Star Gods of the Maya

Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars

Susan Milbrath

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780292752252
• eBook ISBN: 9780292778511
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art
• Index: Social Sciences

"A prodigious work of unmatched interdisciplinary scholarship" on Maya astronomy and religion ( Journal of Interdisciplinary History).
 
Observations of the sun, moon, planets, and stars played a central role in ancient Maya lifeways, as they do today among contemporary Maya who maintain the traditional ways. This pathfinding book reconstructs ancient Maya astronomy and cosmology through the astronomical information encoded in Pre-Columbian Maya art and confirmed by the current practices of living Maya peoples.
Susan Milbrath opens the book with a discussion of modern Maya beliefs about astronomy, along with essential information on naked-eye observation. She devotes subsequent chapters to Pre-Columbian astronomical imagery, which she traces back through time, starting from the Colonial and Postclassic eras. She delves into many aspects of the Maya astronomical images, including the major astronomical gods and their associated glyphs, astronomical almanacs in the Maya codices and changes in the imagery of the heavens over time. This investigation yields new data and a new synthesis of information about the specific astronomical events and cycles recorded in Maya art and architecture. Indeed, it constitutes the first major study of the relationship between art and astronomy in ancient Maya culture.
 
"Milbrath has given us a comprehensive reference work that facilitates access to a very broad and varied body of literature spanning several disciplines." ? Isis
 
"Destined to become a standard reference work on Maya archeoastronomy . . . Utterly comprehensive." —Andrea Stone, Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Introduction
• 1. Contemporary Maya Images of the Heavens
• 2. Naked-Eye Astronomy
• 3. Precolumbian and Colonial Period Maya Solar Images
• 4. Precolumbian and Colonial Period Lunar Images and Deities
• 5. Venus and Mercury: The Body Doubles
• 6. The Celestial Wanderers
• 7. Stars, The milky Way, Comets, and Meteors
• Appendix 1. Guide to Astronomical Identities
• Appendix 2. Table of Classic Period Dates, Monuments, and Associated Astronomical Events
• Appendix 3. Table for Calculating the Tzolkin Intervals
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index
• Plates