In 2010, archaeologist David Stuart and colleagues ran into a painted chamber at Xultun, a Maya relic in modern-day Guatemala. Then the team noticed that the many mathematical and astronomical formulas appeared to be attributed to someone—an individual whose name has now been identified.
In a paper published today in Antiquity, the research team reports the first-ever known Maya mathematician-astronomer, Saktahnwaax (“White-Chested Fox”), who likely lived around 800 CE. According to the paper, an inscription on the chamber’s wall read “so says Saktahnwaax,” which suggests that either the person themselves or someone else “signed” the work, attributing the formulas to Saktahnwaax. In addition to the purported scientist’s name, the team also shared a never-before-seen formula demonstrating the Maya’s “unique and elegant” understanding of time and astronomy, Stuart, of the University of Texas in Austin, told Gizmodo.
The Maya were “very keen observers of nature, and they were always looking at patterns and connections (like any scientist),” said Stuart, the paper’s first author. “This is the first named scientist from the pre-Columbian Americas. I think it’s incredibly important that the Maya be seen as a culture that was immersed in scientific inquiry and in a sophisticated way.”
Convergent evolution, science
In the 19th century Western science “belatedly” discovered an appreciation for the sophistication of Maya science, as Science pointed out in a 2022 essay.
Indeed, the Maya adopted scientific traditions completely independent from those of the “Old World,” Stuart explained. Still, the Maya were paying close attention to the same celestial phenomena as everyone else and meticulously “integrating their cycles into some unified vision of time,” he added.
So far, archaeologists had only identified names of Maya kings, queens, or other political figures, Stuart said. In that sense, the findings finally put a name to a Maya mathematician or astronomer—probably the same in Maya society, he explained—to be added to the list of great scientific thinkers from the ancient world.
Deciphering ancient wisdom
Stuart admitted that the initial discovery was unexpected, so there wasn’t a definite research question for the team at first. Previous looting had exposed part of the painted wall, so the team started their excavation there, uncovering around 50 paintings and written texts, most of them related to astronomical and mathematical observations. Then, the team produced scale drawings and digitally enhanced photographs to decipher the ancient messages.
When the researchers first got a good look at Saktahnwaax’s “signature,” they were careful not to jump to conclusions. Before anything else, the team wanted to rule out “all other possibilities,” Stuart recalled. Once they were confident in their interpretation, they marveled at the sophistication of the ancient thinker’s work.
For instance, the formula likely attributed to Saktahnwaax is a “sequence of glyphs that represent a sequence of dates covering a span of 2,920 days,” Stuart explained. “We knew this was an important number, because it is the convergence of 8 solar years (365 days) and 5 Venus years. This formula also includes other cycles in a unique way, showing that the span also consists of other subdivisions of time that the Maya were tracking.”
“It’s similar to finding the whiteboard of an ancient scientist’s office and examining every scribble and note and formula on it,” Stuart concluded. “Some are still obscure, and there are a few we still need to study.”
