Year Count in the Ancient Maya History Writing Practices
Russian State University for Humanities
For citation: Beliaev, Dmitri D. Year Count in the Ancient Maya History Writing Practices // Graphosphaera. 2024. Vol. 4. № 2. P. 202–218. URL: http://writing.igh.ru/index.php?id=2024-4-2-202-218
DOI: 10.32608/2782-5272-2024-4-2-202-218
Abstract: The article overviews the evidence of the practice of year count and annual historic records among Ancient Maya. Although we don’t have any Classic Maya annal, some monumental inscriptions indicate that this genre existed. Starting from the 5th century we know stelae with Period Ending records (3rd, 10th and 13th years). In the Late Classic we also have regular records of the five-year Period Endings (naah hotuun, “first five years” and wiˀ hotuun, “last five years”). The only known inscription with almost complete year sequence on Copan Stela J recorded not real events but “archetypical”, with possible mythological subtext. In mid-8th century we observe the appearance of so-called Yucatan date that consisted of Calendar Round and the reference to the year in twenty-year period. Between 750 and 850 CE Yucatan date became widespread. At Chich’en Itza it was one of the peculiar traits of history-writing. Starting from the late 860s, annual records include mentions of various types of events. In the Postclassic period we know only prophetic year counts (Paris codex and Santa Rita Corozal murals), accompanied by the depictions of the ruling gods of the years.
Key words: Maya, hieroglyphic writing, Classic period, Postclassic period, annalistic writing
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