The people
MAYA OR MAYAN - Mayan always refers to the language group of the Maya people. The term should be used for Mayan languages. The word "Maya" should be used for the name of the people and their culture. Maya is both plural and singular. While there exists some debate over the usage of these words we have chosen to use this definition. THE ANCIENT MAYA - Originated sometime between 2600 and 1000 B.C. among
nomadic tribes in north central Petén, Guatemala, where there are evidences of a
once-flourishing agricultural people.
Paamul Caribbean Paradise, Riviera Maya Q. Roo México
Wherever they came from they settled and lived in small family bands in Western Honduras, Guatemala, the entire Yucatan Peninsula and vast areas of Chiapas. After settling in these areas they started cultivating maize and abandoned a nomadic way of life to settle in villages surrounded by cornfields.
They lived in thatched-roof houses, usually one-room huts with walls of wooden poles laced together using vines (behúko). Their homes were used primarily for sleeping and daily chores such as cooking took place outdoors over open pit fires. The battle of the sexes did not exist to the Maya.
The men performed construction and farming and the women prepared food, made clothing, and tended to the family's domestic needs. These family traditions continue to be followed in many rural communities today.
Some time during the Preclassic period the Maya population began to see structure in the form of organizing. They started to band together in groups. Thus began the emergence of high-ranking chiefs and kings. The Late Preclassic period was the beginning of real royalty, the ahau, or high king, and the rise of kingdoms throughout Maya lands. For the next thousand years the principles of kingship dominated Maya life.
Maya society was then organized much like European Kingdoms, including nobles, teachers, scribes, warriors, architects, administrators, craftsmen, merchants, laborers, and farmers.
But, the Maya civilization did not have a unified empire. The civilization was made up of separate regions with a common culture. Each of these regions or "kingdoms" was under the control of a halach unic or "true man". His functions were primarily political and military and he was responsible for controlling the regions boundaries. The kingdoms then were separated by territory and regions. Riviera Caribe Maya Hotel, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya, Mexico
This meant that communities near the capital were considered in the realm and were brought into the fold. This included outlying subsidiary sites ranging from sizable towns down to hamlets and extended-family farming compounds. In this way ALL the Maya were brought into one kingdom or another and each region became a highly organized society.
Highly organized the Maya began to flourish around 200 A.D. By this time they were spread across an almost continuous territory comprising three general areas: The tropical rain forest of the lowlands, stretching from northwestern Honduras, the Petén region of Guatemala and into Belize, the mountains of Chiapas and the entire Yucatan Peninsula. This was the heart of Classic Maya civilization.
The Classic Period of the Maya is considered to have begun around 200 A.D. and lasted until 1000 A.D. This period is sometimes referred to as the flowering, flourishing or high period of the Maya as a civilization.
Different cities and regions experienced growth and excellence at different times, however, the Classic Period was definitely the high point for the Maya as a people. Art, science, construction and the cosmology of the Maya reached new levels of excellence. The civilization's wide use of dated stelae started sometime around 300 A.D. although some appear before the Classic they are few in number.
Kinbé Hotel, Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Toward the end of the Classic, the civilization began to experience a series of serious problems. There was an increase in wars and the populations of major cities started dropping drastically. New construction and the maintenance of existing buildings all but stopped.
In the central lowlands major centers were abandoned. Interestingly the larger cities collapsed first. Tikal, a major city, was completely abandoned in the ninth century. While the fall of the civilization continued systematically many cities maintained and even flourished well into the late Classic and into the Postclassic.
The Post Classic period is defined by a slide in the quality of fine art and science. The southern cities were abandoned and many of the Maya moved north toward Tulum, Cobá and the cities in the northern lowlands. Some of these northern cities reached new peaks much later than the ones to the south. But, eventually all of the cities were abandoned and the Maya went back to farming much as they had been doing before the civilization was created.
