At the 1992 Texas Meetings, Schele(1992) presented a new interpretation of thecreation myth and the imagery associatedwith it, as they are recorded in Classic Periodinscriptions. There is continuing debateabout some of the details in this reconstruc-tion, but various researchers (Schele, Grube,Nahm, R. Johnson, and Quenon) have testedsome of its patterns and found them to beproductive. This new reconstruction resultedfrom the decipherment of texts at Quirigua,Palenque, and elsewhere, relating the eventsof creation and associating them withvarious constellations, the Milky Way, andtheir movement through the sky. Since adetailed discussion of the creation story is

published in Schele (1992) and Freidel,Schele, and Parker (1993), we discuss hereonly the main features of the story and itsassociation to astronomical phenomena.

The story of creation on QuiriguaStela C (fig. 1) gives us the most detailedinformation about the first moment. The textdescribes the first event as the “appearanceor manifestation of an image” (halhik’ohba). Here the image that appeared wasof three stone-settings (u tz’apwa tun),described as a jaguar throne stone placed bythe Paddler Gods at a place called Na-Ho-Chan, ‘House (or First or Female) Five-Sky’; a snake throne stone set up by anunknown god at Kab-Kah,1 ‘Earth-town’;

1

Creation, Cosmos, and the Imagery of Palenque and CopanLinda Schele and Khristaan D. Villela

University of Texas, Austin

Fig. 1. The Creation Passage from Quirigua Stela C.

2

a. A council of gods aiding in the setting of the jaguar throne. Here the main actor is God L, while theJaguar Paddler, who is named in the Quirigua text, sits at the head of the upper row of gods.

b. A god being born at Na-Ho-Chan-Witz-Xaman, “First-Five-Sky-Mountain-North.” The twistedcords with the snake heads are the Classic-Period version of the kuxan-sum, the living cords,” thatform the sky umbilicus.

Fig. 2. The Pot of the Seven Gods and the Na-Ho-Chan Pot.

and a water or ocean throne stone set up byItzamna.

One of these throne placings appearson the pot of the Seven Gods (fig. 2a), whereGod L sits on a jaguar throne facing six othergods. The text narrates that “on 4 Ahaw 8Kumk’u it was set in order, Black-is-its-Center,” (Chan Ahaw Waxak Kumk’u tzakhiEk’-u-Tan). The name of the location, Ek’-u-Tan, refers to the state of the pre-creationuniverse as black because the sky had not yetbeen lifted away from the Primordial Sea.Another creation pot (fig. 2b) shows thelocation Na-Ho-Chan-Witz-Xaman, “FemaleFive-Sky-Mountain-North,” the locationnamed in the Quirigua scene for the jaguar-throne setting. Here the background is alsodark, but we have in addition, snake-headedcords that are the Classic-period version ofthe kuxan sum, the “living cord” or umbili-cus famous in the legends of Yukatan.

At Quirigua, Palenque, and othersites, the scribes specified further that theplace where these stones were set was“Lying-down Sky First Three-Stone-Place,”(Ch’a-Chan-Yax-Ox-Tunal ) . BarbaraMacLeod and Schele recognized severalyears ago that this First-Three-Stone-Placehad to refer to the three thrones, and she(MacLeod 1991) further associated thesestones with the descriptions of the creation inthe Book of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel.David Freidel and Schele, who were workingon these concepts, immediately presumedthat the three stones referred to the stones ofa Maya hearth. Not only does a hearthalways have three stones in it, but they arearranged in the same triangular pattern as theglyph for Yax-Ox-Tunal. Furthermore, asMatt Looper pointed out, Dennis Tedlock(1985) had identified the lower triangle ofstars in Orion—Alnitak, Saiph, and Rigel—as the three stones of the hearth. At the 1992Workshop on Maya Hieroglyphic Writing,Barbara Tedlock further added that theK’iche’ call Orion Je Chi Q’aq’, ‘dispersedfire’. The three hearth stars are called the

Oxib’ Xk’ub’, ‘three hearthstones’ andNebula M42 is Q’aq’, ‘fire’. Schele (1992,Freidel et al. 1993) believes this associationto be a very ancient one that identifies theFirst-Three-Stone-Place as these three starsin Orion (fig. 3c).

