Venus Warriors and Feathered Serpents: The Celestial World of the Prehispanic Maya
In the Late Classic period (c. 600-900 A.D) Maya astronomers were considered deities and had a significant impact on events affecting the lives of the Maya.
Date/Time
Friday, September 17, 2010 - Friday, September 17, 2010
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Cost
Free and open to the public
Event Notes:
A reception in the lobby gallery will follow the lecture.
Maya astronomers of the Late Classic period (c. 600-900 A.D.) were among the most adept celestial observers in the world at that 
time. Calculations, accurate to within a day, were made of the cycles of the sun, moon, and various stars and planets. Conceptualized as deities, these celestial wanderers were believed to have a significant impact on events affecting the lives of the Maya. The most dangerous of these were eclipses and the pre-dawn rise of Venus, which emerged as a warrior after its eight-day sojourn in the Underworld. Maya texts, in combination with iconography featured in painted sources, also focus on the time before humans existed, when the gods roamed the earth prior to being reborn as the sun, moon and planets.
Vail received her Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1996. Her research interests focus on the northern Maya lowlands, specifically on what the hieroglyphic texts and painted media tell us about prehispanic Maya religion, ritual and ideology. Her analysis of the prehispanic Maya screenfold books is available online at www.mayacodices.org and forms the subject of over 40 articles and book chapters written by Dr. Vail. She is also the author or editor of seven books and special issues of journals pertaining to Maya archaeology and recently published essays in The Jaguar's Spots, an exhibition catalog of ancient Mesoamerican art from the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, and in La Escruitura Jeroglifica Maya. Dr. Vail is a Research Scholar and member of the the faculty at new College of Florida in Sarasota.
Poster
