K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil knew his past.
The Mayan ruler’s dynasty ruled Copan, a city-state near the border of present-day Honduras and Guatemala, for 11 generations. From the fifth to the seventh centuries AD, scribes transcribed the genealogies of their ancestors into manuscripts and engraved them on stone monuments throughout the city.
Around 650, a particular piece of architectural history seems to have caught his eye.
Centuries ago, village masons built special structures for public Sun-viewing ceremonies temporarily tied to solstices, such as the one that will take place on June 20, 2024. Building such architectural complexes, which archaeologists call “E-Groups,” was largely out of fashion by K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s time.
But aiming to realize his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have taken inspiration from these astronomical public spaces, as I wrote in my research on astronomy recorded in ancient Mayan hieroglyphs.
K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s innovations are a reminder that science changes through discovery or invention, but sometimes for personal or political purposes, especially in the ancient world.
view the horizon
E-Groups first appeared in the Mayan region in B.C. It was built as early as 1000 BC. The Ceibal region along the Pasión River in central Guatemala is one such example. There residents built a long, plastered platform surrounding the eastern edge of a large square. Three structures were arranged on this platform along a north-south axis; their roofs were so high that they rose above the rainforest canopy.
They built a radially symmetrical pyramid in the middle of the square, west of the platform. From here, observers were able to follow the sunrise behind and between the structures on the platform throughout the year.
At one level, the earliest E-Group complexes served very practical purposes. In the Preclassic villages where these complexes were located, such as Ceibal, populations from a few hundred to several thousand lived using “milpa” or “slash-and-burn” agricultural techniques that are still maintained in pueblos in Mesoamerica today. Farmers cut down bush plants, then burn them to fertilize the soil. This requires attention to the rainy season, which in ancient times was tracked by tracking the position of the rising Sun on the horizon.
However, most of the sites in the heartland of the Classic Maya are located on flat, forested landscapes with few notable features along the horizon. An observer standing on a tall pyramid sees only the green sea of the flowered dome.
By dotting the horizon, the eastern structures of the E-Group complexes can be used to mark the sun’s extremes. On the summer solstice, sunrise will be observed behind the northernmost structure of the eastern platform. Sunrise from behind the southernmost structure marked the winter solstice. Equinoxes can be marked midway between these two, when the Sun rises directly east.
Scholars are still debating the underlying factors of these complexes, but their religious significance has been well established. Secret repositories of finely crafted jade and ritual pottery reflect a cosmology focused on four cardinal directions, which may coordinate with the E-Group’s part of the year.
fading knowledge
However, the citizens of K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil were less attuned to direct celestial observations than their ancestors.
By the seventh century, Maya political organization had changed significantly. Copan’s population reached 25,000 and agricultural technologies changed to keep pace. Cities of the classical period practiced multiple forms of intensive agriculture based on complex water management strategies, buffering the need to meticulously track the Sun’s horizon movement.
E-Group complexes continued to be built in the Classical period, but were no longer oriented towards sunrise and served political or stylistic purposes rather than celestial views.
I think such a development still resonates today. People pay attention to the change of seasons and know when the summer solstice will occur thanks to the calendar application on their phones. But they probably don’t remember the science: The Earth’s tilt and path around the Sun make it appear as if the Sun is heading north or south along the eastern horizon.
United through ritual
By the mid-seventh century, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil had developed ambitious plans for his city, and astronomy provided an opportunity to help realize these plans.
Today he is known for his ornate burial chamber, which exemplifies the success he eventually achieved. This tomb is located at the heart of a magnificent structure in front of the “Hieroglyphic Staircase”, one of the largest single inscriptions in ancient history, a record of the history of the dynasty.
Seeking opportunities to transform Copan into a regional power, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil sought alliances beyond his local nobles and reached out to nearby villages.
Over the past century, many scientists, including myself, have investigated the astronomical component of his scheme. K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil appears to have built a series of stone monuments or “stelae” within the city and on the outskirts of the Copan Valley that follow the sun across the horizon.
Like the E-Group complexes, these monuments enabled public participation in solar observations. When put together, the stelae formed a countdown to an important calendar event orchestrated by the Sun.
In the 1920s, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley noted that the Sun could be seen setting twice each year from Stela 12 in the east of the city to behind Stela 10 at the foot of a hill in the west. Half a century later, archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni realized that these two sunsets defined 20-day intervals relative to the equinoxes and the zenith transit of the Sun, when the shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days is an important interval in the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the length of one “month” in the solar year.
My own research has shown that the dates on many stelae also commemorate some of these 20-day spaced events. Moreover, all of this leads to an event called “end of katun”, which occurs every 20 years.
K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil celebrated the end of this katun by setting in motion plans for regional hegemony in Quirigua, a growing, influential city about 30 miles away. A round altar there bears an image of him to commemorate his arrival. The hieroglyphic text tells us that K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil “danced” in Quirigua and strengthened the alliance between the two cities.
In other words, the “sun stelae” of K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil did more than just track the Sun. The monuments brought communities together to witness astronomical events for shared cultural and religious experiences passed down through generations.
Coming together to appreciate the natural cycles that make life on Earth possible is something that will hopefully never fade with fashion.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization providing facts and analysis to help you understand our complex world.
Written by: Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Gerardo Aldana does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic duties.