The cosmic hearth was not the onlyimage generated by creation according to theancient texts. Another inscription (fig. 3a)published in Mayer (1991) says that “on 4Ahaw 8 Kumk’u, was seen the first image ofthe turtle, the great divine lord” (Chan AhawWaxak Kumk’u ilahi yax k’oh Ak Chak Ch’uAhaw). This turtle is the double-headedturtle that cracks open for the rebirth of theMaize God (fig. 3b), and like the cosmichearth can be found in the sky. Lounsbury (inMiller 1986) identified the turtle in Room 2of the Bonampak murals as Gemini or Orion(fig. 3d). Because the three stars on theturtle’s back match the belt of Orion, Schele(1992) believes the turtle to be located there.2

She also associates the copulating peccariesin the opposite cartouche with Gemini,because, as Lounsbury pointed out, ak is theword for turtle, peccary, and dwarf. An akek’ can be a ‘turtle star’, a ‘peccary star’, ora ‘dwarf star’, and we have good evidencethat images of peccaries and turtles substitut-ed for each other in several contexts, includ-ing images of these constellations.

The story of creation continued pastthe initial centering events on 4 Ahaw 8Kumk’u. The text from the Temple of theCross relates that 1.9.2 or 542 days after 4Ahaw 8 Kumk’u, Hun-Ye-Nal (GI the father)entered the sky (och ta chan) (fig. 4a). Thisevent also appears on the Blowgunner Pot(fig. 4c) where the great bird named Itzam-Ye lands in the World Tree. David Freidelfirst suggested that the scorpion at the baseof this tree can be identified as a constella-tion based on the appearance of a scorpion inthe zodiac of the Paris Codex. Schele (1992)followed up on his suggestion and identifiedthe tree as the Milky Way.

Sinaan, the word for ‘scorpion’ in

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4

Fig. 3. The Appearance of the First Image of the Turtle and the Hearth.

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Fig. 4. The World Tree and the Milky Way.

Yukatek and many other Mayan languages,is identified as a constellation in the Motuldictionary without specifying where it wasseen in the sky. We accept David Kelley’s(1976) zodiacal identifications that associateour constellation Scorpius with the scorpionof the Paris codex and with the namesinaan.3 In 1992, Grube and Schele gatheredsignificant evidence from Mayan speakersthat supports this identification. At San JuanChamula, upon seeing the drawing ofScorpius in Schele’s field book, a Chamulaidentified the constellation, which was visi-ble in the sky at the time, as tz’ek, the Tzotzilterm for ‘scorpion’. This information wasvolunteered and unsolicited. In Tix KakalGuardia, the Cruzob ceremonial center inQuintana Roo, Agapito Ek’ Pat, the son ofJuan Ek’, told Nikolai Grube that sinaan wasa constellation high in the sky, and at thoselatitudes, 18° north, it does rise high into thesouthern sky. He also said that sinaan and ak,the constellation of the turtle, are nach’ ti ‘faraway’ from each other. Scorpius and theOrion-Gemini nexus are opposite to eachother, so that when one sinks the other rises.Finally, he said that sinaan is visible untilearly November when it disappears for atime. Scorpio disappears from the eveningsky at the end of October, and cannot be seenuntil about fifteen days later when it appearsabove the eastern horizon just before dawn.

We believe the scorpion on theBlowgunner pot is Scorpius. Moreover, theMilky Way rises out of the south horizonwhen Scorpius is high in the sky and archesnorth to form the World Tree in the scene.Maya names for the Milky Way were the‘White Road’ Sak Be and the ‘XibalbaRoad’, U be Xibalba. Tedlock (1992) furtherspecified that the U be Xibalba correspondedto the Milky Way when the large cleft isvisible. This is the form we associate withthe World Tree with a scorpion at its base tothe right and a snake to its left (fig. 4c-d). InKelley’s scheme, Sagittarius is a rattlesnake.

This raising of the World Tree is

reiterated in the text of the Tablet of theCross with a repetition that gives differentinformation about the action (fig. 4b). Thetext reads “On 13 Ik’ end of Mol, it wasmade proper, the Six (Raised-up) Sky, theEight-House-Partitions, its holy name, thehouse of the north,” (Oxlahun Ik’ ch’a Mol,hoy Wakah-Chanal, Waxak-Na-Tzuk, u ch’ulk’aba, Yotot xaman). Thus, we learn that the‘entering into the sky’ formed a house namedWakah-Chan and that it had eight partitions.These correspond to the four world direc-tions and the corners between them. ThePopol Vuh calls them the ‘four sides (or par-titions); four corners’, kan tzuq kan xuk.Moreover, since each of the sanctuaries inthe Group of the Cross was named for thecentral image on its inner panel, we knowthat the tree on the Tablet of the Cross wascalled the Wakah Chan. And since wakah is‘raised up’ as well as ‘six’, this event was theraising of the sky and the establishment ofthe tree at its center. This great central axis isthe Milky Way as it arches through the skyfrom south to north.