It is thought that the ancient Maya inherited the inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations like the Olmec. While that may be true it was the Maya who advanced science to a degree that is still astounding modern scientists. While Europe still slumbered in the midst of the Dark Ages, the Maya became experts in astronomy with incredibly precise observations, they mastered the study of time and calendrical systems. They also created hieroglyphic writing, ceremonial architecture, structural design, mathematics including the concept of zero, socio-politics and economics.
They built a vast empire size trade network, built roads, performed masonry without metal tools, developed a unique counting system and the best written language in all of the Americas. These inventors in the jungle also produced rubberized rain clothing, barkless dogs and stingless honey bees. And they did it all on foot. Without the aid of beasts of burden or even the wheel.
We have more information now, relating to Maya life, than ever before. But, there is much more that has yet to be discovered. Research continues to unearth new facts about the Maya, in large restoration projects like Ek Balam, Cobá and Dzibanché, but many very real mysteries remain.
The jungles are full of temples and ruins that have yet to be identified as well as thousands of structures in current sites that have yet to be explored. Their excavation could reveal many of the secrets that still puzzle both the casual visitor, and the dedicated scientist. The hope for the serious Maya investigator is that at the end of the day we will be able to answer some of these incredible questions.
SCIENCE OF THE MAYA
TIME AS A SCIENCE - The Maya were obsessed with the idea of time. Of all the world's ancient calendar systems, theirs are the most complex, intricate and accurate. This obsession lead them to create seventeen calendars, three of which are mentioned here. The tzolkin is the exact astronomical calendar. The haab is the solar calendar and the "long count" measures the march of time through thousands of years.
Flamingos Cabins, El Cuyo, Ria Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Yucatan Peninsula
One huge factor in the life of the Maya was the function of the priest class and its control over society and the nobles. These calendars allowed the priests to record the past eclipses of the moon, and predict when it would happen again. They documented the dates of hurricanes, floods and other disasters and believed that on the recurrance of these dates the disasters could be repeated.
Since only the priests and a few elite could explain the functions of these calendars added to their power and control over the lesser classes. The life of the Maya was regulated to a very high degree and there was a special time of the year for everything.
TZOLKIN - Since they knew that the earth year was a little more than 365 days, they developed the tzolkin which is extremely accurate. The calculations of Maya priests were so precise that its correction is slightly more exact than the standard calendar the world uses today. The tzolkin has 13 months of 20-days each making a year 260 days long. This year is not a solar year, it is an astronomical year.
This time period was called a Sacred Round. The Sacred Round of 260 days moves through time sort of in a repeating spiral that meets the haab calendar at the end of 52 solar years. The exact reasons why such an unusual calendar came into being is still a mystery. The 260-day cycle may tie several celestial events together, including the configuration of Mars, appearances of Venus, or eclipse seasons. It does represent the interval between conception and birth of a human baby. And there are those who insist that it is based on the cycles of the Pleiades constellation.
The solar cycle of the Pleiades takes 26,000 years, which the Maya divided by 1,000 to make up years lasting 260 days. From the first time I heard that theory I wondered just how did the Maya know that a year in the Pleiades constellation was 26,000 years here on earth. Now that's a mystery. But, since 13 and 20 are both sacred numbers, and when you multiply them together you get 260, well who knows? Could be, but while we can't be certain why they used 260 days, we know they did. The use of a 20 day month is probably based on the fact that the Maya use a base-20 numbering system rather than the 10 based system of the western world.
La ziranda Hotel, Playa del Carmen Q. Roo, Mexico
HAAB - The Vague Year or haab of 365 days is similar to our modern calendar, except that it uses 18 months of 20 days each, with an unlucky five-day period at the end of the year which was known as 'Vayeb'. The haab is a solar calendar while clearly the tzolkin was used to measure things beyond our solar system. The Maya solar new year is thought to have begun sometime in July. The linking of the tzolkin and the haab occurs every 52 solar years. The end of this 52-year cycle was feared, because it was believed to be a time when the world might end. This 52-year period of time was called a "bundle" and meant the same to the Maya as our century does to us. THE LONG COUNT - The 52-year cycle was inadequate, however, to measure the continual passage of time through the ages. So, another calendar was created. This one is called the Long Count. The Long Count starts at either 3114 B.C. or 3113 B.C. and runs to the present age and from there into the future.
