Arthro ods in

Ast onomy
Cases in 'Western" and
Mesoamerican Ethnoentomology

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By John B. Carlson and Ron Cherry

EOPLES OF ALL CULTURES, PAST

and present, have perceived
important aspects of their earthly
worlds mirrored in the heavens. Terrestrial
and celestial events are linked in great mythic
creations that bind together the elements of a
culture's archetypal consciousness. The an-
cient expression, "As it is above, so shall it be
below," characterizes this relationship be-
tween the celestial cycles and those of our more
immediate human experience (Saul 1993 ). We
see our world writ large in the heavens and
tend to place our own face and stamp on every-
thing in nature, including the creatures that
share our environment. Particularly for nonlit-
erate cultures, the images perceived in the con-
stellations, as well as the planetary pere-
grinations among them, serve as an eternal
mnemonic record for the recall of the vital oral
traditions that maintain those cultures. These
are among those universals derived from com-
parative studies of ancient and native celestial
lore, religion, and worldview-what we call
archaeoastronomy (see glossary)-and the
presence of arthropods in astronomy is no ex-
ception.
Our modern scientific astronomy has sever-
al interesting celestial arthropods, a few of
recent vintage, but others surviving from a
considerable cultural depth. Two relatively
new additions would include the Beehive clus-
ter and the Crab Nebula supernova remnant.
The Beehive, also known as M44 and
Praesepe, is an open star cluster located cen-
trally within a square of faint stars in the zodi-

=>
Celestial scorpion hangs from a skyband on page 24
of the Maya Codex Paris (1968). The scorpion's
tel son stinger grasps a symbol for the Eclipse of the
Sun.

AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Fal/1996 149


Polychrome mural of the Venus
Scorpion Man from the north
stuccoed pier of the Cacaxtla
Venus Enclosure, State of
Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Drawings of the two polychrome
mural panels representing
Venus Scorpion Couple from the
Venus Enclosure on the west
side of the Cacaxtla acropolis,
Tlaxcala, Mexico.
150
acal constellation of Cancer the Crab. Howev-
er, from early Greek and Roman sources (Allen
1963, pp. 112-113), this fuzzy patch of light
always was known to astronomers as the Little
Cloud or Little Mist, and even into the 17th
century as the Nebula, because this cluster is
one of the few whose individual stars cannot be
resolved with the unaided eye. Galileo, using
his telescope, was the first to resolve M44 into
"more than forty small stars," as published in
1610 in his famous Sidereus Nuncius. Also
from ancient times, Praesepe was popularly
thought of as the Manger or Crib from which
the Donkeys, the four surrounding stars, were
consuming hay. There also are legends placing
M44 in a much larger Leo the Lion constella-
tion as his nose and whiskers (Staal 1988, p.
114), but the visualization of a "hive of busy
bees in the profusion of silvery stars of this
cluster" must surely date to some time after
Galileo's telescopic discoveries. Even the ven-
erable historian Richard Allen (1963 [1899], p.
112) could not trace the origin of the name
Beehive.
One or more of these bees may have strayed
from their zodiacal hive. As it happens, one of
the 88 modern constellations is called Musca,
or Musca Australis, the Southern Fly. Appar-
the
ently, it was recognized initially as a bee by
European mariners on southern hemispheric
voyages, but it later was given its present name
by the astronomer La Caille about 1752 (Staal
1988, pp. 246,248). In the eighteenth century,
there was also a constellation of the Northern
Fly, Musca Borealis, as well as Vespa the Wasp
or Apis the Bee-all hovering around Aries the
Ram-but we must imagine that Aries is more
than pleased today that these are now obsolete
constellations.
The expanding tangled cloud of ejecta from
the Crab Nebula supernova (likely to have
occurred in A.D. 1054 )superficially resembles
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the body of a Crab with scuttling legs and ex-
tended claws. It was named the Crab Nebula
by the Irish astronomer William Parsons,
Third Earl of Rosse, who first observed it in
1846 through his 72-inch aperture reflecting
telescope (Jones 1969, pp. 23, 99-102). Locat-
ed in the constellation of Taurus the Bull rather
than Cancer, this famous supernova remnant
cannot be seen with the naked eye. First discov-
ered by John Bevis in 1731, it was rediscovered
and listed as M1 in Messier's famous catalogs
(1771-1781) of nebulae (seeJones 1969). The
event that produced the Crab, the violent death
of a massive star in a supernova explosion, was
AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Fall 1996
recorded by Chinese and Japanese astrono-
mers as well as, perhaps, Native Americans
(Brandt and Williamson 1979). However, its
association with the supernova of 1054 was un-
known until the mid-twentieth century (cita-
tions in Brandt and Williamson 1979).
The real ancient arthropods of Western as-
tronomy are two of the twelve zodiacal con-
stellations, namely Cancer and Scorpius. Both
have rich mythological histories in the Near
East and Mediterranean dating well back into
pre-Homeric times. As zodiacal constellations
through which the wandering planets migrate,
they are prominent in all of the Babylonian and
Greco-Roman astrological systems from
liar movements of the Crab in its sideways and
hesitant gait. Further transformations of this
antic arthropod show that Cancer subsequent-
ly changed itself into various lobster and cray-
fish forms in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
German descriptions (Staal 1988, p. 146), but
additional elaborations would only sidestep
the essential solar mythology.
Scorpius is one of those famous ancient con-
stellations that, to our eyes, really looks like a
scorpion and may have appeared as such in
several of the world's probably independent The blue-painted Maya Rain
astronomical traditions. However, we must God, Chac (God B), in a
scorpion manifestation, assumes
beware of imposing our own cultural biases on
a scorpion courtship dance
this asterism, which is recognized in many posture in the sky as he urinates

