Astronomical aspects of Group E-type complexes and implications for understanding ancient Maya architecture and urban planning.

ABSTRACT: In the 1920s, during the first archaeological excavations at Uaxactún, Petén, Guatemala, an architectural complex named Group E was interpreted as an ancient Maya astronomical observatory, intended specifically for sighting the equinoctial and solstitial sunrises. In the following decades, a large number of architectural compounds with the same configuration have been found, most of them in the central lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula. The multiple hypotheses that have been proposed about the astronomical function of these complexes, commonly designated as E Groups, range from those attributing them a paramount role in astronomical observations to those that consider them merely allegorical or commemorative allusions to celestial cycles, without any observational use. This study, based on

SUBMITTER: Sprajc I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8078784 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature