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Ideas in Astronomy
The Maya were quite accomplished astronomers. Their primary interest, in contrast to "western" astronomers, were Zenial Passages when the Sun crossed over the Maya latitudes. On an annual basis the sun travels to its summer solstice point, or the latitude of 23-1/3 degrees north.
Most of the Maya cities were located south of this latitude, meaning that they could observe the sun directly overhead during the time that the sun was passing over their latitude. This happened twice a year, evenly spaced around the day of solstice.
The Maya could easily determine these dates, because at local noon, they cast no shadow. Zenial passage observations are possible only in the Tropics and were quite unknown to the Spanish conquistadors who descended upon the Yucatan peninsula in the 16th century. The Maya had a god to represented this position of the Sun called the Diving God.
The Sun
The Maya evidently thought quite a bit about the Sun and they watched it trace out a path along the ecliptic. They followed it year round, presumably following its path along the horizon as well. At Chichen Itza, during sunset a sun serpent rises up the side of the stairway of the pyramid called El Castillo on the day of Spring and Autumn Equinox. It tells us that the Maya noted, not only the extremes of the Sun at the Solstices, but also the Equinoxes when the Sun appeared to rise due East or due West. In addition to the Zenial Passages mentioned earlier, ecliptic observations must have been a major portion of Maya solar observing.
The Moon
The Maya had a lunar component to their calendric inscriptions. After giving the pertinent information on the date according to the Maya calendar the typical Maya inscriptions contain a lunar reckoning. The lunar count was counted as 29 or 30 days, alternating. The lunar synodic period is close to 29.5 days, so by alternating their count between these two numbers the moon was carefully meshed into the calendric sequence as well. Their lunar knowledge was impressive for they also made eclipse predictions, an almanac for predicting them is contained in the Dresden Codex.
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