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Gabrielle Vail is a research scholar at New College of Florida and a specialist in Maya hieroglyphic writing. She is the coeditor of Papers on the Madrid Codex (with Victoria Bricker). Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropolgy, and Native Amerifan Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya Astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a U.S. National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H.B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.

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The Madrid Codex

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO

Contents

List of Illustrations..........................................................................................................................ixForeword by Davd Carrasco and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.........................................................................................xviiPreface........................................................................................................................................xixAcknowledgments................................................................................................................................xxiiiList of Contributors...........................................................................................................................xxvList of Abbreviations..........................................................................................................................xxvii1 Research Methodologies and New Approaches to Interpreting the Madrid Codex-Gabrielle Vail and Anthony Aveni..................................1PART I PROVENIENCE AND DATING OF THE MADRID CODEX2 The Paper Patch on Page 56 of the Madrid Codex-Harvey M. Bricker.............................................................................333 Papal Bulls, Extirpators, and the Madrid Codex: The Content and Probable Provenience of the M. 56 Patch-John F. Chuchiak.....................574 Tayasal Origin of the Madrid Codex: Further Consideration of the Theory-Merideth Paxton......................................................89PART II CALENDRICAL MODELS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR EXAMINING THE MADRID ALMANACS5 Maya Calendars and Dates: Interpreting the Calendrical Structure of Maya Almanacs-Gabrielle Vail and Anthony Aveni...........................1316 Intervallic Structure and Cognate Almanacs in the Madrid and Dresden Codices-Anthony Aveni...................................................1477 Haab Dates in the Madrid Codex-Gabrielle Vail and Victoria R. Bricker........................................................................1718 A Reinterpretation of Tzolk'in Almanacs in the Madrid Codex-Gabrielle Vail...................................................................215PART III CONNECTIONS AMONG THE MADRID AND BORGIA GROUP CODICES9 In Extenso Almanacs in the Madrid Codex-Bryan R. Just........................................................................................25510 The Inauguration of Planting in the Borgia and Madrid Codices-Christine Hernndez and Victoria R. Bricker...................................27711 "Yearbearer Pages" and Their Connection to Planting Almanacs in the Borgia Codex-Christine Hernndez........................................321PART IV OVERVIEW: THE MADRID CODEX IN THE CONTEXT OF MESOAMERICAN TRADITIONS12 Screenfold Manuscripts of Highland Mexico and Their Possible Influence on Codex Madrid: A Summary-John M.D. Pohl............................367Index..........................................................................................................................................415

Chapter One

Gabrielle Vail and Anthony Aveni

THE MADRID CODEX IN PERSPECTIVE

Progress in scholarly endeavor often comes in spurts. Unexpected revolutionary breakthroughs are followed by long periods of what historian of science T. S. Kuhn calls "normal science," in which the community of investigators rallies around a new paradigm, applies it, and tests it out, each according to his or her particular purview-until another breakthrough occurs. Such has been the case in the decipherment of Maya writing. The first wave of progress broke around the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century with the discovery and documentation of Maya stelae and the publication of the earliest facsimiles of the handful of pre-Columbian bark paper texts, or codices. The profusion of numbers and dates, the easiest to decipher because of their pronounced regularity, led early scholars-including Sylvanus Morley, Ernst Frstemann, and later Eric Thompson-to the view that the Maya elite were little more than pacific worshippers of esoterica: "So far as this general outlook on life is concerned, the great men of Athens would not have felt out of place in a gathering of Maya priests and rulers, but had the conversation turned on the subject of the philosophical aspects of time, the Athenians-or, for that matter, representatives of any of the great civilizations of history-would have been at sea" (Thompson 1954:137). These devotees of time seemed more preoccupied with the cycle of time itself than with any reality that might be conveyed by its passage.

