TRANSLATIONS
I must admit it came as a surprise that the constellations appear synchronously north and south of the equator - I had imagined midsummer constellations north of the equator to be different from those seen at the same time (in midwinter) south of the equator. How stupid of me! 168 can now be interpreted more easily. Earlier I thought it strange that the Maya jumped 168 days for each new constellation in their zodiac. Now I think it only means that they arranged their zodiac constellations in order day, night, day, night etc. If, for instance, I noted down the constellation rising with sun a certain day of the year, it would not be strange if I also noted which constellation appeared in zenith at midnight. I will then have created the first item on a list with pairs of constellations ca 180º apart (at noon the sun and the constellation in which it is rising have both travelled to zenith). I could create a list of pairs of 'antipodal' constellations, and 6 such pairs would contain all the 12 zodiac constellations. Of course I must move 168º instead of 180º when noting next constellation on my list, and I will for next morning constellation have moved 2 * (180 - 168) = 24º further on. 6 * 24 = 144, not far from 150 (as the number of glyphs in the 'light mauga' calendar of E). When the Maya constellation signs are 168 days apart it could mean their 'map' was created by observing noon and midnight zenith constellations pairwise. As to Aa6-66 there is more to say: "... he [Karl Taube] showed me [Linda Schele] how the revised pagination of the Dresden Codex places the desctructive flood immediately before the New Year's pages. The Maya - then and now - understood the end of one year and the beginning of the other to be dangerous times when one world was destroyed and another created. It was a replay of the original creation." (Maya Cosmos) By lucky chance I happen to have the book 'A Commentary on the Dresden Codex' by J. Eric Thompson in my library. I copy the picture of the referred to 'destructive flood': In Maya Cosmos the picture is explained: Here the 'belching out of the waters of the flood' occurs at left, and north of the equator east lies at left. South of the equator east lies at right:
The ua sign in Aa6-66 maybe is to be read as the flood which ends the last creation = the 1st half year. Maybe the water carrier (Aquarius) is the god who definitely kills the old sun (the last 'creation' in an indefinite series of 'suns'). The number 666 of Aa6-66 is the number of the beast and 1,334 (the number of glyphs on the Tahua tablet) = 666 + 668. The 'beast' may be the strange creature which extinguishes the old fire, the Cosmic Dragon according to Maya. |