Editing Maya codices (section)

==Dresden Codex==
{{Main|Dresden Codex}}
[[File:Láminas 8 y 9 del Códice de Dresden.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Plates 10 and 11 of the Dresden Maya Codex. Drawing by Lacambalam, 2001]]
The Dresden Codex (''Codex Dresdensis'') is held in the [[Sächsische Landesbibliothek]] (SLUB), the state library in [[Dresden]], Germany. It is the most elaborate of the codices, and also a highly important specimen of [[Maya art]]. Many sections are ritualistic (including so-called 'almanacs'), others are of an [[astrological]] nature ([[eclipse]]s, the [[Transits of Venus|Venus cycles]]). The codex is written on a long sheet of paper that is 'screen-folded' to make a book of 39 leaves, written on both sides. It was probably written between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ruggles|first=Clive L. N.|title=Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q9YYqiXm-lkC|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-477-6|page=134}}</ref> After it was taken to Europe and was bought by the royal library of the court of Saxony in Dresden in 1739. The only exact replica, including the ''huun'', made by a German artist is displayed at the ''Museo Nacional de Arqueología'' in [[Guatemala]] City, since October 2007.

It is not clear who brought the Dresden Codex to Europe.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vail|first=Gabrielle|title=Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy|date=2015|chapter=Astronomy in the Dresden Codex|journal=Handbook of Archaeastronomy and Ethnoastronomy|pages=695–708|doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_65|bibcode=2015hae..book..695V|isbn=978-1-4614-6140-1}}</ref> It arrived sometime in the late 18th{{nbsp}}century, potentially from the first or second generation of Spanish conquistadores.  Even though the last date entry in the book is from several centuries before its relocation, the book was likely used and added to until just before the conquerors took it.

About 65 per cent of the pages in the Dresden Codex contain richly illustrated astronomical tables. These tables focus on eclipses, equinoxes and solstices, the sidereal cycle of Mars, and the synodic cycles of Mars and Venus. These observations allowed the Mayans to plan the calendar year, agriculture, and religious ceremonies around the stars.  In the text, Mars is represented by a long nosed deer, and Venus is represented by a star.

Pages 51–58 are eclipse tables. These tables accurately predicted solar eclipses for 33{{nbsp}}years in the 8th{{nbsp}}century, though the predictions of lunar eclipses were far less successful. Icons of serpents devouring the sun symbolize eclipses throughout the book. The glyphs show roughly 40 times in the text, making eclipses a major focus of the Dresden Codex.

The first 52 pages of the Dresden Codex are about divination. The Mayan astronomers would use the codex for day keeping, but also determining the cause of sickness and other misfortunes.

Though a wide variety of gods and goddesses appear in the Dresden Codex, the Moon Goddess is the only neutral figure.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Barnhart|first=Edwin|date=Fall 2005|title=The First Twenty-Three Pages of the Dresden Codex: The Divination Pages|url=https://www.mayaexploration.org/pdf/DresdenCodex1-23.pdf|pages=1–145}}</ref> In the first 23 pages of the book, she is mentioned far more than any other god.

Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian [[Ernst Förstemann]] succeeded in deciphering the [[Maya numerals]] and the [[Maya calendar]] and realized that the codex is an [[ephemeris]].<ref>Ernst Förstemann, ''Commentary on the Maya Manuscript in the Royal  Public Library of Dresden'', Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Vol. IV, No. 2, Cambridge Mass. 1902</ref> Subsequent studies have decoded these astronomical almanacs, which include records of the cycles of the Sun and Moon, including eclipse tables, and all of the naked-eye planets.<ref>John Eric Sidney Thompson, ''A commentary on the Dresden Codex: A Maya Hieroglyphic Book'', Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 1972.</ref> The "Serpent Series", pp.&nbsp;61–69, is an [[ephemeris]] of these phenomena that uses a base date of 1.18.1.8.0.16 in the prior era (5,482,096 days).<ref>Beyer, Hermann 1933 Emendations of the 'Serpent Numbers' of the Dresden Maya Codex. Anthropos (St. Gabriel Mödling bei Wien) 28: pp. 1–7. 1943 The Long Count Position of the Serpent Number Dates. Proc. 27th Int. Cong. Of Amer., Mexico, 1939 (Mexico) I: pp. 401–405.</ref><ref>Grofe, Michael John 2007 The Serpent Series: Precession in the Maya Dresden Codex</ref>