Overview
- A peer‑reviewed study published in Antiquity in July 2026 deciphers Text 19 from a plastered chamber at Xultun and reads the final glyphs as the name Sak Tahn Waax, translated as “White‑chested Fox.”
- The inscription encodes a compact mathematical formula that links Maya time units and planetary cycles, notably five Venus synodic cycles equal to 2,920 days and references to 260‑day and 365‑day counts and a 780‑day Mars cycle.
- Lead investigators report this is the first direct attribution of an astronomer‑mathematician by name in Classic Maya material but they caution that it is not yet certain whether the name is the formula’s author or an attribution by another scribe.
- Decipherment relied on field recordings, high‑resolution scans and multispectral imaging of 50+ nearby 'microtexts', comparison with later codices, and epigraphic analysis that identified multiple scribal hands in the chamber.
- The find reframes how Maya intellectual work may have been produced and taught and prompts new research into the remaining microtexts, the chamber’s papermaking tools, and possible links to later manuscripts such as the Dresden Codex.