Sky and Telescope - April 2018 - 40

inscribed age of the Moon referred to the
date of the intense Eta Aquariid event, not
the ascension itself. That is, the calendar
noted a lunar age of 8 days (the age of the
Moon during the meteor outburst on April
10th), not 12 days (the date the king was
crowned).
"It appears that the Maya were backcalculating mythological events using calculations of the sidereal year that appear to
have accurately targeted the Eta Aquariid
meteor shower," says Dr. Michael Grofe,
an archaeoastronomy specialist from
the Maya Exploration Centre who wasn't
involved in the project. "Kinsman and
Asher make a compelling argument that
the Maya both observed and predicted the
Eta Aquariid meteor shower, and that the
dates of the accession of Maya kings and
queens, among other notable events, were
timed to coincide with this astronomical
phenomenon."
While AD 531 provides the most
convincing match, Asher and Kinsman's
date matches provide other tantalizing
possibilities. A modest outburst in AD 511
was followed nine days later by the ascension to the throne of a six-year-old queen,
known as the Lady of Tikal. However, not
all matches led to scenes of celebration. In
AD 562 a major battle between rival cities
Tikal and Caracol followed an Eta Aquariid
outburst by slightly less than three weeks.
The battle, which resulted in Tikal's conquest and subsequent disappearance from
the historical record for the next 120 years,
is depicted in the record with a hieroglyph
that looks a lot like a star showering Earth
with liquid droplets. This evocative glyph
led archaeologists to refer to this and
similar devastating battles as star wars.
Losing a star war often signaled the end,

"There are many more
matches in or just after
key meteor outbursts
than you would expect
to see by chance alone."
or at least the near erasure, of the defeated city-state. Archaeologists have noted that star wars tended to occur in the dry
season (November to January) and typically began near the
date of the appearance or disappearance of Venus. But could a
star war also be prompted by a meteor shower?
An additional interesting match concerned not dustinduced meteors but Halley's Comet itself, which made its
second-closest known approach to Earth on April 1, AD 374.
About one month after the comet's passage, the Maya record
shows the royal ascension of Teotihuacan ruler Spearthrower
Owl (Atlatl-Cauac), whose hieroglyph and iconic representations clearly depict an owl holding an atlatl, a spear-throwing
tool with stars, or "celestial darts," attached. It may be that
Spearthrower Owl, who was responsible for the establishment
of non-Maya rule over Tikal and other Maya city-states in AD
378, based his ascension on the passage of Halley's Comet in
AD 374.
"The scale of some of these events organized close to major
showers supports the idea the Maya were able to calculate the
length of the sidereal year, and in all probability kept track
of and observed Eta Aquariid meteor showers and outbursts,"
says Kinsman. While some of the connections seem speculative, we are gaining more knowledge of the Maya daily
through the study of their hieroglyphs, monuments, and
codices. "We hope this collaboration can run and run," adds
Asher, who now wants to apply the same technique to other
comets and meteor showers that could have commanded
the ancient Maya from the heavens. Short of revealing clear
textual or archaeological evidence, this type of collaboration
represents the best chance of understanding observations of
meteor showers by the Maya.
¢ JAMES ROMERO is a UK-based planetary and solar system
science writer who has written for Science News and New
Scientist magazines. A geology graduate and very amateur
astronomer himself, he also organizes large public science
festivals in the UK at Imperial College London. You can follow
him on twitter @mrjamesromero.

FURTHER READING: For a more detailed discussion of Maya records and the Eta Aquariid outbursts, see the original paper published
in volume 144 of Planetary and Space Science (arxiv.org/abs/1707.08246).
40

A PR I L 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

STONE ME TEORS: DR AWING BY IA N G R A H A M. © PRESIDEN T A ND FELLOWS OF H A RVA RD COLLEG E,
PE A BODY M USEU M OF A RCH A EOLOGY A ND E THNOLOGY, PM #20 04.14.13.1

t STONE METEORS Tortuguero's Monument
6 includes a glyph depicting the AD 562 star
war between the cities Tikal and Caracol. The
droplets streaming from the glyph for "star,"
which resembles a pair of cartoon eyes, may
represent the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/1707.08246

Sky and Telescope - April 2018

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