Arthro ods in
Ast onomy
Cases in 'Western" and
Mesoamerican Ethnoentomology
By John B. Carlson and Ron Cherry
EOPLES
OF
ALL
CULTURES,
PAST
and
present,
have perceived
important aspects of their earthly
worlds mirrored in the heavens. Terrestrial
and celestial events are linked in great mythic
creations that bind together the elements of a
culture's archetypal consciousness. The ancient expression, "As it is above, so shall it be
below," characterizes
this relationship
between the celestial cycles and those of our more
immediate human experience (Saul 1993 ). We
see our world writ large in the heavens and
tend to place our own face and stamp on everything in nature, including the creatures that
share our environment. Particularly for nonliterate cultures, the images perceived in the constellations,
as well as the planetary peregrinations among them, serve as an eternal
mnemonic record for the recall of the vital oral
traditions that maintain those cultures. These
are among those universals derived from comparative studies of ancient and native celestial
lore, religion, and worldview-what
we call
archaeoastronomy
(see glossary)-and
the
presence of arthropods in astronomy is no exception.
Our modern scientific astronomy has several interesting celestial arthropods,
a few of
recent vintage, but others surviving from a
considerable cultural depth. Two relatively
new additions would include the Beehive cluster and the Crab Nebula supernova remnant.
The Beehive, also known as M44 and
Praesepe, is an open star cluster located centrally within a square of faint stars in the zodi-
=>
Celestial scorpion hangs from a skyband on page 24
of the Maya Codex Paris (1968). The scorpion's
tel son stinger grasps a symbol for the Eclipse of the
Sun.
AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Fal/1996
149
acal constellation of Cancer the Crab. However, from early Greek and Roman sources (Allen
1963, pp. 112-113), this fuzzy patch of light
always was known to astronomers as the Little
Cloud or Little Mist, and even into the 17th
century as the Nebula, because this cluster is
one of the few whose individual stars cannot be
resolved with the unaided eye. Galileo, using
his telescope, was the first to resolve M44 into
"more than forty small stars," as published in
1610 in his famous Sidereus Nuncius. Also
from ancient times, Praesepe was popularly
thought of as the Manger or Crib from which
the Donkeys, the four surrounding stars, were
consuming hay. There also are legends placing
M44 in a much larger Leo the Lion constellation as his nose and whiskers
Polychrome mural of the Venus
Scorpion Man from the north
stuccoed pier of the Cacaxtla
Venus Enclosure, State of
Tlaxcala,
(Staal 1988, p.
114), but the visualization of a "hive of busy
bees in the profusion of silvery stars of this
cluster" must surely date to some time after
Galileo's telescopic discoveries. Even the venerable historian Richard Allen (1963 [1899], p.
112) could not trace the origin of the name
Beehive.
One or more of these bees may have strayed
from their zodiacal hive. As it happens, one of
the 88 modern constellations is called Musca,
or Musca Australis, the Southern Fly. Appar-
ently, it was recognized initially as a bee by
European mariners on southern hemispheric
voyages, but it later was given its present name
by the astronomer La Caille about 1752 (Staal
1988, pp. 246,248). In the eighteenth century,
there was also a constellation of the Northern
Fly, Musca Borealis, as well as Vespa the Wasp
or Apis the Bee-all hovering around Aries the
Ram-but we must imagine that Aries is more
than pleased today that these are now obsolete
constellations.
The expanding tangled cloud of ejecta from
the Crab Nebula supernova (likely to have
occurred in A.D. 1054 )superficially resembles
the body of a Crab with scuttling legs and extended claws. It was named the Crab Nebula
by the Irish astronomer
William
Parsons,
Third Earl of Rosse, who first observed it in
1846 through his 72-inch aperture reflecting
telescope (Jones 1969, pp. 23, 99-102). Located in the constellation of Taurus the Bull rather
than Cancer, this famous supernova remnant
cannot be seen with the naked eye. First discovered by John Bevis in 1731, it was rediscovered
and listed as M1 in Messier's famous catalogs
(1771-1781) of nebulae (seeJones 1969). The
event that produced the Crab, the violent death
of a massive star in a supernova explosion, was
Mexico.
Drawings of the two polychrome
mural panels representing
the
Venus Scorpion Couple from the
Venus Enclosure
on the west
side of the Cacaxtla
Tlaxcala,
150
acropolis,
Mexico.