The Classic-period names for northand south make sense in light of this cosmol-ogy. Based on phonetic evidence, Schele(1992) has proposed the Classic-periodterms for north were na or nal, ‘house’, andxaman, a term that still resists analysis.Villela has suggested that nohol, ‘south’ isnot ‘right hand’ as it is often explained, butrather is noh hol, ‘great hole’. This idea isparticularly appropriate since the crown ofthe tree is to the north, and its trunk and rootsare to the south.

Furthermore, based on ideas firstvoiced by John Sosa (1986), Schele (1992)also determined that the double-headedserpent bar that is wrapped around thebranches of the World Tree represents theecliptic (fig. 4e). This identification includesnot only the serpent-bar scepter, but double-headed serpent frames that occur in Maya artfrom the Late Preclassic period onward. Thebeings who are hanging from these serpent

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Fig. 5. The Zodiac of the Paris Codex.

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Fig. 6. The Milky Way in Maya Iconography.

frames, emerging from their mouths, orsitting inside their arches, should representobjects, such as planets, the sun, and themoon, that all travel along the ecliptic path.

As we discussed above, the ParisCodex illustrates the set of constellations theMaya of Yukatan saw along this second pathin the sky (fig. 5a). David Kelley (1976) firstrecognized that the pictures do not representadjacent constellations, but rather ones thatappear on opposite sides of the sky 168 daysapart. In testing Kelley’s hypothesis, RichardJohnson and Michel Quenon (1993) estab-lished the limits of the thirteen constellationsof the Maya zodiac. Like Schele, theyaccepted Scorpius as the pivotal identifica-tion. This section of the codex is not just azodiac or an eclipse table, but a descriptionof the laying out of the constellations alongthe ecliptic at creation and at each yearly

repetition of the destruction-creation cycle.4

Other important images from theMaya symbolic inventory can also be associ-ated with various positions of the Milky WayBased on independently derived evidence,Schele (1992) and Stuart (1992) have associ-ated the Cosmic Monster over the door ofTemple 22 at Copan with the Milky Way(fig. 6a). Stuart associates it with Mixcoatl,an Aztec symbol for the Milky Way, whileSchele links it to the east-west configurationof the Milky Way when it stretches from eastto west with the cleft area representing themouth of the crocodile. In addition she alsoassociates this configuration with the croco-dile-headed canoe on Tikal MT from Burial116 and with MT 38a-d. The latter (fig. 6b)shows a canoe carrying the Maize God alongwith four animals. The Paddler Gods whopropel the canoe are personifications of

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Fig. 7. The Maize God at the Place of Creation.

b. Plate showing the Maize God reborn through thecrack in the back of the turtle floating in thePrimoridal Sea. The crack was called the ol, “heart orcenter,” and the hom, “cleft.”

c. The sky at dawn on the day of Creation with thehearth and the turtle of Creation at the zenith. TheMaize God is reborn at this point in the sky.

10Fig. 8.

11Fig. 9. Creation and Imagery at Palenque.

12Fig. 10.

d. The stuccos from the east subterraneancorridor

e. The stucco from the western subter-ranean corridor

Night and Day as they sit at the east and westextremities of the Milky Way. They werealso the gods who set up the Jaguar throne on4 Ahaw 8 Kumk’u. The sinking of the canoeshown on other bones in the set is repro-duced in the turning motion of the MilkyWay (fig. 6c).

The crocodile tree (fig. 6f) alsooccurs in the sky when the World Tree (fig.6f) begins rotating toward its canoe form.Cortés (1986) identified the crocodile tree onIzapa St. 25 as a representation of the Seven-Macaw story of the Popol Vuh. DennisTedlock (personal communication, 1992)believes that this episode, which destroyedthe false sun of the third creation, was thelast act before the creation of the fourthworld could begin. He identified the BigDipper as the falling Twelve-Macaw. Finally,the carved peccary skull from Copan Tomb 1(fig. 6d) shows the quatrefoil portal to theOtherworld from the supernatural side, as theceremonies ending 8.17.0.0.0 unfold on thehuman side of the portal. This configurationoccurs in the Milky Way at sunset in Maywhen the hazy brightness of its path rims thehorizon, leaving it dark above. The name ofthis configuration was Ek’ Way, ‘Black-Dreaming Place’.

