Mesoamerica: Maya, Inca, and Aztec

In the Maya society astronomy reflected order in the universe and gods’ place in it.

To the Mayans capturing the essence of time was the most important to them. In their cosmology, pace and time were intertwined, which is shown by the calendar system.

The Mayans used the sky as a method of measuring the passage of time. They believed that celestial events were a communication from the gods. The religious aspect of astronomy for the Mayans was that the movement of constellations and other objects across the sky represented a connection between celestial events and human affairs. This means that for them the practice of astronomy influenced every Mayan.

• The priest-astronomers had a great amount of knowledge of the patterns of the sky. The priest-astronomers had to be very knowledgable about the sky in order to know the hour and how to predict when the sun would rise again.

• The center of the universe is the Earth. It is the first layer of the upper world and the underworld. It is surrounded by divine water, which is an ocean that extends to the horizon.

• The second layer is called IIhuicatl metzli, which is where the moon and clouds reside.

• The fixed stars lie in the next layer where the deity Citallicue (“She of the Starry Skirts”) lives.

• The sun is the fourth layer

• Venus the “Greater Star” is the fifth layer

• Sixth layer is the “Heaven of the Fire Drill” which represents unidentified constellations (may be Orion’s Belt) This layer is also where comets come from.

• The seventh layer is the black or green heaven fierce with winds or storms.

• Eighth layer is blue heaven where dust lies.

• Ninth layer is “Where Stone Slabs Crash Together”

• Layers 10,11 and 12 represent the colors white, yellow and red

• The last layer is called Omeyocan, where the dual male-female god, who created space and time, lives.

• The Mayans used three separate calendars. The Long Count was principally used for historical purposes, since it can define any date for millenia in the past and future. The Haab was a civil calendar based on a year of 360 days consisting of 18 periods of 20 days.

• Mayans did not have any complex instruments for charting the postitions of celestial objects