Jasaw Chan K’awiil I, ‘He Who Cleared the Sky’
At David Stuart’s suggestion, I decided to investigate Jasaw Chan K’awiil (tr: K’awiil Cleared the Sky.) [Martin & Grube (2008, 52)]. Because “he had cleared the sky?” what happened before it was necessary to do so. David had his own focus for research: 4 Ahaw 8 Kumku with the 13.0,0,0,0 and the Year Bearers of the vertical Trecena calculated backwards in time.
My second question then was: When did the event before the “clearing of the sky” occur?
“When” calls forth a third question What actually happened to the land?.
It is very clear that the dates are skewed and have little relationship to other events of major importance in the world. The major fault I found was in Diego de Landa’s Calendar explanations.
In Landa’s 1566 manuscript, several statements are so confusing that it is impossible to tell which is related to what?
By the time Landa wrote calendar details, the 365.25-days were permanent and accepted as such.
“It took.....20 days x 18 + five days and six hours. Out of these six hours they made a day every four years so that they had a 366 day-year every four years. [Gates, 1864, 59, Dover edition 1979),
With these numbers: 20-18-5-6-4, the 365 day/year was defined correctly. Yet, why did they assume another characterization here? When I read 20 days times 18. The 5 days and 6 hours, in my mind, read the 20 day units times 18 = 360-days; then it switched over to 5 “weeks” and 6 “days” each week as the horizontal version of the Trecena. Both versions of the numbers read the same way i.e.: 30 x 12 = 360 day/year of the 52-week, as a 3 X 4-year sequence in the Trecena shorter vertical count.
[Since I had been going over the vertical and horizontal Trecena of the Madrid so often over the years, I began to think like the Maya who still like to duplicate their speech patterns.]
Thi strange part about de Landa’s manuscript of 1566, was when he added information about IMIX starting on July 16 (Julian Calendar) as the first day of the Maya New Year. How come since It was instituted in 1583/4 by Rome when it was later decided [or did Landa suggest it??] for Rome to start 0-POPP as a new beginning. to creating the first month of the year as (Zero) POP using February 8, (the Gregorian Calendar) for the first month in 1584. However, de Landa died in 1575. It was nine years later when Rome sent to mesoamerica almost all the Diego de Landa information as a permanent change to their 360-day calendar system. Or did a new scribe insert the information into the Landa text?
POPP was then 0-POP as the first month of the 19 given for the year and One IMIX as July 16 (Julian Calendar) which was changed to July 26 of 1584 (Gregorian Calendar) as its first day of 1584 as IMIX. (Gates, 1864, 68, Dover edition 1979)
Reviewing the Madrid serpent pages where IMIX was placed as the first day of the New Year, I discovered that the horizontal Trecena would not work with IMIX being the first day. If IK, in the next column was left as a Year-Bearer, IK completed all month sequences within a proper 52-week time frame but IMIX did not.
Landa decided to write the reason for the Year Bearers as:
Five Year Bearers X five years for each 5-year unit of the vertical Trecena.
This would equal 25 years during each completed cycle of the Year Bearers. A footnote by Gates claimed it would throw the calendar completely out of order, which it does. Before Landa first noted the Trecena as five weeks of four days during each week. Instead of using IK, MANIK, EB, CABAN, he started with KAN, MULUC, IX, CAUAC. (Gates, 1976, Dover edition, 60) He then proceeded to add the month names to the pseudo-calendar, beginning with the quasi-normal POP’ for July 16 connected to 12 KAN all the way to WAYEB July 11 which connected to Xma-Kaba Kin KAN cycle of the Maya with even more nonsense.
The list continued with
UO August 6-6 KAN; ZIP Aug. 21-13 KAN; SOTZ September 14-7 KAN; TZEC October 4, 1 KAN; XUL October 24-8 KAN; YAXKIN November 13-2 KAN; MOL December 3-9 KAN; CH’ENDecenber 23-3 KAN; YAX January 12-10 KAN; SAC February 1-4 KAN; CEH February 21-11 KAN; MAC March 13-5 KAN; KANKIN April 2-12 KAN; MUAN April 22- 6 KAN; PAX May 12-13 KAN; KAYAB June 1-7 KAN; CUMHU June 21-1 KAN; to WAYEB July 11 as above. (Gates, 1976 Dover edition, 70 to 81)
Did it add up? Of course it did for a five-week; five day per week month units with a 1 to 13 count Trecena. [Note that KAN only counted as far as 13 while the months had 5-days in each week 5-week series, This as verified by Sylvanus Morely in his four edition of The Ancient Maya in 1983, 553.] The 52-year cycle was created as a "vague year,” (1983, 554-5) It was created as a co-efficient of modern calculus and page 554 explains how the computation came into being.
