Mexican Art With the Burden of Time and Mayan Calendar for Sale
The Maya agenda and the 'brunt of fourth dimension'
In response to a questioner request 'what is the man called shown in the middle of the haab calendar; he is kneeling with what looks similar a bag of glyphs on his head?', and as we display this pic prominently in our Maya workshops in schools, we reckon it's time for a detailed explanation! With thanks to Professor Elizabeth Graham of UCL for her proficient advice. (Written past Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Mexicolore'southward animation of the Maya 'Burden of Time' image
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| Pic 1: The cycle of 18 'months', followed by the 5-mean solar day unlucky period at the finish of the Maya 'haab'' calendar (Click on prototype to overstate) |
This prototype has become iconic of the aboriginal Maya. Information technology's been attributed to, or in the style of, Jean Charlot, a French/American painter, illustrator and muralist who spent many years working and studying in Mexico - and depicted many human load carriers in unlike contexts. It clearly shows agenda elements, but what exactly, who is in the eye and what is he carrying?
The circle of glyphs form the 19 'months' of the haab' or solar calendar of the Maya. The eighteen primary months all consist of twenty days, with a short final period of just 5 (unlucky) days - making 365 in total. The last 5 days in the solar yr - called uayeb or wayeb by the Maya and nemontemi past the Aztecs - were considered dangerous days (safer to stay at home!) as they didn't fit in to the normal 'count' of days. Unusually the illustrator here has drawn the 18 calendar month glyphs in a clockwise sequence, starting with Pop, the kickoff calendar month. Nosotros've indicated commencement and last 'months' in pic 1.
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| Flick 2: The Maya glyph 'ajaw'; and the glyph placed on its side (Click on epitome to enlarge) |
In the centre, the 'load' existence carried is another calendar glyph, this time one of the 20 twenty-four hours signs - in fact, the final one, ajaw, significant 'lord' or 'ruler'. It'due south hard to recognise only when viewed on its side (movie 2) it becomes clearer in the main illustration. Since many Maya monuments recorded the stories and achievements of rulers and their dynasties, ajaw is a mutual glyph in Classic Maya fine art generally. In this context the 'day' existence carried implies the commencement of the whole calendar year and so the load carrier is actually the 'year bearer'.
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| Picture 3: Grouping of 'Initial Serial' or 'Long Count' calendar glyphs from Stela D at Copan (50), with the one at bottom right (no. ix) enlarged (R) (Click on image to enlarge) |
This is best explained in the words of the pioneering English Mayanist J. Eric South. Thompson, who wrote, dorsum in 1960, 'The Maya conceived of the divisions of time as burdens which were carried through all eternity by relays of bearers... [not] the journey of one bearer and his load, merely of many bearers, each with his own division of fourth dimension on his dorsum.' Nosotros tin come across these shown clearly in the series of calendar glyphs from Stela D at the Maya site of Copán in Honduras (see pic 3, left). These glyphs are unusual equally they apply 'full-effigy' pictures: the Maya showed both numbers and units of fourth dimension in ii ways, either every bit (abstruse) number signs (such equally bars and dots) or, every bit here, as 'portraits'. They're not people at all merely deities, actually PAIRS of deities, and each carries on his dorsum a calendar god sign - not of a day, month or yr, but of a large group of years, part of a 'Long Count' (a period of thousands of years). So each of the figures at Copán is in fact a PAIRING of a number god with a time-flow patron god. Complicated!
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| Moving-picture show 4: Fourth dimension-begetting gods; the key figure is a sculpture in the National Museum of Anthropology, United mexican states City, of a load carrier bearing a deity on his back (Click on image to overstate) |
The illustrator of the 'burden of time' moving-picture show (top) appears to have based his/her image on glyph ix from Stela D at Copán - a figure depicting, according to John South. Henderson, the sunday god, carrying a jaguar-skin package - perhaps a representation of the lord of the night (jaguars were/are associated with night-time). In a nice coincidence, one of Jean Charlot'southward classic paintings is 'The Leopard Hunter' (with the fauna being carried by a tumpline on the hunter's dorsum - follow link below to view).
In what Thompson calls the 'never-ceasing journey of time', each bearer of time plays his part in a cosmic relay, preparing to residuum on completion of his individual stage, and to pass on the brunt to the next carrier. In the sequence of glyphs at Copán nosotros see how 'the resting gods concord the periods or support them in their laps. The god of number nine [ours!], the bearer of the baktun [largest unit in the Long Count agenda], still has his load on his back, held in that location past the tumpline.... His hand is raised as though to slip off the load'.
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| Pic 5: Classic symbols for the Maya calendar month sign 'Pax' (see Comments section below...) (Click on image to enlarge) |
Picture sources:-
• Main picture & pic 1: hand fatigued illustration on fig tree bark paper, private collection; photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Picture 2: glyph from Wikipedia (Ajaw)
• Pic 3: analogy (L) scanned from The World of the Ancient Maya by John Due south. Henderson, Orbis Publishing, London, 1981, p. 82; illustration (R) scanned from Maya Designs past Wilson G. Turner, Dover Publications, New York, 1980, p.13
• Pic 4 (centre): photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore.
Info sources/notes:-
• Henderson (higher up) notes that for the Maya 'fourth dimension is not then much a force in its own right as a serial of burdens moved through the universe past the gods'
• An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs past Sylvanus Grand. Morley, Dover Publications, New York, 1975 (original 1915) (Morley shows a tenth Long Count number/catamenia glyph where nosotros've left a infinite - pic 3)
• The quotes from Thompson come from Maya Political Scientific discipline: Time, Astronomy and the Cosmos by Prudence K. Rice, University of Texas Printing, 2004.
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This commodity was uploaded to the Mexicolore website on Aug 30th 2017
Q. How many times could each god residual on his fourth dimension-bearing journey?
A. Far too PHEW...!
Charlot'southward 'Leopard Hunter' is the showtime prototype on this folio...
Here's what others take said:
2 At 12.35pm on Wednesday July vii 2021, shi sal wrote:
Hey Peradventure u can help me... I am looking for the original sign/symbol of Pax. When i Google for the Haab Calender stone at that place are diffrent symbols for Pax. Practice you know what one is the original symbol, or maybe know someone that knows.
Thank u????
Mexicolore replies: We've added in a higher place (moving picture 5) ii variants of the Pax month sign, taken from John Montgomery's excellent and authoritative 'Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs'. The sign for the 16th month is said to represent a 'sprout' emerging (L) from the 'Tun' sign, a cross-section of a cylindrical 'tunkul' wooden drum (similar to the Mexica 'teponaztli'), and (R) from a frog, lizard or other reptile.
one At 12.01pm on Midweek August thirty 2017, tecpaocelotl wrote:
Based on I seen, this "Maya Calendar" looks like a modern image and the guy in the middle looks more like Jean Charlot's 1929 painting called Leopard Hunter.
Source: https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/maya/teachers/maya-solar-calendar-picture
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