The Turtle, The Peccary, and the Two-Headed Serpent: Comparison of Maya Zodiac Constellations in the Paris Codex and the Murals of Bonampak
This paper presents a brief comparative analysis of two important depictions of the sky from the corpus of Maya art and iconography: the so-called ‘Maya Zodiac’ found within the pages of the Paris Codex and the painted murals of Room 2 at Bonampak in Chiapas, Mexico. This comparison will focus on three iconographical elements relating to the Maya sky: the skyband, the turtle, and the peccary — the latter of which is now effaced in the Paris Codex — in order to establish whether they represent three important sky markers relating to the Maya creation myth.