Venus the Planet. 2-B or not 2-B: Forum XXIInd March 1998

Page II-47 has an interesting statement by Nikolai Grube and Simon Martin, two Mayistas at the University of Texas at Austin that year.

It reads:

                          "The link between Venus and warfare immediately brings the        
                           Dresden Codex to mind, where the Venus pages show darts
                           raining down from the star to spear humankind below."

I have checked the Dresden and find no such items raining down enus from any star, not even Venus, the planet. There is on a blanket in the Magliabecchiano Codex a description similar to the text above, but it is not connected to a text with spears.

A Blanket: A Magliabecchiano

Codex Version.

The spear heads above the bird [Seven Macaw] are of obsidian, naturally, but they are stones that will cut even through mountains. There are blue-tipped flames down under the strung-up bird, who is screaming as loud as an eagle.

The blue-tipped flames are noted in the Popol Vuh by Dennis Tedlock in his second edition (and in his first edition) but the fires that came before the stones were noted as the "Rains of Resin" or the "Rains of Turpentine." The dust that fell from the comet stones were very hot and stung like hornets or stinger bees. People and animals ran into shelters; homes where they thought they would be safe.

However, the hot dust set fire to the roofs and the daub and wattle walls of the Maya houses. All then ran desperatelly for the Caves in the mountains nearby. The Caves, according to Tedlock, were shut in the faces of the 'people of clay' and the 'wooden manikins' clamoring to get into the caves on the mountainside. All died when the flood covered even the mountain tops.

The gods then created a third type of man, formed from the massa of ground corn which have existed since that time.  The Dresden does tell the story, but it is better read in the Madrid Codex, pages 103 to 112.

The Dresden, on the other hand, gives a wonderful picture of the birth of the twins which has the appearance of the "venus" glyph. [D-47b} It is located as a hanging element on the head of a skeletal figure from Xibalba, who is pretty obviously the Death God.

The "venus" glyph is no more than the Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalenque coming from the Land of the Dead in the West, that the Popol Vuh identified as the home of Xibalba.

Even the poorest Maya, knows that the west is were people go when they die. The Mixtec know that the Great Sun that came out of the West was just a comet that happened to split the Mountains Popocatepetl and Ixtacuihual and they indicated such on their map of the area in and around Oaxaca.

The Oaxaca map [here March 23, 2013] shows the top decoration of that map:

The Fifth Sun With its Last Trajectory Across the Mixtec Sky

When this map is taught, most of the emphasis is on the Dynastic list of rulers that is on the left side of the map. The decoration above shows a blazing sun in the northwest corner over a cradle, indicating the birth of that "sun." We have just learned that the "sun" is a comet from the west, the Land of the Dead.

So this map is also a star chart with a living comet that went overhead. The cartographer of this map was Three Dog, a gentleman whose parents sent him south to learn about astronomy. He can be found in the Bodley Codex.[Lamina 22-26]

In short, when a scholar takes a codex and does not compare it to any text or traditional lore, he has lost 9/10ths of the ball game. There can be no understanding of the glyphs until all the parts begin to match the traditional learning of the natives.