AMERICAN
ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Fall 1996
recorded by Chinese and Japanese astronomers as well as, perhaps, Native Americans
(Brandt and Williamson 1979). However, its
association with the supernova of 1054 was unknown until the mid-twentieth century (citations in Brandt and Williamson 1979).
The real ancient arthropods of Western astronomy are two of the twelve zodiacal constellations, namely Cancer and Scorpius. Both
have rich mythological histories in the Near
East and Mediterranean dating well back into
pre-Homeric times. As zodiacal constellations
through which the wandering planets migrate,
they are prominent in all of the Babylonian and
Greco-Roman
astrological systems from
which our traditions derive. Books have been
written on these constellations, but, for our
purposes, it is interesting to note how these
hardy, familiar creatures from the Mediterranean world have gone through many transformations yet survived to reside in our modern
sky.
In the Greco-Roman tradition, there is the
legend that Juno, the Queen of the Gods, sent
a giant Crab in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the Hero Hercules from killing the Hydra.
The result may be seen in the trampled Crab
splayed out next to the decapitated Hydra,
now a constellation in the sky between Gemini
and Leo. But even before this time, the Egyptians saw a sacred scarab beetle (Scarabaeus
sacer L.) in the stars of Cancer (Staal 1988, p.
145). In their world view, the Scarab evoked the
Sun (see Cherry 1985), not only due to the serrations on the front of its body, which were seen
as the solar rays, but also in the various metaphors related to the balls of dung it creates. In
rolling a dung sphere along the ground to deposit in its subterranean quarters, the Scarab
was seen as a celestial deity, Khepri, who daily
pushed the Sun through the sky to its setting
point in the west. Because the beetles lay their
eggs in these pellets of excrement, the Egyptians associated them with the principles of
birth, resurrection, and, hence, immortalitythe eternal return of the Sun. Larger-than-life
carvings of Scarabs were often placed in tombs
and could replace the heart in the body of the
deceased before mummification. According to
Staal (1988, pp. 146-147), the solar associations of Cancer were perceived in the behavior
of the Crab. From the time of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus (ca. 150 B.C.), the Sun was
at its summer solstice in Cancer, reaching its
greatest northern declination and stopping
there above the Tropic of Cancer before returning to the south. This solstitial tropic behavior
of the midsummer Sun can be seen in the pecuAMERICAN
ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Fall 1996
liar movements of the Crab in its sideways and
hesitant gait. Further transformations of this
antic arthropod show that Cancer subsequently changed itself into various lobster and crayfish forms in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
German descriptions (Staal 1988, p. 146), but
additional elaborations would only sidestep
the essential solar mythology.
Scorpius is one of those famous ancient constellations that, to our eyes, really looks like a
scorpion and may have appeared as such in
several of the world's probably independent
astronomical traditions. However, we must
beware of imposing our own cultural biases on
this asterism, which is recognized in many
other guises such as Maui's fish hook to the
Polynesians. In Western cultures, the lore of
The blue-painted Maya Rain
God, Chac (God B), in a
scorpion manifestation, assumes
a scorpion courtship dance
posture in the sky as he urinates
the rains to fertilize the land
below. Madrid Codex (1967:31 a).
151
The scorpion courtship dance,
the promenade a deux, of the
Malaysian species Pa/amnaeus
fulvipes represented in a Iifesize, anatomically correct
BioBronze sculpture (Maxilla and
Mandible, 1993, from the
collection of J.B.C.).
c;;
0>
,
I
I
I
I
···
···
···
--.- ·.·
I
I
-
Foldout drawing of an Aztec
rectangular stone sacrificial altar
showing a great Venus Scorpion
Sacrificer with a personified
tecpati sacrificial knife for its
telson. The diagnostic epcolloli
ear ornaments make him an
aspect of the God Quetzalcoatl,
the Feathered Serpent, who was
also the planet Venus.
152
--
Scorpius, the constellation, and Scorpio, the
astrological sign, is particularly rich. Scorpion
behavior is the key to most of the mythology.
This arthropod tends to hide in dark, secluded
cracks and holes with meta soma arched in
defensive posture ready to deliver a poisonous
sting. Scorpius' curled up tail lies in a dark
patch of the southern Milky Way, symbolizing
a crevice leading to the underworld from
which the Scorpion has emerged (Staal 1988,
p. 220). The Sun moves through this constellation at the beginning ofthe cold winter months
after harvest, a time when Mediterranean scorpions are known to infest the stores of grain.