The passenger in the canoe scene isalso the main actor in the creation texts. AtQuiriguá, he was called the Wak-Chan-Ahaw, while at Palenque he is namedHun-Ye-Nal-Tzuk, ‘One Kernel-of-Maize-Cornsilk’. These names are firmly associatedwith the Maize God on two pots. MT 140from Tikal (fig. 7a) shows the Maize Godholding the ecliptic snake as the PaddlerGods emerge from its mouths. The glyphimmediately under his mouth names him theWak-Chan-Winik, ‘Raised-up Sky Person’.Another pot shows the Maize God emergingfrom the cracked turtle shell in Orion as he isattended by his two sons (fig. 7b). Theglyphs by his head name him Hun-Nal-E,‘One-Maize-Kernel’.

These various images were not just

isolated configurations, but rather joinedtogether in sequences of celestial movementthat played out the story of creation in thesky. The two critical days were 4 Ahaw 8Kumk’u or August 13 in the Gregorian cal-endar, and 13 Ik’ 20 Mol or February 5.Although the sets of movements we describeon these two days occur every year, the bestcorrelation of the pattern to creationhappened in 1000 B.C. at about 18° northlatitude where La Venta, San Lorenzo,Chalcatzingo and other Preclassic sites werebuilt. Precession changed the timing some-what by the Classic-period, but the relation-ship still held then as it does now. We havechosen the sky in the year AD. 690, whichwas the dedication year for the Group of theCross.

On August 13 (fig. 8) at sunset, theWorld Tree arched overhead, but by the timethe sky became dark enough to see the MilkyWay, it had turned into the crocodile tree,and by 10 P.M., the Big Dipper, known as thebird Itzam-Ye or Twelve-Macaw in the PopolVuh, had fallen almost entirely into the earth.By midnight he was gone entirely and thetree had begun to change into the canoe. By2 A.M. the canoe stretched across the skyfrom east to west and with it came the turtleand hearth in Orion and the Peccaries inGemini. By 4 P.M., the hearth and the turtlewere half way up toward the zenith, and bydawn they were high in the sky just east ofthe zenith point. In 1000 B.C. they wereexactly at zenith. As the text says, the godspainted the images of creation on the sky. Asdawn broke, a stone-wielding Chak (fig.11b), like those worn hanging from the beltof Chan-Bahlam on the outer panel of theTemple of the Cross, cracked open the turtleshell with his lightning stone, so that theHero Twins could water their father theMaize God into life again.

In Yukatek, ahal, the word for ‘wakeup’ and ‘dawning’ also means to create theworld. In the K’iche’ of the Popol Vuh,saqarih, the term for the creation of the

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14Fig. 11.

c. The sourthernmost and northernmost extensions of Venus in Gemini and Scorpius

world, also means ‘to whiten’ and ‘to dawn’.According to Dennis Tedlock (1985), theconcept of dawning is fundamental to Mayaideas of creation and beginnings. So just asthe inscriptions say, the image of the FirstThree Stones and the turtle come to thezenith at dawn so that the creator ofhumankind and the universe can be rebornafter his defeat by the Lords of Xibalba.

Sunset on the reciprocal day ofFebruary 5 (fig. 8) finds the cosmic hearthand the turtle once again in the same placejust east of the zenith. In the next hours, theypass zenith and begin falling toward thewestern horizon. At midnight, the Pleiades,which were known as Snakerattle (Tz’ab) tothe Yukateks, the 400 boys killed by Sipaknain the Popol Vuh, and as a handful of seedsto the modern K’iche’, fall into the westernhorizon as Orion hovers above them. At 2A.M., the Milky Way rims the horizon in theEk’ Way, and by 4 A.M., the Wakah-Chanbegins to raise up all around the easternhorizon. By dawn, it is fully raised up in thesky with the scorpion Sinaan riding on thebroad width of its trunk. As on August 13,the story of creation was materialized inobservable form—the Wakah-Chan was andis raised up in the sky by the reborn MaizeGod.

