In August 2014, the Mexican UNESCO office and the Municipality of Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico, organized an international scientific conference entitled "The Role of Archaeoastronomy in the Maya World: The case study of the Island of Cozumel". The main objective was to discuss the possibilities of incorporating the archaeological heritage, properly presented and interpreted, in the tourist offer of the Cozumel Island. Šprajc's invited lecture presented an interpretation of orientation patterns found in the prehispanic architecture on the Cozumel Island. The astronomical significance of these alignments can be understood in the light of comparative data recently collected at a number of sites in the Maya area. While solar orientations predominate, the peculiarity that Cozumel shares with relatively few other Maya sites, but which characterizes the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, is the presence of orientations corresponding to major standstills or extremes of the Moon, in agreement with the well-known importance of lunar goddess Ixchel in this part of the Maya area.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 37555757Šprajc was the chief organizer of the SEAC 2012 international conference of the European Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture, in Ljubljana. He also edited the proceedings of the meeting, which was focused on a critical assessment of various charlatanic, though popular theories on the astronomical knowledge and cosmological concepts in ancient societies. Theoretical and methodological issues relevant for cultural astronomy were thus in the foreground. Lectures for wider audience were organized during the conference week in Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana: some of the most prominent conference participants presented the most attractive topics in the field of archaeoastronomy. The lectures were well attended, attesting to the public interest in issues of this kind.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 267691520Presented at the 19th European Maya Conference, entitled "Maya Cosmology: Terrestrial and Celestial Landscapes" and held in November 2014 in Bratislava, Slovakia, this invited lecture focused on lunar orientations in the Maya architecture. The results of a recently accomplished systematic research reveal the existence of a considerable number of buildings that must have been deliberately aligned to the rising and setting points of the Moon at its major standstills. Such an interpretations of this group of orientations is supported by contextual evidence: most of these alignments are found along the northeastern coast of the Yucatan peninsula, i.e. precisely in the area for which we have abundant historical and iconographic data indicating the importance of the cult of the goddess known as Ixchel during the Postclassic and whose associations with the Moon are undisputable. Recently discovered correlations between lunar and climatic cycles represent the most viable rationale for the cultural significance of the Moon and the alignment to its extremes.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 37851181This contribution at a scientific meeting presented the astronomical significance of orientations at Tikal, one of the largest Maya cities. The interpretations are based on comparative analyses of data collected on a number of Maya sites, and are also supported by some contextual evidence. Considering a long settlement history of Tikal and the fact that the temples and other important buildings date to different periods, some time-dependent changes in orientation practices became evident. The sunrise and sunset dates composing observational calendars were recorded not only by orientations but also by alignments connecting several buildings. Astronomical criteria were thus involved both in the orientation and in the location of some prominent structures.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 36430637In this presentation at the SEAC 2011 international conference on archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy, held in Evora, Portugal, a statistical approach to the study of architectural alignments was exemplified on a set of preliminary data from the Maya area. Several statistical analyses have shown that the use of astronomical references at the horizon represents the most viable rationale for the greater part of orientations in the sample, and that the buildings were observationally functional in the east-west direction. On statistical grounds and considering contextual evidence it was also argued that the most important civic and ceremonial buildings were oriented predominantly to sunrises and sunsets on certain dates of the tropical year separated by calendrically significant intervals. The results suggest the use of observational calendars intended to facilitate a proper scheduling of agricultural activities.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 33074221