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Maya Sun Calendar Dictum Disproved

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert H. Merrill
Robert H. Merrill*
Affiliation:
Grand Rapids, Michigan
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Extract

For an observer within the “tropics,” the day-count for a sun calendar is easily determined to the nearest day on four occasions: on the two equinox days, which are the same for all cities, and on the two zenith passages of the sun, which depend upon the observer's latitude. Sunset observations alone, contrary to a tacitly accepted dictum, determine the precise day of equinox, and the average 365¼-day length of the “tropical year,” if the record is continued over several years.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , January 1945 , pp. 307 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1945

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References

1 Tomo, XVII, Num. 20, Mexico Publicationes de la Secretaria de Education Publica, 1928.

2 Ethnos, Jan. 1936, pp. 5-8.

3 In S. G. Morley, The Inscriptions of Copan, p. 133

4 Maya Astronomy, pp. 38-40.

5 Ibid., p. 35.