The intervals between successive lunar eclipses and the structure of the eclipse table of the Dresden Codex

Abstract

The intervals between successive visible lunar eclipses and the structure of the Eclipse Table of the Dresden Codex. Despite recent interpretations by Bricker and Bricker and Justeson, the ways in which the Maya assembled the Dresden Codex Eclipse Table still need to be discovered. While the table structure reveals the methods and procedures by which they made predictions, we need to find out how the Maya came to develop them. It is possible that the Maya developed their forecasts from the records of eclipse dates; however, we have yet to discover them. We can correct the need for raw data with the solar and lunar eclipse canons of Espenak and Meeus. Because more lunar than solar eclipses are seen in any given area, we assumed that the Maya could predict solar eclipses in the same way as the lunar ones. Using the above data from Espenak and Meeus, Justeson deduced that the Mayan scribes chose the periods of 88 synodic months (tzolkinex) to predict eclipses. In this article, I demonstrate that the sequence of the five- and six-month intervals represented in the Eclipse Table appear to follow the patterns of lunar eclipses visible in the Maya region in the centuries preceding their installation in the mid-8th century. The work suggests that the Maya abandoned the tzolkinex and adopted the triple tritos count (3 x 135 lunations). Visible lunar cycles at Copán are examined.