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A CYCLIC-TIME MODEL FOR ECLIPSE PREDICTION IN MESOAMERICA AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE ECLIPSE TABLE IN THE DRESDEN CODEX

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2017

John Justeson
John Justeson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Albany, Arts and Sciences 237, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12222
*
E-mail Correspondence to: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study describes, illustrates, and applies an “eclipse family” representation for the cyclic timing of eclipses in Mesoamerica. This theoretical construct is based on daykeepers’ approach to divination, anchored in the divinatory calendar (DC); empirically, it emerges from data on the timing of eclipses in Lowland Mayan1 territory between 100 b.c.e. and 1500 c.e. drawn from Espenak and Meuss's (2007, 2009) eclipse canons.

An eclipse family consists of a sequence of stations on which an eclipse might be visible in Mesoamerica – one every 88 new or full moons for 170 to 200 years, restricted to one of three DC zones. Cyclic and linear time relationships among dates of eclipses follow from this representation: intervals between successive stations in concurrent families in the same zone, and between successive stations across zones; between successive families in a zone; and among the first or last stations of families, within and across zones.

One and only one eclipse-family representation fits the lunar stations of the Dresden Codex; its properties show that it is a solar eclipse table. In real time, the table pertains to a 405-month interval sometime between 1076 and 1148 c.e., most likely from April 19, 1083 c.e. to January 16, 1116 c.e.

Type
Special Section: Mesoamerican Cultural Astronomy and the Calendar
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Fall 2017 , pp. 507 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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