon conjunction with a vertical sun transit 
could have been used as a signal for farmers, because the calendar is 
capable of better precision than this. Such a signal implies a nominal 30d 
uncertainty in the event (i.e. 15d either side of zenithal passage), and 
even a basic 365d haab calendar is capable of better precision, which would 
only drift at the rate of 1d every four years. There may have been other 
significant elements that farmers were interested in - religious for 
example - that influenced planting decisions, but I could not admit to Mayan 
farmers and calendrists operating with the same goals in mind.

It is the whole gamut of Lunar Series dates which will determine which lunar 
cycle base was preferred at any given Mayan site, and I find evidence in the 
dates themselves for the use of all four lunar stations, with the majority 
favoring the Full Moon and not the New Moon at some Mayan sites.

You have not explained why Mayan farmers and calendrists would necessarily 
adopt the same underlying principles for practicing their respective crafts. 
I believe Mayans were more sophisticated than you imply to be the case.

Cheers
Clifford Emeric


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karen Bassie" <rick.bassie at nucleus.com>
To: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 12:46 PM
Subject: [Aztlan] moon's cycle


This posting isn’t directly about the correlation question, but it is
about how and why the Maya were counting the moon’s synodic cycle. The
Maya were corn farmers who lived in a tropical environment where the
timing of the corn planting was dedicated by the start of the rainy
season. The timing was crucial because a farmer must burn his field, and
immediately plant his corn just before the rains begin. If he burns too
early, the essential ash from the burn will be diminished by the time
the rains come, and if he plants too late and the rains begin, he will
not get a good burn. Although the Maya use a variety of signs related to
plant and animal behavior that indicated it is time to burn the field
and plant, the rainy season begins around the first zenith passage of
the sun in late April/early May so the Maya had to be focusing on this
important solar event as well. More importantly, there is a prevalent
practice in the Maya area of planting at full moon. There is
approximately 13 days from the first visible waxing moon to full moon.
In this two week period prior to planting, the Maya prepare themselves
for planting by performing a series of rituals and by adhering to
certain practices such as sexual abstinence and fasting. So the
disappearance of the moon at new moon, and its re-appearance as a waxing
moon in the time period just before the zenith passage of the sun is an
important signal to begin the period of ritual preparation for planting.
I am, therefore, very inclined to think that the Lunar Series notation
referring to the arrival of the moon refers to the first arrival of the
waxing moon in the western sky because this is the period of the moon’s
cycle that the Maya were most concerned with.

Karen Bassie

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