It is no surprise, then, that much of the research on Maya inscriptions in the first half of the twentieth century was directed toward collecting and categorizing gods and time rounds. The discovery of emblem glyphs specific to certain places or lineages and date patterns in the monumental inscriptions corresponding roughly to the mean length of a human lifetime by investigators including Heinrich Berlin (1958) and Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960, 1963, 1964) constituted a second wave of progress that reached the shores of Maya scholarship around mid-century. Bigger-than-life effigies on the stelae of Copn, Quirigu, and Tikal ceased to be regarded as abstract gods of time and came to be known instead as real people-members of the ruling class with names such as Shield Pacal and Yax Pasah. Elite scribes wrote their life histories-their real and imagined ancestry-on the remaining sides of the great stone trees of time that also displayed their imposing countenances. As a result of the intense interdisciplinary focus on the monumental inscriptions undertaken at the first several Palenque Round Tables, which were led by Linda Schele and Merle Greene Robertson and attended by scholars including David Kelley, Michael Coe, David Stuart, and Peter Mathews, the Maya began to acquire a history of their own. By the 1990s, epigraphers announced that only a third of the glyphs were left undeciphered; their research revealed intricate dynastic histories along with a detailed chronology of interactions among the Maya polities. After a century of progress in decoding, the Maya monuments have given up most of their secrets. As a result, the calendar has emerged not only as a device for reckoning the longevity of rulership but also as an instrument that chartered its validation in deep time by reference to key points in the time's cycle, such as k'atun endings and celestial events that punctuated the temporal manifold.

Meanwhile, advances in the study of the inscriptions in the codices have been far more gradual as a result of two principal developments. First, the systematic destruction of these documents by extirpators of idolatry early in the Colonial period has left a dearth of such textual material. Second, the content of the surviving documents, which deals largely with divinatory practice communicated among a priestly cult, is far more difficult to decipher than the straightforward history written on the stelae, which was intended to be read (likely by an interpreter) and viewed by the commoner. The codices contain private (esoteric) rather than public knowledge; however, their content is extremely important, for within these texts lies information on Maya belief systems involving cosmology, astronomy, and religious practice.

The Maya Codices: Discovery and Content

The Madrid Codex is the longest of the surviving Maya codices, consisting of 56 leaves painted on both sides, or 112 pages. The Maya codices are formatted as screenfold books painted on paper made from the bark of the fig tree that were produced by coating the paper with a stucco wash and then painting it with glyphs and pictures. Its glyphic texts, like those of the other codices, are written in the logosyllabic script found throughout the lowland Maya area from the second century A.D. to the fifteenth century. The populations inhabiting this region at the time of Spanish contact in the early sixteenth century were Yucatec and Ch'olan speakers (Figure 1.1).

Today the Yucatecan languages (including Yucatec, Lacandn, Mopn, and Itz) are spoken throughout the Yucatn Peninsula, as well as in lowland Chiapas, Petn, and Belize. Speakers of the Ch'olan languages Ch'ol and Chontal occupy the Tabasco lowlands, whereas the Eastern Ch'olan language Ch'orti' is spoken in Honduras near the archaeological site of Copn. Ethno-historic evidence supports the existence of another Eastern Ch'olan language, Ch'olti', during the Colonial period, but it became extinct during the eighteenth century.

Despite the fact that Spanish colonial sources document a flourishing manuscript tradition in the early sixteenth century, the Madrid Codex is one of only three or four known examples of a Maya hieroglyphic manuscript. It was discovered in Spain during the nineteenth century; how and when the manuscript reached Europe is uncertain (but see Chapter 3). Scholars generally agree that it was most likely sent from the colonies to Spain during the Colonial period. At the time of its reappearance in the nineteenth century it was found in two parts, which had become separated at some unknown point in the past. One section (the Troano) first came to scholarly attention in 1866, and the second (the Cortesianus) was offered for sale the following year (Glass and Robertson 1975:153). Lon de Rosny, who studied both sections, first recognized that they belonged to the same manuscript in the 1880s. When he compared what we now call page 78, from the Codex Troano, and page 77, from the Codex Cortesianus, he realized that they were successive pages from a single codex (Rosny 1882:80-82). Both sections were acquired by the Museo Arqueolgico in Madrid, where they became known as the Madrid Codex. The codex is currently being curated by the Museo de Amrica, which was established in 1941.

