Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:49:47.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dark Phase of the Moon and Ancient Maya Methods of Solar Eclipse Prediction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Linton Satterthwaite
Linton Satterthwaite*
Affiliation:
University Museum, University of Pennsylvania,PhiladelphiaPa.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this short paper the aim is to eliminate from consideration what seems to me a misleading lack of precise statement—if not an actual and important error in astronomical fact—in the recent writing of Robert H. Merrill. It seems proper first to make clear my conviction that laymen in astronomy have a proper place in the study of ancient Maya astronomy, even if mistakes are sometimes made which must seem naive to a professional astronomer. Merrill is by profession a civil engineer, and I am a garden-variety archaeologist. As a matter of fact, laymen are probably responsible for more sound progress in this field than are the all-too-few professional astronomers who have become interested. The names of Förstemann, Morley, Guthe, Teeple, and Thompson come to mind at once.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , January 1949 , pp. 230 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1949

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

La Farge, O. 1934. “Post-Columbian Dates and the Mayan Correlation Problem.” Maya Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 109–24. New York.Google Scholar
Makemson, M. W. 1943. “The Astronomical Tables of the Maya.” Contributions to American Anthropology and History, No. 42; Publications, Carnegie Institution of Washington, No. 546, pp. 183–221. Washington.Google Scholar
Makemson, M. W. 1946. “The Maya Correlation Problem.” Publications of the Vassar College Observatory, No. 5. Poughkeepsie.Google Scholar
Merrill, R. H. 1946. “A Graphical Approach to Some Problems in Maya Astronomy.#x201D; American Antiquity, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 35–46.Google Scholar
Merrill, R. H. 1948. Review of Satterthwait. 1947. American Antiquity, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 264–5.Google Scholar
Satterthwaite, L. 1947. “Concepts and Structures of Maya Calendrical Arithmetics.” Joint Publications, Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Anthropological Society, No. 3. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Satterthwaite, L. 1948. “Note on the Maya Eclipse Table of the Dresden Codex.#x201D; American Antiquity, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 61–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satterthwaite, L. 1948. n.d. “Further Implications of Thompson's Readings of Maya Inscriptions at Copan.” Proceedings, Twenty-Eighth International Congress of Americanists. Paris (in press).Google Scholar
Weitzel, R. B. 1935. “Maya Moon Glyphs and New Moons.” Maya Research, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 14–23. New York.Google Scholar
Young, C. A. 1916. A Text-book of General Astronomy for Colleges and Scientific Schools. Boston.Google Scholar