A brief inscription on a wall at the ancient Maya city of Xultun may name a scholar linked to astronomical calculations. The phrase, reconstructed as “thus says White-Breasted Fox,” appears alongside records of calendar and celestial cycles and could be the earliest scientifically recognized name of a pre-European astronomer in the Americas, researchers say.
Franco Rossi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin, and Heather Hurst of Skidmore College describe their analysis in the journal Antiquity. Their study reconstructs the inscription, known as Text 19, from a mural in Structure 10K-2 at Xultun, in present-day Guatemala. The 11 hieroglyphs are partly damaged, so the team used scans, infrared images and life-size drawings to examine the faded markings.
The researchers calculate that the date painted with the formulas corresponds to November 11, 781. Text 19 records a span of 2,920 days, or eight years, organized around several Maya calendar and astronomical cycles. That span is significant because it is the smallest common multiple of the 365-day solar year and Venus’s 584-day cycle, meaning the planet’s position relative to the Sun repeats on a similar schedule.
The inscription also refers to cycles of 20, 260 and 780 days, including the cycle of Mars. The researchers note that the arrangement and quantities of cycles resemble the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two before it. They caution, however, that the evidence does not establish that the Maya used an equivalent sequence.
The possibility that “White-Breasted Fox” was a scholar claiming authorship would be unusual. Maya artists and scribes sometimes signed monuments and artworks, but personal names in surviving inscriptions more commonly belong to rulers and other members of the elite. The phrase could instead be a scribe quoting a respected figure, rather than identifying the person who painted the calculations.
The building’s murals depict seated and kneeling figures, including Xultun ruler Yax We’n Chan K’inich in ceremonial clothing. Other short texts on the walls describe astronomical cycles, and some appear to be drafts or the work of scribes still learning the writing system. Together with tools associated with making bark paper, these features have led specialists to suggest the building may have served as a center for training scribes and scholars and producing manuscripts.
Sources: Folha Ciência.