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Maya Inscription Names Astronomer-Mathematician and Predicts Mars Venus Cycles
Researchers deciphered an 11-hieroglyph text at Xultun, Guatemala, identifying Sak Tahn Waax as the author of a formula tracking planetary orbits. The find is the first named ancestral Maya astronomer-mathematician and the oldest such name recorded in the Americas.
Jul 15, 3:11 PM·1m read1 source
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An inscription named Text 19 on the east and north-east wall of a small masonry building at the Maya site of Xultun, Guatemala, has been deciphered to reveal the name Sak Tahn Waax and a mathematical formula that predicts the orbital cycles of Mars and Venus.
@NewScientist reported that Text 19 consists of 11 hieroglyphs. The name Sak Tahn Waax, translating to White-chested Fox, appears at the bottom and is identified as the author of the formula.
The text is the first direct mention of an ancestral Maya astronomer-mathematician by personal name and the oldest recorded name of an astronomer-mathematician known from anywhere in the Americas. The formula incorporates a 260-day calendar, a 365-day solar calendar, a 584-day approximation of Venus’s synodic cycle and a 780-day approximation of Mars’s synodic cycle.
Its total length spans five Venus synodic cycles, or 2920 days.
@NewScientist reported that the inscription most likely refers to the date 7 November AD 781 in the Julian calendar. Excavations at Xultun began in 2010 and uncovered around 50 texts on the building walls believed to be rough drafts by Maya mathematicians charting celestial cycles. The Maya civilization flourished in Central America between roughly 2000 BC and AD 1697.
Researchers believe Sak Tahn Waax was probably male. 2026.10378.
