Photo: Karl Taube/Courtesy of the San Bartolo Regional Archaeological Project via REUTERS / Deutsche Welle
A glyph in the shape of a deer’s head under a colon and a line is the oldest evidence of a calendar notation on record in the Mayan culture, as published on Wednesday some researchers in the journal Science Advances.
This fragment and ten other mural remains come from the pyramid of Las Pinturas, in the archaeological site of San Bartolo, in Guatemala, and the team led by David Stuart, one of the great experts on this culture, dated them between 300 and 200 BC
One of the remains represents the date ‘seven deer’ (7 Manik in Mayan), formed by two points (of which only one is preserved) and a line, on the head of a deer.
One of the most oldest calendar entries
The authors consider this to be the oldest calendar entry in The Mayan area safely dated and they estimate that it should be considered among the first evidence of the calendar (ritual) of 260 days in Mesoamerica , and even the first.
The fragment with the date, which is presented together with others of text in hieroglyphic writing belonging to the late preclassic period of the Mayan culture (between 400 BC and 200 AD), reveals “an established writing tradition, multiple scribal hands, and murals combining text with images of a complex early ritual.”
Finding opens discussion about the origin of the calendar
Stuart and his team suggest that these fragments illustrate a mature writing and artistic tradition in the region during the 3rd century BC, indicating that the calendar had been in use for some time.
“The evidence now suggests that we can no longer pinpoint a region of Mesoamerica ca like Oaxaca as ‘the’ point of origin of the scriptures or calendrical record” and the situation would point to an “even earlier” origin, sometime in the Middle Preclassic or earlier, “although the evidence remains indirect.”
Remains belong to the first Mayan calendar
The ‘seven deer’ date glyph is important in understanding the development of the calendar count of 260 days and other aspects associated with religion in Mesoamerica and cosmology.
The Mayans and other cultures in Mesoamerica had three calendars, a ritual one of 260 days, to which the found fragment belongs and which was used for religious ceremonies; another solar of 365 days and the one known as the Long Count, formed by an accumulation of days and periods composed of tunes (units of 360 days).
The ritual calendar, also used by present-day Mayan communities in southeastern Mexico and Guatemala, was made up of 20 days represented with glyphs, along with thirteen numbers expressed by combinations of lines and dots.
What does the figure mean specifically?
It is possible that ‘seven deer’ refers to the date of a year, but also that it served as a personal reference, since some seasons of the calendar of 200 days were also used as names of people and deities in historical times.
The date seems to be in an initial position, “perhaps as part of a title or to accompany a scene to or to a human figure that is not preserved”, indicates the investigation.
This fragment is “a very rare example of a clear hieroglyphic date from the Late Preclassic period. Only a handful of records of dates from that period are known in the archaeological remains of Mesoamerica, many of which are difficult to date precisely”.
JU (ff, rtre)