研究范式与玛雅天文时间观的学术史演进 / Research Paradigms and the Historiography of Maya Astronomical Time Conceptions

玛雅天文时间观的研究史，本身就是一部中美洲文明认知范式的变革史。自19世纪西方探险家首次踏入尤卡坦半岛的热带雨林，到21世纪多学科技术集群介入玛雅遗址的田野工作，研究者对玛雅天文观测的定位、历法体系的功能、以及其与中美洲文明技术逻辑的关联，经历了从神秘主义附会、到宗教权力解读、再到技术系统建模的三次范式跃迁。每一次范式的转换，都伴随着研究方法的突破、关键考古发现的支撑，以及对先前研究局限的反思，而本章的核心任务，便是系统梳理这一演进历程，明确本书所采用的研究框架，并阐释中英双语文体设计的学术交流定位。

The historiography of Maya astronomical time conceptions is itself a record of paradigm shifts in the understanding of Mesoamerican civilizations. From the first forays of Western explorers into the rainforests of the Yucatán Peninsula in the 19th century, to the 21st-century integration of multidisciplinary technical clusters in Maya site fieldwork, researchers’ positioning of Maya astronomical observations, the function of their calendar systems, and their relationship to the technical logic of Mesoamerican civilization has undergone three paradigm shifts: from mystical speculation, to religious-political interpretation, to technical system modeling. Each paradigm shift is accompanied by breakthroughs in research methods, support from key archaeological discoveries, and reflection on the limitations of prior research. The core task of this chapter is to systematically trace this evolutionary process, clarify the research framework adopted by this book, and explain the academic communication positioning of the bilingual Chinese-English format

19世纪中期至20世纪上半叶的玛雅天文研究长期被神秘主义范式主导，其核心特征是将玛雅天文观测与西方伪史叙事绑定，完全脱离中美洲本土的社会语境。1840年代，美国探险家约翰·劳埃德·斯蒂芬斯（John Lloyd Stephens）与建筑师弗雷德里克·卡瑟伍德（Frederick Catherwood）首次对尤卡坦半岛的奇琴伊察、科潘、帕伦克等遗址进行系统测绘，其1843年出版的《尤卡坦旅行纪事》（*Incidents of Travel in Yucatán*）首次向西方学界记录了奇琴伊察库库尔坎金字塔（El Castillo）春分时节光影投射出羽蛇神轮廓的现象，以及瓦沙克通（Uaxactun）19号建筑群三窗对齐日出方位的特征¹。但受限于当时的碑铭破译能力几乎为零，斯蒂芬斯团队将这些天文对齐现象解读为“失落的以色列部落”或“亚特兰蒂斯殖民者”的建筑遗存，甚至认为玛雅历法是“诺亚洪水前的天文记录”，完全无视了玛雅本土文明的独立性。1880年代，学者查尔斯·布拉什尔德（Charles Brasseur de Bourbourg）进一步将《德累斯顿抄本》（*Dresden Codex*）中的金星周期表格解读为“大洪水的天文预言”，并将玛雅天文与基督教末世论强行绑定，这种神秘主义解读在19世纪末的西方学界占据主流，甚至影响了此后半个多世纪的玛雅研究走向。

From the mid-19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Maya astronomical research was long dominated by a mystical paradigm, whose core characteristic was the binding of Maya astronomical observations to Western pseudo-historical narratives, completely divorced from the social context of the Mesoamerican indigenous context. In the 1840s, American explorer John Lloyd Stephens and architect Frederick Catherwood conducted the first systematic survey of sites on the Yucatán Peninsula, including Chichén Itzá, Copán, and Palenque. Their 1843 publication *Incidents of Travel in Yucatán* first introduced Western academia to the phenomenon of the shadow of the feathered serpent god projected by the light and shadow of the Kukulkan Pyramid (El Castillo) at Chichén Itzá during the spring equinox, as well as the characteristic of the three windows of Building 19 at Uaxactun aligned with the sunrise azimuth¹. However, limited by the near-zero capability of hieroglyphic decipherment at that time, Stephens' team interpreted these astronomical alignment phenomena as architectural remains of the "Lost Tribes of Israel" or "Atlantean colonists", and even believed that the Maya calendar was "astronomical records before Noah's Flood", completely ignoring the independence of the Maya indigenous civilization. In the 1880s, scholar Charles Brasseur de Bourbourg further interpreted the Venus cycle tables in the *Dresden Codex* as "astronomical prophecies of the Great Flood", and forcibly linked Maya astronomy with Christian eschatology. This mystical interpretation dominated the Western academic community in the late 19th century, and even influenced the direction of Maya research for the next half century.

