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More on the Mars Table in the Dresden Codex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Harvey M. Bricker  and
Victoria R. Bricker
Harvey M. Bricker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
Victoria R. Bricker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
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Abstract

The suggestion made early in this century that pages 43b to 45b of the Dresden Codex are concerned with the synodic cycle of the planet Mars was vigorously opposed in mid-century by J. Eric S. Thompson but supported during the last decade by other scholarship, including our own. Thompson’s interpretation, which Bruce Love has recently argued is correct, is certainly of historical interest and value, but it is no longer adequate in light of more recent advances in understanding codical instruments. In particular, it ignores the great importance to the authors of these instruments of the commensuration of calendrical and astronomical cycles. The Mars table is not just a Chac almanac dealing with weather and agriculture.

La sugerencia hecha a principios de este siglo, que las páginas 43b a 45b del Códice de Dresde tratan el ciclo sinódico del planeta Marte, fue disputada vigorosamente a mediados del siglo por J. Eric S. Thompson, pero ha sido sostenida en la última década por otras investigaciones, incluso las nuestras. La interpretación de Thompson, recientemente argumentada como la correcta por Bruce Love, sí tiene interés y valor histórico, pero ya no es adecuada en vista de adelantos más recientes en la comprensión de instrumentos codiciales. Justamente no toma en cuenta la gran importancia de la conmensuración de ciclos calendáricos y astronómicos para los autores de estos instrumentos. La tabla de Marte no es solamente un almanaque de Chac que tiene que ver con el tiempo y la agricultura.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 384 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1997

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