This set of imagery also played atremendously important role in the imagerycommissioned by Palenque kings. Thecentral icon of the Tablet of the Cross is theWakah-Chan (fig. 6e), while the foliatedcross in the Tablet of the Foliated Cross (fig.9a) is the reborn Maize God in the form ofthe tree called Na-Te’-K’an. Each of thesepoints corresponds to the places of creation,where the ecliptic happens to cross the MilkyWay. Pakal’s sarcophagus (fig. 9b) is apicture of the sky on the night he died,August 31, 683 A.D. The Wakah-Chan waserected in the sky so that he falls down theXibalba Be through the portal called White-Bone-Snake into the Otherworld. This is theNoh-ol, the ‘Great Hole’, that was the name

for ‘south’. The text describes his action asoch be, ‘he entered the road’. This is figura-tively the road taken at death, and literallythe Milky Way arching into the southernhorizon.

The Palenque Palace also has manyreferences to creation imagery. The CosmicMonster modelled above the northeast doorof House E (fig. 10a) was seen in the sky atdawn on summer solstice and at sunset onwinter solstice (fig. 10b). The square-nosedserpent in the bird’s mouth is probably thekuxan sum, or sky umbilicus. The sameCosmic Monster reappears on the panels ofthe north end of the Palace where it enframesthe image of K’an-Hok’-Chitam holding aDouble-headed Serpent (fig. 10c). The kingis the sun holding the ecliptic in his hand, forthe ecliptic runs roughly parallel to theCosmic Monster while it is perpendicular tothe Wakah-Chan and at the Gemini-Orionnexus.

The images in the Subterraneos atPalenque (fig. 10d) also reflect this imagery.Above the eastern stairs, the outer lintel hasthe Cosmic Monster, while the inner one hada double-headed crocodile with a sun car-touche on its side. A deer and a crouchinghuman perch on its back. This crocodile maybe the ecliptic (as we think it is in the upperregisters of the stelae at Yaxchilan) with thesun riding its middle, while the crouchingfigures represent constellations.Unfortunately we are not sure which constel-lations they are meant to represent. In thesouthern passageway, a thin-bodied snakewith a square-snouted head at either endarches over the stairs. We suspect this snakeis the one that represents the kuxan sum onthe pot representing Na-Ho-Chan. In thewestern passageway there is an elegantMaize God diving out of the ceiling and intothe waters of the Primordial Sea. This imagehas evaded interpretation until the canoescenes on the Tikal bones were connected tothe myth of creation. There and in the sky thecanoe sinks into the Primordial Sea to take

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the Maize God to the place of creation wherethe three stones will be set. Here we see theMaize God plunging under the surface ofthat sea after his sinking canoe has dumpedhim in the water.

When Pakal’s second son, K’an-Hok’-Chitam ascended to the throne, hecommissioned the Palace Tablet to record hisown accession. In the upper zone, he depict-ed himself (fig. 11a) seated in front of theOval Palace Tablet, with the apparitions ofhis dead mother and father on either side ofhim. They hold up the drum major headdressand the flint-shield which are the primarysigns of royal office at Palenque (Schele1979; Schele and Villela 1992). The fathersits on a throne made of bound mats identi-cal to the sign for throne in the Quirigua text.It has a jaguar head attached to it. The sonsits on a xok throne, and the mother on asnake throne. In his creation myth, the jaguarthrone goes with the Na-Ho-Chan place; thesnake throne with the earth place, and we candeduce that the xok throne goes with theocean place. These are the three thrones ofcreation. In his accession imagery in theTemple of the Cross, Chan-Bahlam por-trayed himself with the stone-wielding Chak,who cracked open the creation turtle,dangling behind his knees (fig. 11b). Thiscostume, with the hanging Chak, is one ofthe most widespread and sacred of all royalcostumes. When the king wears the turtle-cracking Chak he usually also embodies theWorld Tree so that he has become the skyitself.

Finally, there are a series of imagesfrom Palenque, Tonina, and Copan thatcombine the sign for Venus with an animal.The east substructure of House D in thePalace of Palenque (fig. 11c) shows Venusentangled with a peccary. The same combi-nation of peccary and Venus occurs on athrone at Tonina which has other warsymbols associated with it. At Copan, abench discovered several years ago displaysa version of Venus combined with a scorpion

tail (fig. 11c), which is an image that has alsobeen found at Cacaxtla. The Copan versionoccurs in a paired opposition with k’in-ak’bal as east and west, and the moon andVenus as north and south. In this schema, asat a Rio Azul tomb, Venus is associated withthe south.