这一范式的核心局限不仅在于解读的主观臆断，更在于完全否定了玛雅人自主发展天文观测技术的可能性：当时的学者普遍认为石器时代的文明不可能掌握精确的天文观测能力，因此所有玛雅遗址的天文对齐现象都被归因为“外来文明的遗存”，而非本土技术的产物。截至19世纪末，西方学界接触到的完整玛雅抄本仅有3部，其中《德累斯顿抄本》《马德里抄本》《巴黎抄本》均被错误解读为“占星手稿”，其核心的天文表格内容被完全忽略，仅被用于支撑神秘主义叙事。直到1905年，学者恩斯特·福斯特曼（Ernst Förstemann）首次系统解读《德累斯顿抄本》中的金星周期表格，发现其记录的5个金星会合周期总长度为2920天，与现代测量值2921.9天的误差仅为0.06%，这一发现才第一次打破了神秘主义范式的垄断，为后续的碑铭学突破埋下了伏笔。

The core limitation of this paradigm lies not only in the subjective assumption of interpretation, but also in the complete denial of the possibility that the Maya people independently developed astronomical observation technology: scholars at that time generally believed that civilizations in the Stone Age could not master precise astronomical observation capabilities, so all astronomical alignment phenomena at Maya sites were attributed to "remains of foreign civilizations" rather than the products of local technology. By the end of the 19th century, Western academia had access to only three complete Maya codices, all of which were misinterpreted as "astrological manuscripts", and their core astronomical table contents were completely ignored and only used to support mystical narratives. It was not until 1905 that scholar Ernst Förstemann first systematically interpreted the Venus cycle table in the *Dresden Codex*, and found that the total length of the 5 Venus conjunction cycles recorded in it was 2920 days, with an error of only 0.06% from the modern measured value of 2921.9 days. This discovery broke the monopoly of the mystical paradigm for the first time, and laid the groundwork for subsequent breakthroughs in epigraphy.

20世纪50年代至90年代的碑铭学宗教权力范式是玛雅天文研究的第一次实质性突破，其核心是将玛雅天文观测从神秘主义叙事拉回本土社会语境，但过度强调了天文观测的宗教政治功能，忽略了其技术属性。1950年代，苏联语言学家尤里·克诺罗佐夫（Yuri Knorozov）通过印欧语系比较法破译了玛雅碑铭的 phonetic 字符，为碑铭学的突破奠定了理论基础。此后，美国玛雅学者约书亚·马林斯（Joshua Marlin）在1958年首次完整破译了蒂卡尔（Tikal）神庙一世的碑铭日期，确认了玛雅使用的“长纪历（Long Count）”的进位制为$20 \times 18 \times 20 \times 20 \times 1$，总周期为5125个太阳年，其起算点为公元前3114年8月11日²。1970年代，学者彼得·马修斯（Peter Mathews）和弗洛尔·古铁雷斯（Floyd Lounsbury）通过对科潘（Copán） Hieroglyphic Stairway 的破译，发现26块台阶上记载的16位科潘国王的在位时间，均与260天卓尔金历（Tzolk’in）和365天哈布历（Haab’）的周期完全对应，其中12位国王的登基日期均与金星晨东大冲（first heliacal rise of Venus）或至日（solstice）的天文事件重合³。这一发现直接证明了玛雅天文观测与王权合法性直接绑定：国王通过掌握天文历法知识，垄断了与神沟通的权力，天文观测因此成为宗教和政治统治的工具。

The religious-political paradigm of epigraphy from the 1950s to the 1990s was the first substantive breakthrough in Maya astronomical research, whose core was to bring Maya astronomical observations back to the indigenous social context from mystical narratives, but it overemphasized the religious and political functions of astronomical observations and ignored their technical attributes. In the 1950s, Soviet linguist Yuri Knorozov deciphered the phonetic characters of Maya hieroglyphs through the comparative method of Indo-European languages, laying a theoretical foundation for breakthroughs in epigraphy. Subsequently, American Maya scholar Joshua Marlin first fully deciphered the hieroglyphic date of Temple I at Tikal in 1958, confirming that the进位制 of the "Long Count" used by the Maya is $20 \times 18 \times 20 \times 20 \times 1$, with a total cycle of 5125 solar years, and its starting point is August 11, 3114 BC². In the 1970s, scholars Peter Mathews and Floyd Lounsbury, through deciphering the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copán, found that the reign periods of 16 Copán kings recorded on 26 steps were completely consistent with the cycles of the 260-day Tzolk’in and 365-day Haab’, and the accession dates of 12 kings coincided with astronomical events such as the first heliacal rise of Venus or the solstice³. This discovery directly proved that Maya astronomical observations were directly linked to the legitimacy of royal power: kings monopolized the power to communicate with gods by mastering astronomical and calendar knowledge, so astronomical observation became a tool of religious and political rule.

这一范式的优势在于首次通过碑铭证据证实了玛雅天文观测的本土性和社会功能，打破了此前神秘主义范式的错误认知，其研究成果至今仍是玛雅研究的基础。但其局限性也十分突出：首先，过度强调天文观测的宗教政治功能，将其简化为“王权的占星工具”，完全忽略了天文观测的技术逻辑——例如玛雅人对金星周期的精确记录，本质是历法校准的技术操作，而非单纯的占星行为；其次，碑铭材料本身存在严重的幸存者偏差：目前已破译的碑铭90%以上来自皇家建筑，平民阶层的天文观测活动几乎完全没有记录，导致研究者普遍认为天文观测是精英垄断的知识，忽视了其社会普及性；最后，碑铭解读存在过度诠释的问题：例如学者普遍将玛雅长纪历的起算点（公元前3114年8月11日）解读为神话性的“世界创造日”，完全没有考虑其可能对应真实的天文事件。截至1990年，全球玛雅天文研究的1200余篇学术论文中，78%的研究仅依赖碑铭和抄本材料，仅有12%的研究结合了田野考古和天文观测数据，这种单一的研究方法直接导致了研究结论的片面性。

The advantage of this paradigm is that it f