Editing Popol Vuh (section)

==Antecedents in Maya iconography==

Contemporary archaeologists (first of all [[Michael D. Coe]]) have found depictions of characters and episodes from ''Popol Vuh'' on [[Maya ceramics|Mayan ceramics]] and other art objects (e.g., the [[Hero Twins]], [[Howler Monkey Gods]], the shooting of [[Vucub-Caquix]] and, as many believe, the restoration of the Twins' dead father, [[Hun Hunahpu]]).<ref>Chinchilla Mazariegos 2003</ref> The accompanying sections of hieroglyphical text could thus, theoretically, relate to passages from the ''Popol Vuh''. [[Richard D. Hansen]] found a stucco frieze depicting two floating figures that might be the [[Hero Twins]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.authenticmaya.com/authentic_maya.htm |title=Authentic Maya |access-date=2007-11-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213215620/http://www.authenticmaya.com/authentic_maya.htm |archive-date=2007-12-13 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2009/10/14/wus.mirador.bk.c.cnn|title=Video News|date=October 14, 2009|publisher=cnn.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/11/01/baldwin.mirador.forgotten.may.cnn|title=Video News|date=November 11, 2009|publisher=cnn.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/empty|title=Breaking News, Latest News and Videos|publisher=cnn.com}}</ref> at the site of [[El Mirador]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/El-Mirador-the-Lost-City-of-the-Maya.html?c=y&page=7|title=El Mirador, the Lost City of the Maya|access-date=2011-05-13|archive-date=2011-04-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110428134807/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/El-Mirador-the-Lost-City-of-the-Maya.html?c=y&page=7|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Following the Twin Hero narrative, mankind is fashioned from white and yellow corn, demonstrating the crop's transcendent importance in Maya culture. To the Maya of the Classic period, [[Hun Hunahpu]] may have represented the maize god. Although in the ''Popol Vuh'' his severed head is unequivocally stated to have become a calabash, some scholars believe the calabash to be interchangeable with a cacao pod or an ear of corn. In this line, decapitation and sacrifice correspond to harvesting corn and the sacrifices accompanying planting and harvesting.<ref>Heather Irene McKillop, The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives (London: W.W. Norton & Co., 2006), 214.</ref> Planting and harvesting also relate to Maya astronomy and the calendar, since the cycles of the moon and sun determined the crop seasons.<ref>McKillop, 214.</ref>