But the essential legends of Scorpius from
the ancient Near East relate to its fateful encounter with Orion, the boastful Hunter, who
threa tened to kill all of the animals of the Earth
Goddess, Gaia. She sent the Scorpion, which
delivered a fatal poisonous sting to Orion's
heel, but later the Hunter was revived by the
antidote given him by Ophiuchus, the Serpent
Bearer. This legend is played out in the sky for
eternity in the diurnal and annual cycles in
which Orion appears to die, setting in the
western horizon as Scorpius emerges in the
East. Furthermore, later in the annual sequence, Ophiuchus, who stands atop the defeated Scorpion, sets in the west as the
resurrected Orion emerges anew in the east.
The Scorpion also was a prominent celestial
character for the peoples of ancient Mesoamerica, the cultural region ranging from the American Southwest to Honduras and EI Salvador.
It is known that both the Aztecs of Central
Mexico and the Lowland Maya to the east had
scorpion constellations. However, although
many scholars over the years have suggested
that these asterisms correspond with our zodiacal Scorpius, there is as yet no certain proof.
The native consultants of Fray Bernardino de
Sahagun, the sixteenth-century Franciscan
chronicler in Mexico, depicted the Aztec Coloti constellation as a realistic connect-the-dots
scorpion in his Florentine Codex (1950-1981,
fig. 21) and Primeros Memoriales (1993, fol.
282 v). He tells us that the Scorpion was an emblem granted to a victorious young warrior
who had succeeded in taking his first captive
without the assistance of a seasoned soldier.
AMERICAN ENfOMOLOGIST
•
Fal/1996
For the Maya, the Scorpion and its constellation were known by the name Sinan. Probably the best known portrayal is found in the
so-called Maya zodiac pages of the Codex
Paris (1968, pp. 23-24), one ofthe four surviving precontact Maya books, where a realistic
scorpion hangs from a skyband with its telson
stinger grasping an Eclipse of the Sun symbol.
It may have been thought that the Scorpion was
one of the agents that caused such eclipses, although it may refer instead to an eclipse occurring in the Maya Scorpion constellation. Other
examples of this stellar scorpion are almost
certainly what is depicted in the Late PostClassic Maya Codex Madrid (1967, pp. 44c,
48c) where scorpions grasp nooses holding
captive deer. In the several examples, the scorpion's telson is portrayed both realistically and
in the form of a human hand holding the noose.
Furthermore, in another scene (Codex Madrid,
p. 39), a celestial deer displays a scorpion
meta soma tail whose human hand telson holds
a dagger that dispatches a second deer. That
the scorpion should be associated with hunting, warfare, and sacrifice in Maya mythology
is quite understandable, considering the legendary behavior of this arthropod. Several
Maya scholars recently have interpreted a
hunting scene painted on a Classic period codex-style cylinder vase (Kerr 1989, no. 1226)
as the portrayal of a well-known celestial
myth. Here, a young hunter, perhaps Hunahpu, one of the Hero Twins of the Quiche Maya
Papal Yuh epic (Tedlock 1985, Tedlock and
Tedlock 1993), shoots a supernatural bird
perched high in the central World Tree. An
aggressive scorpion attacks Xbalanque, the
Jaguar Twin, who hides behind the tree with
his jaguar paw defensively extended.
One of us also has made the case that one
aspect of the planet Venus, the Mesoamerican
god of warfare and sacrifice, took the form of
a Scorpion Man (Carlson n.d., 1990, 1991,
1993a, 1993b). Thus, it may be that the scorpion in the blowgun hunting scene embodies
this planet rather than the constellation. That
there was a Maya Venus Scorpion Man sacrificer now is established from his various depictions within skybands and is directly
associated with glyphs for the planet Venus and
the iconographic diagnostics of a specific cult
of sacred warfare. Particularly fine examples
are found in the celestial bands from the Nunnery Annex at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, and on a
bench throne from the Sepulturas compound at
Copan, Honduras. However, the most spectacular portrait of the Venus Scorpion Man was
brought to light in the recently-unearthed
AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Fal/1996
Maya-style murals of Cacaxtla in the state of
Tlaxcala, about 80 miles east of Mexico City.
Here, the blue-painted goggle-eyed warriorsacrificer presides, along with his female counterpart, over a special chamber devoted to the
sacrifice of captives taken in the martial cult of
sacred warfare regulated by the planet Venus.
