Inside a cramped painted chamber at the Maya city of Xultun, in what is now northern Guatemala, a Maya mathematician worked through a calculation involving the cycles of Venus and Mars, the solar year, and the ritual calendar. Dating to around 781 C.E., the formula ends with two glyphs that read roughly as “so says Sak Tahn Waax.” The name translates to “White-Chested Fox.”
The study, published in Antiquity, describes this as the only known example of a Classic Maya mathematician receiving credit for their work. Maya monuments often name kings, queens, gods, and royal dynasties, and record calendar dates tied to major events. The specialists who calculated those dates, however, are rarely identified.
"The fact that these glyphs appeared in a context where art is linked to science, mathematics to astronomy, and all of that to daily life, is also something worth presenting," Guatemala's minister of culture and sports said in a translated press release.
Ancient Maya Mathematician’s Formula Linked Venus, Mars, and Calendar Cycles
Researchers refer to the signed passage as Text 19. It contains only 11 glyph blocks, but it brings together six units and cycles of time. They all fit within a count of 2,920 days, when five 584-day synodic periods of Venus line up with eight 365-day solar years.
Attribution of mathematician ‘White-chested Fox,’ using the phrase che-he-na followed by the name spelled SAK-TAHN-wa-xi (multispectral photograph by G. Ware, drawing by D. Stuart).
(Image Courtesy of PRASBX)
A synodic period measures how long it takes Venus to return to roughly the same position relative to the Sun as viewed from Earth. Rather than simply recording the 2,920-day total, the formula breaks it into smaller intervals. It moves through one 20-day unit, one 260-day ritual cycle, two 780-day Mars cycles, and three 360-day periods. Together, they add up to the full span, which also equals five Venus cycles.
That progression, one, one, two, three, five, matches the start of the Fibonacci sequence, where each number is the sum of the two before it. We still don’t know whether the ancient mathematician recognized that pattern or whether it simply fell out of which cycles were being combined.
Water damage and root growth had eaten away at parts of the wall, so researchers worked from scale drawings, photographs, and scans, including images taken under infrared light, then digitally enhanced them to bring faded pigment back into view before leaning on the rules of Maya calendar math to fill in the gaps.
Inside the Room Where Maya Scholars May Have Lived, Worked, and Trained
The structure, named 10K-2, was a small building rather than a grand temple or public monument. Researchers think it may have been a residential space where Sak Tahn Waax lived and worked alongside other taaj, Maya specialists in mathematics and astronomy.
Detail from multispectral imaging of Text 19 in infrared spectrum (photograph by G. Ware).
(Image Courtesy PRASBX)
Inside, more than 50 mathematical and astronomical texts covered sections of the walls. Some were painted, others incised, and several overlapped earlier images or appeared on fresh patches of plaster. Archaeologists also found tools used to make the bark paper that Maya scribes turned into books.
Nearby portraits carry titles that appear to rank the taaj shown in the room. That has led researchers to think the chamber may have been used for both work and teaching, with specialists passing their methods to others. The calculations on the walls support that idea. They include lunar tables, immense time counts, and attempts to fit different calendars and planetary cycles together.
The chamber remained sealed until archaeologists reopened it in 2010. Damage and fading pigment kept Sak Tahn Waax’s name unread until now.
Read More: The Largest and Oldest Known Maya Monument Could Symbolize a Model of the Universe
Article Sources
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- This article references information from a study published in Antiquity: The identification and work of an eighth-century Maya mathematician
