We have exactly four books from the mighty Mayan civilization, which ruled Mesoamerica for over 3,500 years. Only one of them was built before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. It is a Mexican Mayan document or mexican mayan manuscriptsIt was produced between 1021 and 1152. Although unfinished and otherwise in little good condition, the work of art, colored in places with precious materials, vividly evokes an ancient worldview that is now all but lost. in The video above is from the Getty Museum and SmarthistoryArt historians Andrew Turner and Lauren Kilroy-Eubank tell us what we see when we look at the remains of this sacred Mayan book, the oldest ever discovered in the Americas.
“This book has a controversial history,” Turner says. “It was long thought to be a fake due to the strange circumstances in which it surfaced.” After being discovered in a private collection in Mexico City in the 1960s, it was rumored that it might have been looted from a cave in Chiapas.
It was initially determined by experts to be a fake due to its lack of resemblance to other extant Mayan texts, but it was first confirmed as authentic in 2018. For non-experts, the question remains, “What is the Code about?” Its purpose is astronomical, as Kilroy-Eubank says, to convey “information about the cycles of Venus,” as well as, as Turner adds, Venus “was considered a dangerous planet” by the Mayans.
The Code includes a record of Venus’ 584-day cycle over 140 years, testifying to the scrutiny that Maya astronomers gave to Venus’ complex patterns of rise and fall. In this way, they managed to determine that it was a morning star and an evening star, as many ancient civilizations did not, but they seem to have been more interested in what its movement revealed about the intentions of the gods they saw as controlling it, and thus the possibility of events such as war or famine. Those gods were not benevolent. One page depicts a “horrible skeletal god with a blunt knife protruding from his nostril,” holding a “huge jagged blade” in one hand and “the hair of a freshly decapitated prisoner” in the other. When we look up at the night sky today, there are few images that come to mind, but we don’t see anything like the Mayans saw.
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Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. His projects include the Substack newsletter books about cities and a book Stateless City: A Stroll Through Los Angeles in the 21st Century. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