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which our traditions derive. Books have been other guises such as Maui's fish hook to the the rains to fertilize the land
written on these constellations, but, for our Polynesians. In Western cultures, the lore of below. Madrid Codex (1967:31 a).
purposes, it is interesting to note how these
hardy, familiar creatures from the Mediterra-
nean world have gone through many transfor-
mations yet survived to reside in our modern
sky.
In the Greco-Roman tradition, there is the
legend that Juno, the Queen of the Gods, sent
a giant Crab in an unsuccessful attempt to pre-
vent the Hero Hercules from killing the Hydra.
The result may be seen in the trampled Crab
splayed out next to the decapitated Hydra,
now a constellation in the sky between Gemini
and Leo. But even before this time, the Egyp-
tians saw a sacred scarab beetle (Scarabaeus
sacer L.) in the stars of Cancer (Staal 1988, p.
145). In their world view, the Scarab evoked the
Sun (see Cherry 1985), not only due to the ser-
rations on the front of its body, which were seen
as the solar rays, but also in the various met-
aphors related to the balls of dung it creates. In
rolling a dung sphere along the ground to de-
posit in its subterranean quarters, the Scarab
was seen as a celestial deity, Khepri, who daily
pushed the Sun through the sky to its setting
point in the west. Because the beetles lay their
eggs in these pellets of excrement, the Egyp-
tians associated them with the principles of
birth, resurrection, and, hence, immortality-
the eternal return of the Sun. Larger-than-life
carvings of Scarabs were often placed in tombs
and could replace the heart in the body of the
deceased before mummification. According to
Staal (1988, pp. 146-147), the solar associa-
tions of Cancer were perceived in the behavior
of the Crab. From the time of the Greek astron-
omer Hipparchus (ca. 150 B.C.), the Sun was
at its summer solstice in Cancer, reaching its
greatest northern declination and stopping
there above the Tropic of Cancer before return-
ing to the south. This solstitial tropic behavior
of the midsummer Sun can be seen in the pecu-

AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Fall 1996 151

 The scorpion courtship dance,
the promenade a deux, of the
Malaysian species Pa/amnaeus
fulvipes represented in a Iife-
size, anatomically correct
BioBronze sculpture (Maxilla and
Mandible, 1993, from the
collection of J.B.C.).
c;;
0>
Foldout drawing of an Aztec
rectangular stone sacrificial altar
showing a great Venus Scorpion
Sacrificer with a personified
tecpati sacrificial knife for its
telson. The diagnostic epcolloli
ear ornaments make him an
aspect of the God Quetzalcoatl,
the Feathered Serpent, who was
also the planet Venus.
152
, antidote given him by Ophiuchus, the Serpent
I
I
I
I
···
···
···
I
I
--.- ·.·
- --
Scorpius, the constellation, and Scorpio, the
astrological sign, is particularly rich. Scorpion
behavior is the key to most of the mythology.
This arthropod tends to hide in dark, secluded
cracks and holes with meta soma arched in
defensive posture ready to deliver a poisonous
sting. Scorpius' curled up tail lies in a dark
patch of the southern Milky Way, symbolizing
a crevice leading to the underworld from
which the Scorpion has emerged (Staal 1988,
p. 220). The Sun moves through this constella-
tion at the beginning ofthe cold winter months
after harvest, a time when Mediterranean scor-
pions are known to infest the stores of grain.
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But the essential legends of Scorpius from
the ancient Near East relate to its fateful en-
counter with Orion, the boastful Hunter, who
threa tened to kill all of the animals of the Earth
Goddess, Gaia. She sent the Scorpion, which
delivered a fatal poisonous sting to Orion's
heel, but later the Hunter was revived by the
Bearer. This legend is played out in the sky for
eternity in the diurnal and annual cycles in
which Orion appears to die, setting in the
western horizon as Scorpius emerges in the
East. Furthermore, later in the annual se-
quence, Ophiuchus, who stands atop the de-
feated Scorpion, sets in the west as the
resurrected Orion emerges anew in the east.
The Scorpion also was a prominent celestial
character for the peoples of ancient Mesoamer-
ica, the cultural region ranging from the Amer-
ican Southwest to Honduras and EI Salvador.
It is known that both the Aztecs of Central
Mexico and the Lowland Maya to the east had
scorpion constellations. However, although
many scholars over the years have suggested
that these asterisms correspond with our zodi-
acal Scorpius, there is as yet no certain proof.
The native consultants of Fray Bernardino de
Sahagun, the sixteenth-century Franciscan
chronicler in Mexico, depicted the Aztec Co-
loti constellation as a realistic connect-the-dots
scorpion in his Florentine Codex (1950-1981,
fig. 21) and Primeros Memoriales (1993, fol.
282 v). He tells us that the Scorpion was an em-
blem granted to a victorious young warrior
who had succeeded in taking his first captive
without the assistance of a seasoned soldier.
AMERICAN ENfOMOLOGIST • Fal/1996
 For the Maya, the Scorpion and its constel-
lation were known by the name Sinan. Proba-
bly the best known portrayal is found in the
so-called Maya zodiac pages of the Codex
Paris (1968, pp. 23-24), one ofthe four surviv-
ing precontact Maya books, where a realistic
scorpion hangs from a skyband with its telson
stinger grasping an Eclipse of the Sun symbol.
It may have been thought that the Scorpion was
one of the agents that caused such eclipses, al-
though it may refer instead to an eclipse occur-
ring in the Maya Scorpion constellation. Other
examples of this stellar scorpion are almost
certainly what is depicted in the Late Post-
Classic Maya Codex Madrid (1967, pp. 44c,
Maya-style murals of Cacaxtla in the state of
Tlaxcala, about 80 miles east of Mexico City.
Here, the blue-painted goggle-eyed warrior-
sacrificer presides, along with his female coun-
terpart, over a special chamber devoted to the
sacrifice of captives taken in the martial cult of
sacred warfare regulated by the planet Venus.
The Cacaxtla Scorpion Man and Woman are
portrayed in dancing posture with large High-
land/Oaxaca-style Venus glyph bucklers over
their jaguar-skin kilts, framed on red back-
grounds within borders of Teotihuacan-style
eyed Venus glyphs. Although the upper portion
of the female figure has not survived, we see
tha t the Scorpion Man has grasped one of these Maya Diving God with character-

