Snapshot from Aug 05, 2026 at 07:00 UTC. For live data and tracking: View Live
Events / Technology / Sak Tahn Waax Maya astronomer identified
Tech archaeological discovery

Sak Tahn Waax Maya astronomer identified

Analysis based on 10 articles · First reported Jul 13, 2026 · Last updated Jul 20, 2026

Sentiment
0
Attention
0
Articles
10
Market Impact
General
Live prominence charts, article sentiment distribution, and event development timeline available on the Ergen Dashboard
Market Impact

This discovery has no direct financial market impact. It is of academic and cultural significance, potentially boosting tourism and interest in Maya archaeology.

archaeology education
Event Summary

Archaeologists have identified the first named Maya astronomer-mathematician, Sak Tahn Waax (White-chested Fox), from a 1,200-year-old wall inscription at the ruined city of Guatemala — Xultun in Guatemala. The inscription, Text 19, contains a formula linking cycles of Venus and Mars with Maya calendars, dated to around 781 CE. The discovery was made by a team including Franco Rossi of MIT, David Stuart of UT Austin, and others, and published in the journal Antiquity. The room where the inscription was found, Structure 10K-2, served as a workspace for Maya scribes and astronomers.

Key Actions
100 Franco Rossi deciphered
100 Sak Tahn Waax created
50 Maxwell Chamberlain discovered
Entities Involved
per
Sak Tahn Waax
Sak Tahn Waax is the first named Maya astronomer-mathematician, credited with a calendrical formula.
Importance 100.0 Sentiment 0.0
oth
Maya civilization
The Maya civilization is the subject of the discovery, highlighting its advanced astronomical knowledge.
Importance 80.0 Sentiment 0.0
loc
Guatemala — Xultun
Guatemala — Xultun is the archaeological site where the inscription was found, gaining recognition as a key location for Maya science.
Importance 70.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Franco Rossi
Franco Rossi is the lead author of the study, an archaeologist at MIT.
Importance 60.0 Sentiment 0.0
cnt
Guatemala
Guatemala is the country where Guatemala — Xultun is located, benefiting from cultural heritage attention.
Importance 50.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
David Stuart
David Stuart is an epigrapher at UT Austin who helped decipher the name.
Importance 40.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Maxwell Chamberlain
Maxwell Chamberlain discovered the room in 2010 as a student at Boston University.
Importance 30.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Anthony Aveni
Anthony Aveni is an archaeoastronomer at Colgate University who praised the discovery.
Importance 30.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Heather Hurst
Heather Hurst is an archaeologist at Skidmore College who commented on Guatemala — Xultun's significance.
Importance 20.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Ed Krupp
Ed Krupp is director of Griffith Observatory who commented on the discovery.
Importance 20.0 Sentiment 0.0
per
Yax We n Chan K inich
Yax We n Chan K inich is a ruler of Guatemala — Xultun depicted in a mural in the same building.
Importance 20.0 Sentiment 0.0
oth
Skidmore College
Skidmore College is the institution of Heather Hurst.
Importance 10.0 Sentiment 0.0
oth
Colgate University
Colgate University is the institution of Anthony Aveni.
Importance 10.0 Sentiment 0.0
oth
Griffith Observatory
Griffith Observatory is the institution of Ed Krupp.
Importance 10.0 Sentiment 0.0
ERGEN INTELLIGENCE
Track this event live

Set up alerts, explore entity relationships, search across thousands of events, and build custom intelligence feeds.

Open Dashboard

About Ergen

Ergen is a news intelligence platform that converts raw news articles into structured data. It tracks events, entities, and the relationships between them, with sentiment and attention metrics derived from thousands of articles. Pages on this site are daily static snapshots from the platform's live database. For real-time tracking, search, and alerts, the full dashboard is at app.ergen.ai.