K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil knew its story.
11 times the Mayan ruler dynasty ruled the Copan-Mest State near today’s border between Honduras and Guatemalas. From the fifth century CE to the seventh century, the scribes drew their ancestral genealogies into manuscripts and carved them with stone monuments throughout the city.
It seems that about 650, one particular piece of architectural history attracted his attention.
Centuries ago, rural masons created special public ceremonies to see the solar-ceremonies that were temporarily attached to the sun, for example, the one who would take place in 2025. June 20 These types of architectural complexes, which archaeologists call e-groups.
However, in order to implement his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have inspired these astronomical public spaces as I wrote about my research on ancient Mayan hieroglyphically captured astronomy.
K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil innovation is a reminder that science changes during discovery or invention, but sometimes for personal or political purposes, especially in the ancient world.
See the horizon
E -mail Groups were first built in the Mayan region as early as 1000 m. Pr. BC. The ceibal location on the banks of the River River, in the central Guatemala, is one such example. There, residents built a long plastered platform bordering the eastern edge of the large square. The three structures were arranged along the north-south axis on this platform, whose roofs were high enough to rise above the tropical forest flower canopy.
In the center of the plasa, west of the platform, they built a radially symmetrical pyramid. From there, observers could follow the sunrise for and between the structures and between the structures.
At one level, the earliest e-grapes complexes served for very practical purposes. In the editions of the villages that found these complexes, as in Ceibal, several hundred to several thousand inhabitants live in the practice of Milpa or Slash-And Burning farming techniques, still supported by Pueblos throughout Meso-American. Farmers crush the brush vegetation, then burn to fertilize the soil. This requires the careful attention of the rain season, which was observed in ancient times, following the location of the rising sun on the horizon.
However, most of the classic Mayan Heartland are in a flat, wooded landscape with several significant features along the horizon. Only the green flower canopy sea corresponds to the eye of the observer standing on a high pyramid.
The solar extremes could be used on the divorce horizon, the eastern structures of the e-grape complexes could be used. The sunrise beyond the northernmost structure of the eastern platform will be observed in the summer solstice. The sunrise behind the southern structure marked the winter solstice. Ekinoxes can be marked halfway when the sun rose east.
Scientists are still discussing the main factors of these complexes, but their religious significance is well confirmed. The finals worked in the nephritis and ritual ceramic tanks reflecting the cosmology focused on four cardinal directions that may have matched with the E-Group of the Year section.
Faded knowledge
K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil citizenship would have been less adapted to direct the heavenly observations than their ancestors.
Until the Seventh Century, the Mayan political organization has changed dramatically. Copan has grown to 25,000 inhabitants and agricultural technology has also changed to keep up. Classical cities practiced many intensive forms of agriculture that relied on more complex water management strategies, the need to follow the Horizon Movement in the Sun Movement.
E -mail Group complexes continued to be integrated into the classical period, but they were no longer focused on sunrise and served for political or stylistic purposes rather than heavenly views.
I think that development is resonated today. People pay attention to changing the seasons and know when the summer solstice will take place due to their phone’s calendar program. But they probably do not remember science: how tilting the earth and its path around the sun make it look as if the sun itself is traveling north or south along the eastern horizon.
United through the ritual
In the middle of the seventh century, K’ahk ‘Uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil had created ambitious plans of her city-and astronomy provided one opportunity to help them reach them.
Today, he is known for his extravagant funeral palace, showing that he eventually achieved success. This tomb is in the heart of a wonderful structure, a front “Hieroglyphs staircase”: a record of its dynasty history, which is one of the largest notes in ancient history.
Eye opportunities to turn Copan into regional authorities, K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Aawiil looking for alliances for his place nobility, and he contacted nearby villages.
Over the last century, several scientists, including me, have investigated his plan astronomical component. It seems that K’ahk ‘Uti’ Witz ‘K’Aawiil has ordered a set of stone monuments or Stelae built in the city and at the foot of the Copan Valley that followed the sun along the horizon.
Like electronic groups complexes, these monuments involved the public in the Sun’s observations. In conclusion, Stelae created an important calendar event organized by the sun.
1920 Archaeologist Sylvanus Morley noted that from Stela 12, east of the city, it was possible to testify to the sun built behind Stela 10, at the foot of the west, twice a year. After half a century, the archaeastronomas Anthony Aveni acknowledged that these two sunsets defined 20 days of intervals compared to the equinox, and the Zenite exit in the sun, as the shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days are an important interval in the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the “month” length of the sun.
My own study showed that several Stelae dates also mentioned some of the events of these 20 days. In addition, they all lead to a once-20 year event called Katun End.
K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil celebrated this Katun End, setting its plans for the regional hegemony movement in Quirigua, a growing, influential city of 30 miles. The round altar has his image, mentioning his arrival. Hieroglyphic text tells us that K’ahk ‘uti’ witz ‘k’awiil’ shock ‘Quirigua, strengthening the Alliance of both cities.
In other words, K’ahk ‘uti’ Witz ‘K’Awiil’s’ Sun Stelae “did more than the sun. Monuments have brought together communities to witness astronomical events related to common cultural and religious experiences to all generations.
The meeting to evaluate the natural cycles that make life on Earth are possible is something that I hope – never disappear with fashion.
This article has been published from a conversation, non -profit, independent news organizations that provide you with facts and reliable analysis to help you give meaning to our complex world. It wrote: Gerardo Aldana, California University, Santa Barbara
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Gerard Aldana is not working, consulting, having funding for any company or organization, or receiving funding that is beneficial from this article, and has not disclosed any important dependent on their academic appointment.