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48c) where scorpions grasp nooses holding sharp-pointed Teotihuacan-style Venus stars as istics of a bee or wasp descend-
captive deer. In the several examples, the scor- a sacrificial instrument known as a knuckle ing from a skyband as seen on
pion's telson is portrayed both realistically and Codex Dresden (1975) p. 58b.
duster. Such knuckle dusters and related trident
His head is in the form of the
in the form of a human hand holding the noose. eccentric flints now have been found archaeo- glyph for Great Star or Venus,
Furthermore, in another scene (Codex Madrid, logically in the context of human sacrifice also known to the Maya as Xux
p. 39), a celestial deer displays a scorpion (Carlson n.d.). This cult of Venus-regulated Ek, the Wasp Star.
meta soma tail whose human hand telson holds
a dagger that dispatches a second deer. That
the scorpion should be associated with hunt-
ing, warfare, and sacrifice in Maya mythology
is quite understandable, considering the leg-
endary behavior of this arthropod. Several
Maya scholars recently have interpreted a
hunting scene painted on a Classic period co-
dex-style cylinder vase (Kerr 1989, no. 1226)
as the portrayal of a well-known celestial
myth. Here, a young hunter, perhaps Hunah-
pu, one of the Hero Twins of the Quiche Maya
Papal Yuh epic (Tedlock 1985, Tedlock and
Tedlock 1993), shoots a supernatural bird
perched high in the central World Tree. An
aggressive scorpion attacks Xbalanque, the
Jaguar Twin, who hides behind the tree with
his jaguar paw defensively extended.
One of us also has made the case that one
aspect of the planet Venus, the Mesoamerican
god of warfare and sacrifice, took the form of
a Scorpion Man (Carlson n.d., 1990, 1991,
1993a, 1993b). Thus, it may be that the scor-
pion in the blowgun hunting scene embodies
this planet rather than the constellation. That
there was a Maya Venus Scorpion Man sacri-
ficer now is established from his various depic-
tions within skybands and is directly
associated with glyphs for the planet Venus and
the iconographic diagnostics of a specific cult
of sacred warfare. Particularly fine examples
are found in the celestial bands from the Nun-
nery Annex at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, and on a
bench throne from the Sepulturas compound at
Copan, Honduras. However, the most spectac-
ular portrait of the Venus Scorpion Man was
brought to light in the recently-unearthed

AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Fal/1996 153

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Sky chart with featured
constellations (declination ± 60·).
Arthropod asterisms are
featured in red, zodiacal
constellations in blue or green,
and other constellations in earth
tones.
sacred warfare and sacrifice was an early and and fertilization, a venture that sometimes re-
pervasive pan-Mesoamerican tradition in sults in mate cannibalism. There is also a
which battle captives were taken for sacrifice, "highly specialized viviparous development"
their shed blood symbolically transformed into of the embryos that "lasts from several months
the waters of life, invoking the forces of human to well over a year, depending on species. Once
and agricultural fertility (Carlson 1991, born, the young climb onto the mother's back
1993a). In the Maya Codex Madrid (1967, p. to continue development and molt for the first
31a), the blue-painted Rain God, Chac, is de- time. The young then disperse to assume an
picted in his celestial Scorpion aspect as a sac- independent existence" (Polis and Sissom
rificer, with the rains pouring out from his loins 1990, p. 160). The courtship is a promenade a
around his prominent scorpion stinger. On p. deux (Polis and Sissom 1990, pp.161-172, fig.
7a of the Madrid Codex, a giant celestial Scor- 4.1) in which the male leads the female in a
pion Monster, surrounded by Chacs, pours ritual dance. The male grasps the female's
forth the nourishing rains from between its ex- pedipalp chelae, and they perform a circulat-
tended pedipalps. Furthermore, in the Codex ing ritual dance. Cheliceral massage is also
Dresden Venus almanac (1975, p.46), the Scor- part of the game where the male grasps and
pion manifestation of Venus, although not pic- kneads the receptive female's chelicerae with
tured, is actually labeled as Sinan, the Yucatec his own. A spermatophore, which the male has
Maya word for scorpion, explicitly making the deposited on a stick, is subsequently trans-
connection. ferred to the female. She arches over the sper-
Scorpions are among the terrestrial arthro- matophore with her genital opercula spread to
pods that exhibit complex ritualized courtship grasp the droplet of sperm on its apex, complet-
behaviors leading to spermatophore transfer ing copulation. The Scorpion Couple repre-

154 AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Pall 1996

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sented on the side-by-side piers of the Cacaxtla

Venus Chamber are presented in such a court-
ship dance, with the Venus knuckle dusters
(probably held up in both hands by both the '\3
male and female) metaphorically representing
the scorpions' pedipalp claws. The Cacaxtla
Venus chamber, and others like it, were places ,)00°
of sacrifice and ritual preparation for sacrifice
of the victims taken in the sacred Venus-regu-
lated wars. The Venus Scorpion Couple are
represented as sacrificers, and it is hypothe-
sized that the sacrificial victims of the cult were
ritually wounded, if not sacrificed, with the
Venus knuckle dusters and were, perhaps, also
tortured with the stings of scorpions in these
enclosures (see Carlson 1991, 1993a, n.d.; Stu-
art 1992, pp. 132-133). The Mesoamerican
peoples understood well the patterns of scorpi-
on reproductive behavior and appreciated how
these patterns related to their concepts of sac-
rifice, death, fertility, and renewal. Almanacs
based on the celestial dance of Venus with the
Sun governed the Mesoamerican fertility-re- ConstellationMuscainthe southernsky.

AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST • Fal/1996 155

 lated, Venus-regulated wars and sacrifices. Ve-
nus never appears far from the Sun. In the fun-
damental 584-day synodic cycle, the planet
first rises as Morning Star in the East before the
Sun, then dies and takes an Underworld Jour-
ney to appear in the west following sunset as
Evening Star, only to disappear briefly, once
again, to return as Morning Star in the east.
Furthermore, Venus and the Sun interact over
eight years in a complex Morning and Evening
Star ballet with an interesting astronomical
resonance: five 584-day Venus cycles exactly
equal eight uncorrected Maya 365-day years
[5 x 584 = 8 x 365]. Mesoamerican peoples
understood this celestial choreography and
created their Venus Almanacs with this five-to-
eight base. The ritual courtship of the Scorpion
embodied this cosmic dance and nowhere is it
better represented than in the elegant, but
a
potentially fatal, Scorpion promenade deux of
the deadly duo of the Cacaxtla Venus Chamber.
The Maya Venus Scorpion Man cult was
spread outside the Maya area as evidenced by
his portrait at Cacaxtla and has been found
even in a Late Post-Classic Aztec example
carved on the top of a sacrificial altar with a
personified flint blade for his stinger. Venus in
Mesoamerican cultures was seen as one aspect
of the powerful Feathered Serpent deity known
to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl. In his manifes-
tation as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, Lord of the
House of Dawn, this Morning and Evening
Star god was always depicted as a death-deal-
ing sacrificer whose rays were like spears im-
paling his victims. In the Aztec example from
the sacrificial block, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is
shown in scorpion form with his diagnostic
Epcololli ear ornaments crouching above a
zacatapayolli, the woven grass ball in which
were placed the bloodied thorns from the pen-
itential autosacrificial rites performed by Az-
tec priests and warriors. Aspects of this
celestial Venus Scorpion Man cult survive even
today, without the attendant human sacrifices,
in the Mexican state of Guerrero where a Scor-
pion Man dance is performed with an elabo-
rate full-body costume and personified
scorpion mask (Carlson n.d.) (see front cover).
Both the Bee and Wasp were prominent fig-
ures in the Maya heavens. One of the Maya
names for the planet Venus was Xux Ek (pro-
nounced Shush Eck), which means Wasp Star.
As Venus was thought to be a powerful celestial
warrior sacrificer, its association with the
Hymenoptera is certainly sensible. It is this
aspect of Venus that is almost certainly por-
trayed in the Maya Codex Dresden (1975, p.
58 b). Here, a Diving God character descends
156
from Eclipse of the Sun and Moon symbols
attached to a Maya skyband. The creature's
head is the well-known Maya Lamat glyph for
Noh Ek, the Great Star or planet Venus, and he
is adorned with sacrificer symbols such as di-
agnostic knotted bow ties and a thorax in the
form of a sacrificial blade. The Diving God
motif is found throughout ancient Mesoamer-
ica, from highland Teotihuacan to coastal low-
land Veracruz and Yucatan. In most cases, it
can be associated with Venus as a celestial
sacrificer, whether portrayed in an avian or
arthropoid form. All along the eastern coast of
the Yucatan Peninsula, the Diving God was
particularly prominent, displayed on the lin-
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tels of Post-Classic temple buildings. This was
an area of ancient Mesoamerica where bee-
keeping was important. Although the Europe-
an honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) was
introduced after the conquest, there had been a
long-established native tradition of honey pro-
duction employing the local stingless bees
(Melipona beecheii Bennett and several species
of Trigona) known to the Maya as Kolel kab or
Yilk'il kab. Particularly fine examples of the
Diving God, probably portrayed as an anthro-
pomorphic descending Bee Deity, are found at
the magnificent Late Post-Classic port of Tu-
lum on the Quintana Roo coast of the Yucatan
Peninsula (Miller 1982, figs. 80-82, plates 30,
37, and 41). Although there has never been
total agreement Onthis interpretation, it is like-
ly that this anthropomorphic bee is depicted as
an aspect of Venus with a pot of honey held
between his outstretched hands. This sugges-
tion is reinforced further by the representation
of a thatched roof celestial bee temple in the
Codex Madrid (1967, p. 106a). Here, the an-
gry-looking Bee character descends from a ce-
lestial band inscribed with the Maya kab
glyph, a homonymous sign that meant Earth,
Bee, and Honey to the Maya. Certainly, the
Bee and Wasp were identified with one or more
