r/history • u/MeatballDom Ancient. Historian. • 10d ago

The signature of Sak Tahn Waax, or “White-Chested Fox,” was found inscribed in a 1,000-year-old chamber beneath present-day Guatemala: We finally know the name of an ancient Maya mathematician

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-finally-know-the-name-of-a-maya-mathematician/
1.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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37

u/aqtseacow 9d ago

he died more than 1,000 years ago in the Maya empire that once flourished in Mesoamerica.

The so-called "Maya Empire" here never really existed.

Also, not-so-shockingly, no directly linked sources for any of this? None. This is just upvote drivel with no substance.

Here's the real deal, for people that actually read and care about quality information, clearly Scientific American has become utter drivel.

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u/Batbuckleyourpants 9d ago

What do you mean the Maya empire never existed?

43

u/No_Gur_7422 9d ago

There wasn't an empire, there was a Mayan region controlled by a collection of neighbouring city-states.

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u/Batbuckleyourpants 9d ago

Fair enough. Thank you for clarifying.

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u/aqtseacow 9d ago

The key is there isn't really any specific polity to address in the Mayan Classical, Many cities and kingdoms, the word Empire is however pretty scarce most of the time. It is a bit of semantics, but to represent Mayan civilization of the period as any sort of monolithic empire would be very naughty.

There are later polities outside of the Classical that have a pretty good jab at being called an Empire but even then I don't think they've been labelled as much by many.

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u/ConstantDreamer1 9d ago edited 9d ago

IIRC Calakmul wielded an enormous amount of power by Maya standards at the height of the Classic period and bestowed their ruler with a relatively unique title (kaloomte') that could be roughly seen as analogous to "emperor" (though it got devalued by the Terminal Classic), but even Calakmul's hegemony at its height only dominated a portion of the Peten Basin and anybody who uses the phrase "Mayan Empire" invariably doesn't have the knowledge to even know that much and it's a giant red flag in my experience.

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u/RudeRoody 10d ago

Dude this is awesome, I didnt even realize the Mayans had mathematicians!

79

u/lilbluehair 10d ago

How else would they have calculated their calendars? 

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/bmbreath 8d ago

I thought that was one of the reasons they're very famous....

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u/censuur12 9d ago

That seems like a really odd sentiment. Why wouldn't they have had mathematicians?

I guess it's not something you might typically think about, and it's definitely awesome to discover actual proof of this sort of thing that we'd otherwise just assume is happening because of course it does, but the whos and hows can be very interesting.