Prior to the resurfacing of the Madrid manuscript, two other codices painted in the same stylistic tradition came to light in European collections-the Dresden Codex in 1739 and the Paris Codex in 1832 (Grube 2001; Love 2001). A fourth codex, known as the Grolier, was purportedly discovered in a cave in the Mexican state of Chiapas in the 1960s, along with several other pre-Columbian artifacts, including several unpainted sheets of fig bark paper. It was acquired by a Mexican collector and shown to Michael Coe, who announced its discovery at the opening of an exhibition on Maya art and calligraphy sponsored by the Grolier Club of New York in 1971 (Carlson 1983; Coe 1973). Although Coe believed the manuscript was authentic, other scholars, including Thompson (1975:6-7), were convinced it was a fake. In response to the C-14 date of A.D. 1230 130 reported by Coe (1973:150) for a fragment of unstuccoed bark paper found in association with the codex, Thompson (1975) pointed out that this date has no relevance to when the manuscript was actually painted. He believed the codex was made by modern forgers who had access to a blank cache of fig bark paper like the sheets discovered with the Grolier Codex.

In the 1980s John Carlson (1983) published an analysis of the codex that convinced many Mayanists of its authenticity; however, recent studies by Claude-Franois Baudez (2002) and Susan Milbrath (2002) have again raised the question of whether the codex is a modern forgery. We believe this issue can be resolved only through an analysis of the chemical composition of the paints and await the results of a study of the document currently being undertaken by scholars in Mexico City (reported by Milbrath 2002:60).

Although colonial reports indicate that Maya codices were concerned with a variety of subjects, including historical accounts, the extant Maya manuscripts are almost exclusively ritual and astronomical in content. This information is presented in the form of what scholars have traditionally called tables or almanacs, the two distinguished by whether they include dates in the absolute (Long Count) calendar used by the Maya (tables) or are organized in terms of the 260-day ritual calendar used throughout Mesoamerica for divination and prophecy (almanacs). Even though they contain no Long Count dates, almanacs as well as tables frequently refer to astronomical events, such as solar eclipses or the position of certain planets and constellations in the night sky. Both types of instruments combine hieroglyphic captions with pictures that refer to specific days, within either the ritual calendar or the Long Count.

Although the Madrid Codex has no astronomical tables, it is the longest of the surviving Maya manuscripts, containing approximately 250 almanacs concerned with a variety of topics, including rain ceremonies associated with the deity Chaak, agricultural activities, ceremonies to commemorate the end of one year and the start of the next, deer hunting and trapping, the sacrifice of captives and other events associated with the five nameless days (Wayeb') at the end of the year, carving deity images, and beekeeping. As a group, these activities comprised the yearly round, as well as a series of rituals performed to accompany these events. Although some of the Madrid almanacs were undoubtedly used for divination within the 260-day ritual calendar, others referred to events that referenced much longer periods of time (see Chapter 8).

The Dresden and Paris codices contain a number of almanacs that are similar to those in the Madrid Codex, as well as some unique instruments such as the section of the Paris Codex that highlights tun and k'atun rituals and the astronomical tables found in the Dresden Codex. These tables were designed to track solar and lunar eclipses, the appearance and disappearance of Venus in the night sky, and the positioning of Mars in the zodiac. Astronomical subjects are represented in both the Paris and Grolier codices as well. A series of thirteen constellations representing the Maya "zodiac" appears on pages 23-24 of the Paris Codex, and the Grolier Codex contains an incomplete almanac that has calendrical parallels with the Dresden Venus table.