of the planets if not also embodied in the form
of constellations.
There are many additional examples of ar-
thropods in other ancient and indigenous astro-
nomical traditions from which we could choose
to illustrate how all peoples see their place in the
natural order reflected in the heavens (e.g., Cher-
ry 1985, 1993). These specific cases taken from
our Western cultural mythology and the Me-
soamerican world should serve to demonstrate
that people are keen observers of arthropod be-
havior and that our appreciation of this truth
may help us to better interpret our human ar-
chaeological and cultural remains through inter-
disciplinary ethno-entomological research.
AMERICAN ENrOMOLOGIST • Fa1l1996
References Cited
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meaning. Dover, New York. [Originally pub-
lished as Star names and their meanings, G. E.
Stechert, London, 1899].
Brandt, J. c., and R. A. Williamson. 1979. The
1054 supernova and native american rock art.
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Carlson, j. B. 1990. America's ancient skywatch-
ers. Nat!. Geogr. Mag. 177(3): 76-107.
1991. Venus-regulated warfare and ritual sacri-
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caxt!a "Star Wars" connection. Center for
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1993a. Venus-regulated warfare and ritual sacri-
fice in Mesoamerica, pp. 202-252. III C.L.N.
Ruggles and N.]. Saunders [eds.], Astronomies
and cultures. University Press of Colorado, Ni-
wot,CO.
1993b. Rise and fall of the city of the gods. Ar-
chaeology 46(6): 2,58-69, 94.
n.d. The stellar sting: a venus scorpion man cult
of Mesoamerican warfare and sacrifice. Un-
published manuscript of a presentation at the
47th International Congress of Americanists,
Session on Native American Religious Systems,
Tulane University, New Orleans.
Cherry, R. H. 1985. Sacred scarabs of Ancient
Egypt. Bull. Entomol. Soc. Am. 31(2): 14-16.
1993. Insects in the mythology of Native Ameri-
cans. Am. Entomol. 39: 16-21.
Codex Dresden. 1975. Codex Dresdensis. Siich-
sische Landesbibliothek Dresden (Mscr. Dresd.
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simile and commentary). Akademische Druck-
u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria.
Codex Madrid. 1967. Codex Tro-Cortesianus
(Codex Madrid) Museo de America, Madrid.
Anders, F. [ed.], (Facsimile and commentary).
Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz,
Austria.
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Glossary
archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy: The in-
terdisciplinary study of the astronomical prac-
tices, celestial lore, mythology, religions, and
worldviews of all ancient peoples and cultures.
It is essentially the anthropology of astronomy
in contrast to the discipline of history of as-
tronomy, which traditionally has focused on
(1) our "Western" (e.g., Babylonian, Greco-
Roman, Arabic, European,) astronomical sys-
tems, (2) exclusively textual sources, and (3)
astronomy, more narrowly, as science rather
than as part of culture. In archaeoastro/tomy,
we explore all astronomical and cosmological
traditions, use all sources of relevant data, and
focus on how astronomy and astronomers
functioned in their cultural contexts. The term
ethlloastrollomy is used for the interdiscipli-
nary study of contemporary indigenous astro-
nomical traditions.
asterism: In astronomy, this term is essentially a
synonym for constellation but with a broader
application. It always refers to some grouping
of stars. Technically, a constellation can only be
one of the 88 asterisms so defined by the Inter-
national Astronomical Union.
astrological sign: The astrological signs and the
astrological constellations of the zodiac are /tot
the same. The twelve constellations of the zodi-
ac, which traditionally start with Aries, fol-
lowed by Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo,
etc., lie along the ecliptic plane of the solar sys-
tem through which all of the planets, Sun, and
Moon move on their celestial wanderings. Due
to a wobbling of the Earth on its axis (known
as the precession of the equinoxes), the twelve
30-degree astrological signs, which start with
the first point of the sign of Aries at the Vernal
Equinox point, have shifted by about one sign
or about 30 degrees around the ecliptic circle
relative to the constellations over the past two
millennia or so.
157
 celestial band: Bands of as many as 13 different
symbols that represent the Maya sky or some
aspect of the heavens. Also called a skyband, it
is the decorated, abbreviated body of a double-
headed Maya sky dragon that usually has solar
characteristics on the eastern head and Venus
iconography for the west. The Maya word kan
means both serpent and sky, and the celestial
