page_title: Venus in culture
section_title: Maya
hierarchical_section_title: Venus in culture / Maya
caption_attribution_description: English: image from the Dresden Codex (page 9). Adapted from the 1880 edition by Förstemann. Español: Reproducción pintada de la página 9 del Códice Dresde, adaptada de la edición de 1880 del libro de Förstemann.
context_page_description: Venus, as one of the brightest objects in the sky, has been known since prehistoric times and has been a major fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. As such, it has a prominent position in human culture, religion, and myth. It has been made sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the morning star and evening star.
context_section_description: Venus was considered the most important celestial body observed by the Maya, who called it Chac ek, or Noh Ek', "the Great Star". The Maya monitored the movements of Venus closely and observed it in daytime. The positions of Venus and other planets were thought to influence life on Earth, so the Maya and other ancient Mesoamerican cultures timed wars and other important events based on their observations. In the Dresden Codex, the Maya included an almanac showing Venus's full cycle, in five sets of 584 days each (approximately eight years), after which the patterns repeated (since Venus has a synodic period of 583.92 days).
  The Maya civilization developed a religious calendar, based in part upon the motions of the planet, and held the motions of Venus to determine the propitious time for events such as war. They also named it Xux Ek', the Wasp Star. The Maya were aware of the planet's synodic period, and could compute it to within a hundredth part of a day.
caption: The Pre-Columbian Mayan Dresden Codex, which calculates Venus appearances
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