At this point, there is no reason to even continue with a coefficient because the whole calculation is contrary to the natural cycle of earth’s orbit and spin.
Landa, before we forget his work, used an informant he had, who told him about the event that caused the trouble. It had occurred 300 years previous to their conversations. He also casually mentioned that the Maya count years in 20-year periods, or 13 X 20 ending in AHAU, but counting backwards on a wheel; even though the list only used KAN as its backward cycling name. (Gates, 1864, 81)
This should have equaled 260 years, [but it seemed better to count it as 26 years X 2.] Sylvanus Morley verified the 5-days X 5-weeks cycle in his fourth edition of The Ancient Maya. (Morley, 1983, 554-5)
Even so, the Maya informed Morley the following about their on-going intentions for future calendars
“Let us permit our calendar year to gain on the true year as fast as it will. We will allow our calendar to function without change, but when we erect upon it, in addition to the official calendar date of its dedication, a calendar correction for that particular date. In this way, no matter what month our calendar may register, we shall always know, whenever we erect a monument, the position of its corresponding date in the true year.”
[Morley, Third Edition: 1956, 229-230]
The statement, recorded by Morley seems to have been completely ignored. Instead it created a modern non-glyphic date on a completed monument. The so-called Distnance Number, then and now is a non-glyphic 365.25-days per year. In 1584 Rome-designated dates were to be placed after the glyphs of 360-days per year. It is not a coefficient because both are the exact same day. And it is not a Distance number because both dates are for the same day. i.e. as Julian vs. Gregorian date.
The 13 numbers were to walk vertically down against the 20-day names so none will forget to number the day names 1 to 13; then begin the 1-13 cycle again until 13 x 20 became an important 260-day cycle of good or bad fortune.
Conclusion
Landa gave you the process to use to verify his proposed (100% wrong) calendar. Read the “year-bearers” instead of the numbers “1 to 13.” And when you know POP was sent to Mesoamerica as the first new month series of 18 names for the Roman year 1584. There is no backward trail to follow. The month of POP with all 18 other month names can only go forward from the time of the Conquest. Any previous date on the stelae would be counting backward by the old calendar 360-day years, but [not] adding or subtracting the “distance numbers“
So, in short, I have separated all the time-honored date making methods for Maya calendars: those Diego de Landa wanted you to find for yourselves. Now, let us return to Jasaw Chan K’awiil and find out why or when he “cleared the sky.”
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The DATE of the EVENT
“ There is no way one can find the date of the event if it was never recorded.” you will say? I would say: “If Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube could find it, so can you.” They called it: The Lost World. It is in their book, Chronicle of the Maya Kngs and Queens,
“Lying at the western edge of the city [Tikal], the Mundo Perdido (“Lost World”), was the largest ceremonial precinct of Preclassic Tikal. A large four-sided pyramid was aligned with an eastern platform topped by a row of three temples, a configuration known as an ‘E-Group.’ Some were aligned as solar observatories and used to chart solstices and equinoxes, though many were not oriented in this way and point to a different origin.” (S . Martin and N. Grube, 2000, 28-9)
The phrase: “Some were aligned as solar observatories and used to chart solstices and equinoxes, though many were not oriented in this way and point to a different origin” So this would mean that all E-Group solar observatories are after the event, and those out of synch with the Sun were from pre-Classic times before the event.
Not knowing the locations of these strange pyramids, I can only say the different orientation would indicate the old loctation of North when earth had a 360-degree orbit when, during each 24-hours, the earth made a one degree spin.
The background for these strange differences also appear to be from a time when the "Tikal hiatus" came about between the late 6th to late 7th century when large monumental structures and public inscriptions were no longer being constructed.
Research groups searching the surrounding area for more information, found what they were looking for. In Tikal, the ruler, Dark Sun, noted a major battle to Calakmul with the help of Dos Pilas. He erected Stela 24 and Altar 7 with many glyphs, and although both were badly smashed, enough survived to have confirmed the final days of Tikal by end of the IXth century which although it is too late for this query, it does include the Paddler Twins on six Tikal bones carved about the event. David Stuart inferred it was honoring the time of Jasaw Chan K’awiil I. [Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, (2000, 52-3 and 42-3)]
Each of the six bones of Tikal have a double inscription on it. The one contains the glyph for the Planet Venus. And the other is supposed to contain Jasaw Chan K’awiil’s single name glyph. Neither the stela nor the wooden lintel gives any indication that Jasaw has his tongue extended. But the Lintel 2 and 3. do show a huge jaguar over his head in back of the throne. He was also known as Ruler A, Ah Cacao and Sky Rain.(2000, 45)
It seems he had his tomb in front of Temple I, rich with ceremonial goods, but no date for his royal death, probably the year before his son accession to the throne of Tikal, i.e 733.
