Archaeologists have long looked to Venus to understand Maya calendars and tradition. But now, a fresh look at an ancient text called the Dresden Codex suggests that our understanding of how the Maya tracked Venus for their celestial calendars may be all wrong. By combining a new reading of the text, tricky mathematical equations, and field observations, Gerardo Aldana at the University of California, Santa Barbara has simplified the way Maya scribes would have corrected their calendars. “There is some really elegant math that’s going on there that has not been recognized before,” says Aldana. His work not only casts new light on how the Maya tied their ceremonies to the sky, but it may also call into question every date we have for events in the ancient Maya world.
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