David Stuart on Time and Science in Maya Civilization

“Palenque: Eternal City Of The Maya” By David Stuart and George Stuart.

Wikipedia:

David S. Stuart (born 1965) is an archaeologist and epigrapher specializing in the study of ancient Mesoamerica, the area now called Mexico and Central America. His work has studied many aspects of the ancient Maya civilization. He is widely recognized for his breakthroughs in deciphering Maya hieroglyphs and interpreting Maya art and iconography, starting at an early age. He is the youngest person ever to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, at age 18. He currently teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and his current research focuses on the understanding of Maya culture, religion and history through their visual culture and writing system. 

. . . His many publications include his key early paper Ten Phonetic Syllables (1987), which laid much of the groundwork for the now-accepted methodology of Maya hieroglyphic decipherment. In 2003 he published a volume in the ongoing Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions series (Peabody Museum, Harvard University), devoted to drawings and photographs of sculpture from Piedras Negras, Guatemala. He co-authored Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya (Thames and Hudson, 2008) with his father, George Stuart. His book The Order of Days (Random House, 2011) explored the important role of time and cosmology in Classic Maya civilization, while also debunking the 2012 phenomenon claim that the Maya viewed 2012 as the end of their elaborate calendar. At present he is working on a new book which will offer a detailed analysis of the three temples of the Cross Group complex at Palenque.

Wikipedia:

The Maya Codex of Mexico (MCM) is a Maya screenfold codex manuscript of a pre-Columbian type. Long known as the Grolier Codex or Sáenz Codex, in 2018 it was officially renamed the Códice Maya de México[1] (CMM) by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico. It is one of only four known extant Maya codices, and the only one that still resides in the Americas.

Video Title: Mindscape 246 | David Stuart on Time and Science in Maya Civilization. Source: Sean Carroll. Date Published: August 14, 2023. Description:

You might remember the somewhat bizarre worries that swept through certain circles back in 2012, based on the end of the world being predicted by the Maya calendar. The world didn’t end, which is unsurprising because the Maya hadn’t predicted that, and for that matter they had no way of doing so. But there is very interesting archeology behind our understanding of how the Maya developed their calendar, as well as other aspects of their language and scientific understanding. Mayanist David Stuart takes us on a tour of what we know and what we’re still discovering.

David Stuart received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Vanderbilt University. He is currently professor of Art History and Director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the youngest-ever recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Among his books is The Order of Days: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Maya.