We think we know why Venus wascombined with the scorpion in one contextand peccaries in the other. It happens that thesouthern-most extension of Venus occurswhen it is in Scorpius, and its northern-mostextension happens when it is in the constel-lation of Gemini. Gemini, according to ourreconstruction of the Maya zodiac, wasrepresented as peccaries. Thus the combina-tion of peccary-Venus and scorpion-Venusmay have marked the limits of the northernand southern movement of the planets. Aveni(Closs, Aveni, and Crowley 1984) has shownthat the western window in Temple 22 atCopan aligns on this southernmost extensionlimit. We know that the Maya paid attentionto them.

ConclusionThe Classic-period myth of creation

was more than a set of quaint stories at theheart of an exotic religion. They were writlarge upon the sky in ways that timed thedaily lives, the sequence of public ritual,pageant, and feasting, and the unfolding ofpolitical life. Maya art was often a map ofthe sky rendered with the imagery thatrepresented it. Rituals were timed accordingto this pattern of imagery, and the symbolskings wore for those ceremonies were basedon it. The greatest compositions known fromMaya art reflect the ways in which kings andcommoners alike engaged this imagerythroughout their lives. It provided an overar-ching structure of meaning that all Maya—probably all Mesoamericans—could under-stand and interpret. Even more importantly,they could walk out their doors at night andaffirm for themselves that it was true.

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Bricker, Harvey M., and Victoria R.1992 Zodiacal References in the

Maya Codices. In The Sky inMayan Literature, edited byAnthony F. Aveni, pp. 148-183.New York: Oxford UniversityPress.

Cortés, Constance1986 The Principal Bird Deity in

Late Preclassic and Early ClassicMaya Art. Masters Thesis,Department of Art, University ofTexas at Austin.

Freidel, David, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker1993 Maya Cosmos: Three

Thousand Years of Shamanism.New York: William Morrow andCo.

Johnson, Richard, and Michel Quenon1992 Comments on the Paris

Codex Pages 23 & 24: A MayaZodiac. A report circulated by theauthors.

Kelley, David H.1976 Deciphering the Maya Script.

Austin: University of Texas Press.MacLeod, Barbara

1991 Maya Genesis. North AustinHieroglyphic Hunches #5. A notecirculated by the author.

Mayer, Karl Herbert1991 Maya Monuments: Sculptures

of Unknown ProvenanceSupplement 3. Austria: Verlag vonFlemming.

Miller, Mary Ellen1986 The Murals of Bonampak.

Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress.

Schele, Linda1992 Workbook for the XVIth

Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop atTexas, with commentaries on theGroup of the Cross at Palenque.Austin: Art Department, Universityof Texas.

Sosa, John R.1986 Maya Concepts of

Astronomical Order. In Symbol andMeaning Beyond the ClosedCommunity: Essays inMesoamerican Ideas, edited byGary Gossen, 185-196. Albany:Institute for Mesoamerican Studies,The University of Albany, StateUniversity of New York.

1988 The Maya Sky, the MayaWorld: A Symbolic Analysis ofYucatec Maya Cosmology. Ph.D.dissertation, State University ofNew York at Albany.

Stuart, David1992 The Inner Door of Temple 22,

Mixcoatl, and the Milky Way. Apublic lecture given at the 1992Pennsylvania Meetings, UniversityMuseum, University ofPennsylvania, April, 1992.

Taube, Karl1988 The Ancient Yucatec New

Year Festival: The Liminal Periodin Maya Ritual and Cosmology. APh.D. dissertation, Yale University.

Tedlock, Dennis1985 Popol Vuh: The Definitive

Edition of the Mayan Book of theDawn of Life and the Glories ofGod and Kings. New York: Simonand Schuster.

1992 Myths, Maths, and theProblem of Correlation in MayanBooks. In The Sky in MayanLiterature, edited by Anthony F.Aveni, pp. 247-273. New York:Oxford University Press.

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REFERENCES

NOTES

1 The reading of the earflare sign andits substitutes as kah is based on a new argu-ment about the second Yaxchilan emblemglyph proposed by Nikolai Grube and SimonMartin.

2 Bricker and Bricker (1992) arrivedat this identification based on independentevidence from Schele.

3 Bricker and Bricker (1992) acceptthe Scorpio-Sinaan equation, although theirzodiacal arrangement is different in otheraspects than Kelley’s and ours. Severalscholars, including Love (personal commu-nication, 1992) and Sosa (1988), have iden-tified sinaan as an area near Gemini based oninformation supplied by a h’men whoworked with Sosa.

4 Taube (1988) interpreted NewYear’s rites as replays of the destruction-creation cycles in Maya and Mesoamericanreligion.

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