The Lunar Series and eclipse cycles at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico

Abstract

A great number of Maya hieroglyphic texts consisted of a series of dated events connected by counts of days between them. These counts of days were represented by so-called Distance Numbers (hereafter DNs), which added or subtracted specific numbers of days to link important dates and associated events. On certain occasions, the intervals represented by the DNs conformed to numerical-calendric or astronomical cycles. The Maya timekeepers of Palenque used DNs representing the multiples of 11960 days, which identified with the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table seem to evoke eclipse cycles. In this paper, I will argue that they should be treated as intervals to compute the Lunar Series rather than eclipse cycles.