The Cacaxtla Scorpion Man and Woman are
portrayed in dancing posture with large Highland/Oaxaca-style Venus glyph bucklers over
their jaguar-skin kilts, framed on red backgrounds within borders of Teotihuacan-style
eyed Venus glyphs. Although the upper portion
of the female figure has not survived, we see
tha t the Scorpion Man has grasped one of these
sharp-pointed Teotihuacan-style Venus stars as
a sacrificial instrument known as a knuckle
duster. Such knuckle dusters and related trident
eccentric flints now have been found archaeologically in the context of human sacrifice
(Carlson n.d.). This cult of Venus-regulated
Maya Diving God with characteristics of a bee or wasp descending from a skyband as seen on
Codex Dresden (1975) p. 58b.
His head is in the form of the
glyph for Great Star or Venus,
also known to the Maya as Xux
Ek, the Wasp Star.
153
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featured in red, zodiacal
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and other constellations in earth
tones.
154
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sacred warfare and sacrifice was an early and
pervasive pan-Mesoamerican tradition in
which battle captives were taken for sacrifice,
their shed blood symbolically transformed into
the waters of life, invoking the forces of human
and agricultural fertility (Carlson 1991,
1993a). In the Maya Codex Madrid (1967, p.
31a), the blue-painted Rain God, Chac, is depicted in his celestial Scorpion aspect as a sacrificer, with the rains pouring out from his loins
around his prominent scorpion stinger. On p.
7a of the Madrid Codex, a giant celestial Scorpion Monster, surrounded by Chacs, pours
forth the nourishing rains from between its extended pedipalps. Furthermore, in the Codex
Dresden Venus almanac (1975, p.46), the Scorpion manifestation of Venus, although not pictured, is actually labeled as Sinan, the Yucatec
Maya word for scorpion, explicitly making the
connection.
Scorpions are among the terrestrial arthropods that exhibit complex ritualized courtship
behaviors leading to spermatophore transfer
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and fertilization, a venture that sometimes results in mate cannibalism. There is also a
"highly specialized viviparous development"
of the embryos that "lasts from several months
to well over a year, depending on species. Once
born, the young climb onto the mother's back
to continue development and molt for the first
time. The young then disperse to assume an
independent existence" (Polis and Sissom
1990, p. 160). The courtship is a promenade
deux (Polis and Sissom 1990, pp.161-172, fig.
4.1) in which the male leads the female in a
ritual dance. The male grasps the female's
pedipalp chelae, and they perform a circulating ritual dance. Cheliceral massage is also
part of the game where the male grasps and
kneads the receptive female's chelicerae with
his own. A spermatophore, which the male has
deposited on a stick, is subsequently transferred to the female. She arches over the spermatophore with her genital opercula spread to
grasp the droplet of sperm on its apex, completing copulation. The Scorpion Couple repre-
a
AMERICAN
ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Pall 1996
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sented on the side-by-side piers of the Cacaxtla
Venus Chamber are presented in such a courtship dance, with the Venus knuckle dusters
(probably held up in both hands by both the
male and female) metaphorically representing
the scorpions' pedipalp claws. The Cacaxtla
Venus chamber, and others like it, were places
of sacrifice and ritual preparation for sacrifice
of the victims taken in the sacred Venus-regulated wars. The Venus Scorpion Couple are
represented as sacrificers, and it is hypothesized that the sacrificial victims of the cult were
ritually wounded, if not sacrificed, with the
Venus knuckle dusters and were, perhaps, also
tortured with the stings of scorpions in these
enclosures (see Carlson 1991, 1993a, n.d.; Stuart 1992, pp. 132-133). The Mesoamerican
peoples understood well the patterns of scorpion reproductive behavior and appreciated how
these patterns related to their concepts of sacrifice, death, fertility, and renewal. Almanacs
based on the celestial dance of Venus with the
Sun governed the Mesoamerican fertility-reAMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Fal/1996
'\3
,)00°
ConstellationMuscainthe southernsky.
155
lated, Venus-regulated wars and sacrifices. Venus never appears far from the Sun. In the fundamental 584-day synodic cycle, the planet
first rises as Morning Star in the East before the
Sun, then dies and takes an Underworld Journey to appear in the west following sunset as
Evening Star, only to disappear briefly, once
again, to return as Morning Star in the east.