bands always indicate a celestial context when
they are used in Maya art.
codex: A hand-written manuscript volume. In
Mesoamerican studies, codex refers to the Na-
tive American books, usually painted cali-
graphically on stuccoed, screen-fold bark
paper books. Only approximately 16 Me-
soamerican codices survive from the times be-
fore Spanish contact. Four of these are Maya:
the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier Codic-
es. These are ritual books containing Venus al-
manacs, eclipse warning tables, etc.
codex-style vase: One particular style of Maya
vase, usually painted caligraphically in black
ink on a white background in a style similar to
the Maya codex books. These vases seem to
derive from specific sites in the northern Peten
region of Guatemala.
constellation: An arbitrary grouping of stars, usu-
ally into traditional forms reflecting the mytho-
logical values of a culcure. They may be figures
composed of connect-the-dots groupings of
stars, but there are also dark constellation tra-
ditions that perceive ligures in the dark dust-
lane areas of the Milky Way. There are now
only 88 constellations recognized by the Inter-
national Astronomical Union in modern as-
tronomy. These are actually well-defined
regions of the sky rather than groupings of
stars in the old sense.
"eyed" Venus glyphs: Star and planet signs in Me-
soamerica usually have eyes in them because the
stars were perceived as the eyes of the night. The
Teotihuacan Venus glyphs have prominent eyes
in their centers and have been called eyed Venus
glyphs.
iconographic diagnostics.: Iconography, for our
purposes, is both the record of pictures, dia-
grams, and images lefc to us from a particular
cultural tradition, as well as the study of such
images. An iconographic system, not to be con-
fused with a writing s)'stem, can well be exem-
plified by the images portrayed on a stained-
glass window in a Medieval cathedral. The
largely illiterate populace would be able to un-
derstand the iconography of a man on a cross,
a lamb at his feet, or a white dove descending
from heaven, whereas they could not read the
Latin inscriptions. In any such complex repre-
sentation, the cross, lamb, and dove would be
the iconographic diagnostics that would allow
the viewer to read the symbolic meaning of the
composition.
skyband: see celestial band.
Teotihuacan: A Mesoamerican civilization that
158
created one of the first and largest urban cen-
ters in the Americas before Spanish contact.
The ruins of this great city, which flourished
from about 150 B.C. until its ceremonial and
administrative core were sacked and burned in
the 8th century A.D., lie about 35 miles north of
Mexico City. For more information see the
popularization on The Rise and Fall of the City
of the Gods (Carlson 1993b).
zodiac: The band of twelve traditional constella-
tions that lie along the ecliptic plane of the solar
system through which the Sun, Moon, and
planets travel among the stars. The ecliptic is a
great circle in the heavens that is tilted by 23%
degrees to the celestial equator. The 12 zodiacal
constellations are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Can-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ae/article-abstract/42/3/149/2474498 by guest on 23 June 2020
cer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagitarius,
Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.
•
John B. Carlson, a radio and extragalactic
astronomer by profession, is the director of the
Center for Archaeoastronomy, a nonprofit insti-
tute for research and education related to inter-
disciplinary studies of the astronomical practices,
celestial lore, religions, and world-views of an-
cient civilizations and the contemporary indige-
nous cultures of the world. In this capacity,
Carlson is an expert on Native American astron-
omy specializing in studies of pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica. The art, iconography, and hiero-
glyphic writing of the Maya and Teotihuacan civ-
ilizations are particular interests, and he has
published and lectured extensively in this field.
Carlson teaches courses in astronomy, anthropol-
ogy, and the history of science at the University of
Maryland. Correspondence should be sent to:
Center for Archaeoastronomy, P.O.Box X, College
Park, MD 20741-3022; telephone: 301-864-6637;
or e-mail: jcarlson@deans.umd.edu.
Ron Cherry is an entomologist located at
the Everglades Research and Education Center
at Belle Glade, FL. Much of his work focuses on
soil insect pests of field crops. He also has pub-
lished several articles on cultural entomology.
Correspondence should be sent to: Everglades
Research and Education Center, Bell Glade, FL
33430.
AMERICANENfOMOlOGIST • Fal/1996
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