The Madrid Codex, although lacking Long Count dates, incorporates a variety of astronomical information into its almanacs. Like the Dresden tables, these almanacs track the movement of Mars, solar and lunar eclipses, and seasonal phenomena such as the summer solstice and the vernal equinox. Pages 12b-18b, for example, chart five successive solar eclipses (H. Bricker, V. Bricker, and Wulfing 1997), and Gabrielle Vail and Victoria Bricker (Chapter 7) propose that pages 65-72, 73b may represent the Madrid's counterpart to the Dresden eclipse table. Research by the Brickers and their colleagues (V. Bricker and H. Bricker 1988; H. Bricker, V. Bricker, and Wulfing 1997; V. Bricker 1997a; Graff 1997) suggests that many of these events can be placed into real time. The proposed dates range from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, with the tenth century dates believed to have historical significance and the fifteenth century dates to be contemporary with the painting of the manuscript. Compilations of texts from a wide time period are common in Maya written sources (cf. V. Bricker and Miram 2002 re. the Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua) and may be compared to anthologies of English literature in which works by authors from different centuries (e.g., Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats) are all included in one volume. A detailed discussion of the calendrical structure of Maya almanacs can be found in Chapter 5, "Maya Calendars and Dates: Interpreting the Calendrical Structure of Maya Almanacs."

The Maya Codices: Historical Overview

The extant Maya codices are generally believed to have been painted in the Late Postclassic period (c. 1250-1520), although hieroglyphic writing continued to be practiced in secret for several generations after the Spanish Conquest. They reflect the concerns of a society that underwent significant changes at the end of the Classic era, including the abandonment of centers throughout the Maya lowlands during the ninth through eleventh centuries, a process Andrews, Andrews, and Robles C. (2003:153) characterize as a "pan-lowland collapse." Two scenarios have been proposed for the northern lowlands: large-scale architectural activity may have ceased for more than a century, or, as new data suggest, monumental construction may have begun at Mayapn and in coastal Quintana Roo earlier than once thought, meaning there was no significant gap in public construction activities as previously believed (Andrews, Andrews, and Robles C. 2003:152). Mayapn's occupation has traditionally been dated from c. A.D. 1200 to 1441, but a growing body of evidence indicates it may have begun by c. A.D. 1050 (Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003). Although Mayapn had only a remnant population at the time of the Spanish Conquest, a number of smaller centers established during the Postclassic period, including Tulum on the Caribbean coast and sites on the island of Cozumel, were still inhabited when the Spanish first made contact with the Maya in the early sixteenth century (Sharer 1994:408-421; see Figure 1.2 for location of sites mentioned in this chapter).

The history of the Spanish conquest of the Americas is considered in detail in numerous publications. The Maya, unlike many of the other cultures encountered, proved extremely difficult for the Spanish to conquer. Despite the Europeans' superior weaponry, the conquest of the Yucatn Peninsula required almost twenty years (from 1527 to 1546), and the Itz Maya, who lived in the Petn region of Guatemala, were not conquered until 1697. This was the result of many factors, not least of which was their remote location; their capital, Ta Itz (or Tayasal as it was known to the Spanish), was located on a remote island in the heart of the Petn rainforest (Sharer 1994:741-753).

According to Spanish ecclesiastical sources, principally Diego de Landa, the second Bishop of Yucatn, the Maya were actively producing codices at the time of the Conquest (Tozzer 1941:27-29). Hieroglyphic writing, seen as an act of idolatry, was soon banned by the Catholic clergy. Nevertheless, in spite of efforts by Bishop Landa and the Inquisition to completely eradicate idolatrous practices, hieroglyphic texts continued to be written in secret for several generations after the Conquest (Coe and Kerr 1997:219-223; Thompson 1972:Ch. 1; see Chapter 3 for a discussion of Snchez de Aguilar's [1892] and other firsthand testimony).

Several of the Spanish chroniclers describe seeing Maya books. One of the earliest descriptions available comes from Peter Martyr D'Anghera in 1520, who examined the Royal Fifth sent by Corts to Charles V from Veracruz (Thompson 1972:3-4). Thompson (1972:4) concludes from Martyr's statement that he "saw and described Maya books, although there may well have been others from the Gulf coast in the consignment." In his account, Martyr (1912 [1530]) points out that Corts came across several codices on the island of Cozumel in 1519; Coe (1989:7) believes these were the codices included in the shipment Martyr examined in Valladolid.

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