The recently described Skyband Bench from a non-royal but elite residential complex (Group 8N-11) at the Classic Maya site of Copán, Honduras, bears a carving on its front edge that has explicitly astronomical content, including the Sun, the Moon, and Venus. The building in which the Skyband Bench is located (Str. 8N-66C) is oriented to the horizon position of sunset on days of solar zenith passage. The iconographic references to the Moon and Venus are consistent with a visible lunar eclipse and synodic stations of Venus, the occurrences of which were synchronized with the solar cycle in the late 8th century A.C., the contemporary-use period of the Skyband Bench. The closest correspondences are with events of A.C. 784 and 785.
The orientation of Str. 8N-66C provides an architectural manifestation of an already documented concern with solar zenith passage at Copán. The celestial iconography of the Skyband Bench is consistent in a precise way with the architectural orientation of the structure, and it provides additional support for the cultural interpretations of the structure, having to do with war, captivity, and sacrifice, that had been arrived at on other grounds by the archaeologists who excavated and studied the structure and its bench.
Volume 26 Number 4 (Winter 1999) Table of Contents