[Aztlan] zero does not mean

[John Major Jenkins]

Dave,

Thank you for that interesting information. That's what I was trying to illustrate in my exchange with Lloyd - a demonstration that calling the date in 3114 BC a "Zero Day" as Lloyd suggested was just as loaded with assumption and non-Maya conceptual baggage as other suggestions. Interestingly, from your references to current assessment and opinion on the topic, the shell could equally be interpreted  as "complete" or "full." This would reinforce my previous point that the "beginning" and the "end" were seen to be conceptually equivalent by the Maya - rather common sense but having interesting implications. Specifically, it supports the deduction that 0.0.0.0.0 (in 3114 BC) and 13.0.0.0.0 (in 2012) are "like-in-kind" events. Evidence for this is already suggested by the presence of Bolon Yok Te (a deity present on other 13.0.0.0.0 monuments that reference the 3114 date) on the Tortuguero Monument 6, which explicitly references 2012 via the 4 Ahau 3 Kankin CR position and the use of 13 in the baktun place value. Sven Gronemeyer and others have suggested that Tortuguero, as a satellite of Palenque, would have embodied and expressed Palenque's cosmological ideas.    

JMJ 


-----Original Message-----
>From: David Hixson <chunchucmil at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Jul 22, 2008 7:20 AM
>To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org, ECOLING at aol.com
>Subject: Re: [Aztlan] zero does not mean "shell"
>
>Not to delve too far into Lloyd's and JMJ's recent comments, but I would like to add one observation regarding the shell glyph...
>
>I have seen many lectures (although I do not know if this is in print anywhere - I would appreciate any references others may know about), that the Maya shell (or any other signs that are generally interpreted as "zero" could equally be seen as "complete" or "full".  Mathematically, they would function the same way, but it would be a difference in emic perception of the place value.  In other words, the Maya vigesimal system could be seen as:
>
>shell, 1, 2, 3, 4... 19
>
>or
>
>1, 2, 3... 18, 19, shell
>
>In other words, in the second instance the shell is NOT twenty, but simply "full" or "complete" -- indicating the need to move over a place value.
>
>Again, mathematically, the results are the same.  But the perception of that particular place value may be different in western culture vs. the scribes of the ancient Maya.
>
>So, to make any conjectural interpretation of the reason why "shell = zero" (such as "empty" or "hollow") would be inappropriate.
>
>-Dave
>____________________________
>David R. Hixson
>PhD Candidate
>Tulane University
>chunchucmil at yahoo.com
>
>
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