If a tomb for Animal Skull was filled with ceremonial offerings before the Flood of mud came from the bottom of the sea, then Jasaw Chan K’awiil I [or II] aka Sky Rain it would have been that of Chalchiuhtlicue] which would have indeed “cleared the sky,” probably of volcanic ash.
Jasaw Chan K’awiil would be the only human who dared to take the honor of “clearing the sky” for the Lady of the Cleansing Rains. His would have been the only body placed in the tomb of Animal Skull aka the Great Sun which was cooled by the same rains. The multiple layered cotton cloth saturated with red cinnabar which covered the body lying on a bench, indicated a highly honored personage but not the one for whom the tomb had been built. The original body was probably covered with the mud and disintegrated with the previous offerings, which in turn verified Jasaw Chan’s power and grandiose intention to “overcome” the namesake of “Great Sun.”
Using the upper data about the dates having been skewed even as early as Diego de Landa. One must be cautious until the actual count of 26 weeks for a haab [a true number] and 52 weeks for 52 years [the false number] are used to count the calendar dates. **&**
The Madrid Codex used the Trecena to illustrate a work calendar and showed it does not have to be a full calendar. It may only relate to the days that are necessary to accomplish the task of farming in the horizontal Trecena segment of four years of five weeks for every month [separated from days of reverence], not month names. By putting IMIX as the first day of the year, the year does complete 52 weeks, but not the 18 months.
There is a single week that needed to be filled in but when it is, the whole calendar is off balance. It does not transition to the following year correctly. The second year of the four must fall on MANIK, while the third would reach EB, and the last would start in CABAN. The 13th year bearer would start the second segment of four year bearers with IK; and later, the third segment would again begin with IK and all three would transition to the next cycle/segment easily after a complete 52-weeks.
On the other hand, the Borgia Codex managed to create the five day-weeks neatly into 8 half pages for a total of 260 days of a Trecena count for good or bad luck days for the newly born or those needing reassurance after experiencing difficulties at home or at work. The often overlooked border at the top and bottom of the 8 pages are ignored as decorative features.
However, those two borders add up to 104-days that when added to the 260 equal 364-days of a year, with a tiny footprint to tell the reader where a 365th-day [there are several] was waiting its turn to end a normal year of 52-weeks.
In order to arrive at a wrong date that can be corrected is to go back to Great Sun Hawk Skull also known as Mahk’ina Bird Skull or Feather Skull. (K’INICH [MUA’N] JOL). BIRD is an indication of a flying round object; which Feather is a specific AZTEC glyph for “FIRE.” He died 11 AHAW 13 POP, 23 May 733? 8.16.2.6.0 and his earthly “ruler-son” was Jaguar Paw aka Yik’in Chan K’awiil [“he who darkened the sky”] ascended to the throne in 734. Hence, the date of the event could have been 733.
Another strange tomb was set up in front of Temple 34, Burial 10. It had been dug out of rock for Yax Nuun Aiin aka Curl Snout. who died about 8.18.8.1.2; June 17, 404? Now, Curl Snout, as a birth name with no parents or wife or siblings, may indicate when the stars of the Sky Ball Game were eaten by him emerging from the burning ashes of a returning comet. The event was illustrated twice in the Nuttall, Lamina 18. Two more images of Curl Snout without the stars around the ball court are also shown in the Nuttall Codex.
Burial 10 was filled with ceremonial items before they were buried by mud. After the mud was solid enough his son was able to attend to the rest of the burial details. And, after he paid his due respects to his sire, his accession to the throne was in 734.
Conclusion
All of the above were introduced as possible explanations for names of infants given at birth. The dates of the accomplishments could be wildly different than those used under the 1 to 13 numbers used for the days of the month, with no regard to the fact the number 13 was the roll-over number used for the first use of the number
One. I discovered names of rulers or family could be altered by a single vowel caused when, in a different time period, a different researcher would spelled a name with another vowel or consonant he thought could be a better pronunciation of the glyph.
Years ago, I compiled a list of parentage units that included ruler, with wife, sons; rulers without same but with mother or father and other connected relationships. At the end, I did a separate list of two pages of rulers who had no connections to parents, or wife or children. Most of whom had sky event names. Those who had parentage statements, also had sky event names, probably given to them at birth during or just after the event.
Only the bravest of the brave would consider his or her name was important enough to be quasi-godlike and place him or herself in a temple area as a living representative the god or goddess. Jasaw Chan K’awiil seems to have had such a purpose in his lifetime.
