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This study places the recently excavated ninth-century A.D. four-part calendrical notations at Xultun (Lunar Table, Ring Number, Long Count, and Multiplication Table) in the context of both Classic monumental inscriptions and astronomical knowledge in the Postclassic Dresden Codex. We demonstrate that the Lunar Table employed a formula attributed to Palenque and that it could have been used as a device to determine precisely where to break the sequence of alternating 29- and 30-day months one finds on dated monuments. All four categories found at Xultun appear in the Dresden Codex. The Ring Number, which bridges a date in the deep past with one in the recently completed era, is a perfect fit with one of the most fundamental Dresden eclipse cycles. Our analysis of glyphs accompanying the Long Count date enables us to place candidate eclipses, especially one that corresponds with a conjunction of Mars, in real time. We argue that the large multiples were extracted from, or prepared for, warning tables like the Dresden eclipse table, and we demonstrate why such tables must have existed well before the Xultun inscriptions. Thus, while the writings in the Dresden manuscript constitute a finished product, the writing on the wall of residential Structure 10K-2 is more akin to what one might find in an astronomer's notebook.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:26:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsThe 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. ThompsonXs interpretation, which Bruce Love has recently argued is correctX is certainly of historical interest and valueX but it is no longer adequate in light of more recent advances in understanding codical instruments. In particularX 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 pa'ginas 43b a 45b del Codice de Dresde tratan el ciclo sinodico del planeta MarteX fue disputada vigorosamente a mediados del siglo por J. Eric S. ThompsonX pero ha sido sostenida en la ultima de'cada por otras investigacionesX incluso las nuestras. La interpretacion de ThompsonX recientemente argumentada como la correcta por Bruce LoveX sf tiene intere's y valor historicoX pero ya no es adecuada en vista de adelantos ma's recientes en la comprension de instrumentos codiciales. Justamente no toma en cuenta la gran importancia de la conmensuracion de ciclos calenda'ricos y astronomicos para 105' 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. Research during the last several decades has widened the range of cultural domains in which the Precolumbian Maya may be understood. Aspects of Classic and PostclassicMaya behavior that were essentially unknown 50 years ago now provide rich cultural context that can and, indeed, must be considered in any attempts to understand this indigenous New World civilization. An obvious example is the discovery that much of the corpus of Classic inscriptions has to do with dynastic history; elucidation of these sources has contributed previously unsuspected information about the activities of the rulers and relationships among polities (many examples could be cited, from the early work of Proskouriakoff [1960] to the very recent work of Grube [1994]). In contrast to this, however, the domain of astronomy has been an integral part of Maya studies for more than a century (for example, the work of Forstemann [1894] on the Venus table of the Dresden Codex). That the ancient Maya were concerned with the cyclical movements of celestial objects and that records of such concerns may be fo...