Furthermore, Venus and the Sun interact over
eight years in a complex Morning and Evening
Star ballet with an interesting astronomical
resonance: five 584-day Venus cycles exactly
equal eight uncorrected Maya 365-day years
[5 x 584 = 8 x 365]. Mesoamerican peoples
understood this celestial choreography and
created their Venus Almanacs with this five-toeight base. The ritual courtship of the Scorpion
an area of ancient
embodied this cosmic dance and nowhere is it
better represented than in the elegant, but
potentially fatal, Scorpion promenade deux of
the deadly duo of the Cacaxtla Venus Chamber.
The Maya Venus Scorpion Man cult was
spread outside the Maya area as evidenced by
his portrait at Cacaxtla and has been found
even in a Late Post-Classic Aztec example
carved on the top of a sacrificial altar with a
personified flint blade for his stinger. Venus in
Mesoamerican cultures was seen as one aspect
of the powerful Feathered Serpent deity known
to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl. In his manifestation as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, Lord of the
House of Dawn, this Morning and Evening
Star god was always depicted as a death-dealing sacrificer whose rays were like spears impaling his victims. In the Aztec example from
the sacrificial block, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is
shown in scorpion form with his diagnostic
Epcololli ear ornaments crouching above a
zacatapayolli, the woven grass ball in which
were placed the bloodied thorns from the penitential autosacrificial rites performed by Aztec priests and warriors. Aspects of this
celestial Venus Scorpion Man cult survive even
today, without the attendant human sacrifices,
in the Mexican state of Guerrero where a Scorpion Man dance is performed with an elaborate full-body costume and personified
scorpion mask (Carlson n.d.) (see front cover).
Both the Bee and Wasp were prominent figures in the Maya heavens. One of the Maya
names for the planet Venus was Xux Ek (pronounced Shush Eck), which means Wasp Star.
As Venus was thought to be a powerful celestial
warrior sacrificer, its association with the
Hymenoptera is certainly sensible. It is this
aspect of Venus that is almost certainly portrayed in the Maya Codex Dresden (1975, p.
58 b). Here, a Diving God character descends
keeping was important. Although the European honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) was
introduced after the conquest, there had been a
long-established native tradition of honey production employing the local stingless bees
(Melipona beecheii Bennett and several species
of Trigona) known to the Maya as Kolel kab or
Yilk'il kab. Particularly fine examples of the
Diving God, probably portrayed as an anthropomorphic descending Bee Deity, are found at
the magnificent Late Post-Classic port of Tulum on the Quintana Roo coast of the Yucatan
Peninsula (Miller 1982, figs. 80-82, plates 30,
37, and 41). Although there has never been
total agreement Onthis interpretation, it is likely that this anthropomorphic bee is depicted as
an aspect of Venus with a pot of honey held
between his outstretched hands. This suggestion is reinforced further by the representation
of a thatched roof celestial bee temple in the
Codex Madrid (1967, p. 106a). Here, the angry-looking Bee character descends from a celestial band inscribed with the Maya kab
glyph, a homonymous sign that meant Earth,
Bee, and Honey to the Maya. Certainly, the
Bee and Wasp were identified with one or more
of the planets if not also embodied in the form
of constellations.
There are many additional examples of arthropods in other ancient and indigenous astronomical traditions from which we could choose
to illustrate how all peoples see their place in the
natural order reflected in the heavens (e.g., Cherry 1985, 1993). These specific cases taken from
our Western cultural mythology and the Mesoamerican world should serve to demonstrate
that people are keen observers of arthropod behavior and that our appreciation of this truth
may help us to better interpret our human archaeological and cultural remains through interdisciplinary ethno-entomological research.
a
156
from Eclipse of the Sun and Moon symbols
attached to a Maya skyband. The creature's
head is the well-known Maya Lamat glyph for
Noh Ek, the Great Star or planet Venus, and he
is adorned with sacrificer symbols such as diagnostic knotted bow ties and a thorax in the
form of a sacrificial blade. The Diving God
motif is found throughout ancient Mesoamerica, from highland Teotihuacan to coastal lowland Veracruz and Yucatan. In most cases, it
can be associated with Venus as a celestial
sacrificer, whether portrayed in an avian or
arthropoid form. All along the eastern coast of
the Yucatan Peninsula, the Diving God was
particularly prominent, displayed on the lintels of Post-Classic temple buildings. This was
Mesoamerica
AMERICAN ENrOMOLOGIST
where bee-
•
Fa1l1996
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1991. Venus-regulated warfare and ritual sacrifice in Mesoamerica: Teotihuacan and the Cacaxt!a "Star Wars" connection. Center for
Archaeoastronomy Tech. Publ. no. 7. College
Park, MD.
