Maya wall inscriptions reveal name of ancient mathematician-astronomer

A mathematical formula inscribed on a wall at the Maya site of Xultun in Guatemala has revealed the name of an important Maya mathematician-astronomer for the first time, according to researchers who say the scholar — Sak Tahn Waax, or "White-Chested Fox" — was comparable to mathematical giants of the past. The finding, reported by Nature, comes from a study published on 14 July in the journal Antiquity.

The analysis was led by Heather Hurst, an archaeologist at Skidmore College in New York, and colleagues, who examined a mathematical text from a chamber at Xultun first excavated in 2011. The chamber's walls are painted with human figures and hieroglyphic texts that include calculations based on astronomical calendars the Maya used to time events such as the inaugurations of kings; the authors suggest the room served as a workspace for scribes producing codices in the mid-eighth century AD.

Central to the discovery is a set of glyphs the team call Text 19: a small, L-shaped group of 11 hieroglyphs about 10 centimetres tall. Hurst and her colleagues found the formula expresses relationships between several Maya calendar systems in a playful way not previously seen in Mayan texts. It shows how a 2,920-day cycle — which ties together five Venus cycles of 584 days each and eight solar years of 365 days — can be divided into the Maya's own units, including the Uinal (20-day months), the 260-day sacred Tzolkin, the 360-day Tun year and Mars years of 780 days. "I think it was a mathematical flex… like, 'Boom! Mic drop!'" Hurst said.

The identity of the author emerged from the penultimate and final glyphs of Text 19: a phrase meaning "so says," followed by the name Sak Tahn Waax. Until now the individuals behind such calculations had remained mysterious, and Hurst noted the name is identifiable as male because it lacks a feminine prefix. Gerardo Aldana, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the fact that the writer is named suggests mathematicians were recognised in Maya society much as artists were.

Eric Heller, an archaeologist at the University of Southern California, said the discovery shows "the Maya were very clever, creative, intellectually curious people who taught and learnt and sometimes did math for the sake of it." Beyond filling a gap in the history of mathematics, the team argues the work underscores that pre-Columbian Mesoamerican scholarship was rigorous and playful in equal measure — a corrective to long-standing underestimates of Indigenous science.

**Sources** - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02170-8

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