The Maya Codex Read Free

Long, intricately carved branches radiated horizontally in the four directions of the compass. Levi had encountered the tree many times on his field trips. In the highlands of Guatemala the ceiba soared above the jungle canopy, providing a roost for the harpy, the largest of the eagles, but for the figurine the Maya had replaced the eagle’s nest with a black-and-gold obsidian cup in which rested a large shimmering crystal.
    The Weizmans’ third-floor apartment overlooked Sterngasse and Judengasse in the old Jewish sector of Vienna’s fashionable Stephansdom Quarter. It was early evening and light snow was falling, the flakes drifting onto the cobblestones below. Deep in thought, Levi thrust his hands into his pockets. The Mayanist scholar was well into his fifties, but he maintained the fitness of a much younger man. His grey hair was brushed straight back from an oval face, and his white moustache and beard were neatly trimmed. Levi adjusted his square rimless glasses and stared at the figurine. The markings on it were, he knew, consistent with it being made around 850 AD, a time when the Maya had occupied the great city-state of Tikal, deep in the jungles of what was now Guatemala.
    In the summer of 1936 Levi had discovered the figurine in a secret chamber in Pyramid I, one of Tikal’s many tombs. The trip had been a sabbatical from the University of Vienna, and Levi knew that eventually he would have to make his find public; but he was convinced the figurine held an ancient secret which he was determined to unlock before he made any announcement.
    ‘ Es ist fast Abendessen . It’s almost dinnertime, sweetheart. The children are getting restless.’ Fifteen years younger than her husband, Ramona Weizman had maintained her own career as one of Vienna’s leading fashion designers and milliners. Her label was sold exclusively from her street-level boutique beneath their apartment and her ‘Greta Garbo-style’ Fedora slouch hats were the toast of Vienna, rivalling those of the Parisian milliner Schiaparelli. Tall and slim, with dark curly hair and deep-brown eyes, Ramona was a woman of warmth and charm.
    ‘You’ve been in here all day, Levi,’ she remonstrated gently, rolling her eyes as she spied the myriad mathematical calculations lying beside the figurine on her husband’s desk.
    ‘I’ve been looking at the figurine and trying to work out what it means,’ Levi said. ‘Do you remember that stela I found in Pyramid I at Tikal?’
    Ramona looked sheepish. ‘Vaguely,’ she said, perching on the only corner of the desk not covered by papers and crossing her elegant legs. ‘You showed me photographs. The stone monument with all those squiggles and dots and dashes?’
    ‘Hieroglyphics and Mayan numbers,’ Levi responded with a smile. ‘I’m pretty sure the Mayan hieroglyphics were referring to the winter solstice, and it’s occurred to me that the solstice and this figurine might somehow be connected.’
    Levi took the figurine over to the large table on which he’d constructed a model of Tikal’s major pyramid temples and placed it on top of Pyramid I.
    ‘You know, even without telescopes, the Maya were accomplished astronomers, and their buildings reflect that. At the winter solstice the pyramids in Tikal and the sun are aligned with Victoria Peak in the Mayan Mountains,’ he said, pointing to the wooden models. ‘Each pyramid is part of a matrix, see? If you stand on top of Pyramid IV before dawn on the solstice of 21 December, for example, the sun will rise directly over the top of Pyramid III and vice versa for the sunset.’
    ‘So what does that have to do with the figurine?’
    ‘I’m still not sure, but I suspect part of the answer lies in this crystal at the top.’
    ‘You’ll have to forgive me, Levi,’ she said, sensitive to her husband’s fascination with all things Mayan, ‘but it’s a very ugly reproduction. I thought the ceiba tree was tall and stately. That one’s squat and