1993a. Venus-regulated warfare and ritual sacrifice in Mesoamerica, pp. 202-252. III C.L.N.
Ruggles and N.]. Saunders [eds.], Astronomies
and cultures. University Press of Colorado, Niwot,CO.
1993b. Rise and fall of the city of the gods. Archaeology 46(6): 2,58-69, 94.
n.d. The stellar sting: a venus scorpion man cult
of Mesoamerican warfare and sacrifice. Unpublished manuscript of a presentation at the
47th International Congress of Americanists,
Session on Native American Religious Systems,
Tulane University, New Orleans.
Cherry, R. H. 1985. Sacred scarabs of Ancient
Egypt. Bull. Entomol. Soc. Am. 31(2): 14-16.
1993. Insects in the mythology of Native Americans. Am. Entomol. 39: 16-21.
Codex Dresden. 1975. Codex Dresdensis. Siichsische Landesbibliothek Dresden (Mscr. Dresd.
R 310). H. Deckert and F. Anders [eds.], (Facsimile and commentary). Akademische Drucku. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria.
Codex Madrid. 1967. Codex Tro-Cortesianus
(Codex Madrid) Museo de America, Madrid.
Anders, F. [ed.], (Facsimile and commentary).
Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz,
Austria.
Codex Paris. 1968. Codex Peresianus: Bibliotheque Nationale Paris. Anders, F. [ed.], (Facsimile
and
commentary).
Akademische
Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria.
Jones, K. G. 1969. Messier's nebulae and star clusters. American Elsevier, New York.
Kerr, J. 1989. The Maya vase book: a corpus of
rollout photographs of Maya vases, vol. 1.
Kerr Associates, New York.
Miller, A. G. 1982. On the edge of the sea: mural
painting at Tancah-Tulum, Quintana Roo,
Mexico. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Polis, G. A., and W. D. Sissom. 1990. Life history,
pp. 161-223. III G. A. Polis [ed.], The biology
of scorpions, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Sahagun, Fray B. de. 1950-1981. The Florentine
Codex: general history of the things of New
Spain. [Book 7: The sun, moon, and stars, and
the binding of the years] A.].O. Anderson and
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C. E. Dibble (translation). School of American
Research, Santa Fe and University of Utah
Press, Salt Lake City.
1993. Primeros Memoriales: Facsimile ed. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK.
Saul, j. 1993. "As it is above, so shall it be below":
The blueprint of civilization. Archaeoastronomy 11: 104-107.
Staal, j.D.W. 1988. The new patterns in the sky:
myths and legends of the stars. McDonald and
Woodward, Blacksburg, VA.
Stuart, G. E. 1992. Mural masterpieces of ancient
Cacaxt!a. Natl. Geogr. Mag. 182(3): 120-136.
Tedlock, D. 1985. Popol Vuh: the Mayan book of
the dawn of life and the glories of gods and
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Tedlock, D., and B. Tedlock. 1993. A Mayan reading of the story of the stars. Archaeology 46(4):
33-35,70.
Glossary
archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy: The interdisciplinary study of the astronomical practices, celestial lore, mythology, religions, and
worldviews of all ancient peoples and cultures.
It is essentially the anthropology of astronomy
in contrast to the discipline of history of astronomy, which traditionally has focused on
(1) our "Western" (e.g., Babylonian, GrecoRoman, Arabic, European,) astronomical systems, (2) exclusively textual sources, and (3)
astronomy, more narrowly, as science rather
than as part of culture. In archaeoastro/tomy,
we explore all astronomical and cosmological
traditions, use all sources of relevant data, and
focus on how astronomy and astronomers
functioned in their cultural contexts. The term
ethlloastrollomy is used for the interdisciplinary study of contemporary indigenous astronomical traditions.
asterism: In astronomy, this term is essentially a
synonym for constellation but with a broader
application. It always refers to some grouping
of stars. Technically, a constellation can only be
one of the 88 asterisms so defined by the International Astronomical Union.
astrological sign: The astrological signs and the
astrological constellations of the zodiac are /tot
the same. The twelve constellations of the zodiac, which traditionally start with Aries, followed by Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo,
etc., lie along the ecliptic plane of the solar system through which all of the planets, Sun, and
Moon move on their celestial wanderings. Due
to a wobbling of the Earth on its axis (known
as the precession of the equinoxes), the twelve
30-degree astrological signs, which start with
the first point of the sign of Aries at the Vernal
Equinox point, have shifted by about one sign
or about 30 degrees around the ecliptic circle
relative to the constellations over the past two
millennia or so.
157
celestial band: Bands of as many as 13 different
symbols that represent the Maya sky or some
aspect of the heavens. Also called a skyband, it
is the decorated, abbreviated body of a doubleheaded Maya sky dragon that usually has solar
characteristics on the eastern head and Venus
iconography for the west. The Maya word kan
means both serpent and sky, and the celestial
bands always indicate a celestial context when
they are used in Maya art.
codex: A hand-written manuscript volume. In
Mesoamerican studies, codex refers to the Native American books, usually painted caligraphically on stuccoed, screen-fold bark
paper books. Only approximately 16 Mesoamerican codices survive from the times before Spanish contact. Four of these are Maya:
the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier Codices. These are ritual books containing Venus almanacs, eclipse warning tables, etc.
codex-style vase: One particular style of Maya
vase, usually painted caligraphically in black
ink on a white background in a style similar to
the Maya codex books. These vases seem to
derive from specific sites in the northern Peten
region of Guatemala.
constellation: An arbitrary grouping of stars, usually into traditional forms reflecting the mythological values of a culcure. They may be figures
composed of connect-the-dots groupings of
stars, but there are also dark constellation traditions that perceive ligures in the dark dustlane areas of the Milky Way. There are now
only 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union in modern astronomy. These are actually well-defined
regions of the sky rather than groupings of
stars in the old sense.
"eyed" Venus glyphs: Star and planet signs in Mesoamerica usually have eyes in them because the
stars were perceived as the eyes of the night. The
Teotihuacan Venus glyphs have prominent eyes
in their centers and have been called eyed Venus
glyphs.
iconographic diagnostics.: Iconography, for our
purposes, is both the record of pictures, diagrams, and images lefc to us from a particular
cultural tradition, as well as the study of such
images. An iconographic system, not to be confused with a writing s)'stem, can well be exemplified by the images portrayed on a stainedglass window in a Medieval cathedral. The
largely illiterate populace would be able to understand the iconography of a man on a cross,
a lamb at his feet, or a white dove descending
from heaven, whereas they could not read the
Latin inscriptions. In any such complex representation, the cross, lamb, and dove would be
the iconographic diagnostics that would allow
the viewer to read the symbolic meaning of the
composition.
skyband: see celestial band.
Teotihuacan: A Mesoamerican civilization that
158
created one of the first and largest urban centers in the Americas before Spanish contact.
The ruins of this great city, which flourished
from about 150 B.C. until its ceremonial and
administrative core were sacked and burned in
the 8th century A.D., lie about 35 miles north of
Mexico City. For more information see the
popularization on The Rise and Fall of the City
of the Gods (Carlson 1993b).
zodiac: The band of twelve traditional constellations that lie along the ecliptic plane of the solar
system through which the Sun, Moon, and
planets travel among the stars. The ecliptic is a
great circle in the heavens that is tilted by 23%
degrees to the celestial equator. The 12 zodiacal
constellations are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagitarius,
Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.
•
John B. Carlson, a radio and extragalactic
astronomer by profession, is the director of the
Center for Archaeoastronomy, a nonprofit institute for research and education related to interdisciplinary studies of the astronomical practices,
celestial lore, religions, and world-views of ancient civilizations and the contemporary indigenous cultures of the world. In this capacity,
Carlson is an expert on Native American astronomy specializing in studies of pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica. The art, iconography, and hieroglyphic writing of the Maya and Teotihuacan civilizations are particular interests, and he has
published and lectured extensively in this field.
Carlson teaches courses in astronomy, anthropology, and the history of science at the University of
Maryland. Correspondence should be sent to:
Center for Archaeoastronomy, P.O.Box X, College
Park, MD 20741-3022; telephone: 301-864-6637;
or e-mail: [email protected].
Ron Cherry is an entomologist located at
the Everglades Research and Education Center
at Belle Glade, FL. Much of his work focuses on
soil insect pests of field crops. He also has published several articles on cultural entomology.
Correspondence should be sent to: Everglades
Research and Education Center, Bell Glade, FL
33430.
AMERICANENfOMOlOGIST
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