Similar to our use of the birth of Christ as a starting point for modern historical dates. That is why long count dates found at Maya ruins are so important. They precisely pinpoint an exact date. The long count was not only used to fix dates accurately in time, however, but to correlate the actions of Maya rulers to historic and mythological events. It was also used to mark the time of past and future happenings.
Some Maya monuments, for example, record the dates of events 90 million years ago, while others predict events that will take place in the future. Indeed, the Maya were obsessed with time. Time as a science Maya the people
ASTRONOMY
Even the novice Maya investigator knows that the ancient cities were aligned with the heavens. Who hasn't heard about the pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichén Itzá where during the spring equinox (March 21st) the sun illuminates the stairs, and as the sun rises creating shadows, the image of a snake slithers down the sacred mountain to Earth. The exact opposite happens in the fall.
Other alignments might relate to the exteriors of temples and palaces and were not limited to solar activity. Some of the buildings are aligned with constellations. Why did the Maya go to such lengths to align their ceremonial plazas and temples with the heavens? In part, it was to venerate the gods. Pacal's tomb in the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, for example, is aligned with the Sun.
At winter solstice, the Sun sets behind the high ridge beyond the temple, in line with the center of the temple roof. As the Sun crosses the sky, it creates areas of sun and shadows. The sunlight enters the door of the temple which illuminates the back wall. Then as the sun starts to set the light appears to go down the stairs into the tomb. Another example is the group of three at Uaxactún, which marks the Sun's rising position at summer solstice, the two equinoxes and winter solstice.
The Caracol at Chichén Itzá is aligned with the appearance of celestial bodies such as the Pleiades and Venus. Another temple at Uxmal contains hundreds of Venus symbols.
Celestial events were foretold far in advance and became part of the spiritual platform from which rituals and major events were scheduled. Transfers of royal power, for example, seem to have been timed by the summer solstice at certain centers. Rituals were timed to coincide with different alignments of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the Moon.
The Maya also went to war by the sky, again triggered by the planet Venus. Venus war regalia is seen on stelae and other carvings, and raids and captures were timed by appearances of Venus. Warfare related to the movements of Venus was, in fact, well established throughout Mesoamerica. The appearance of Venus was also used to predict the future.
To understand the Maya approach to astronomy you have to understand that to the Maya the Gods moved the planets, even the sun and moon were controlled by the Gods. The Maya believed that the Sun and Moon would journey through the underworld at night. The Maya believed that the heavenly bodies needed human help to make it through the underworld and return the next day.
Help was provided through sacred rituals such as mutilation, torture, and human sacrifice. The Maya maintain, even today, a basic belief in the influence of the cosmos on human lives. They felt it necessity to pay homage to the gods through rituals. Offering this help was simply the price to be paid for the survival of the universe. Death from such rituals conferred immortality on those who died.
Maya mythology, astronomy and astrology intertwine to form one belief system. The Maya observed the sky and kept calendars to predict solar and lunar eclipses, the cycles of the planet Venus, and the movements of constellations. The observatory, at night looking deep into the heavens, that was the church of the Maya.
MATHEMATICS
The Maya understood the value of zero long before most of the world's civilizations and it was an incredible advantage to the Maya, for use in very advanced calculations. The Maya numbering system is based on 20 rather than 10. This means that instead of the 1, 10, 100, and 10,000 of our mathematical system, the Maya used 1, 20, 400, 8,000 and 160,000.
Maya numbers are written from bottom to top. For example, 19 is three bars which counts 15 with four dots on top. Numbers larger than 19 were represented by the same kind of sequence, but a dot was placed above the entire number for each group of 20. Twenty was represented by a shell with a dot over it. For example, 31 would be written, 11 (two bars and one dot) with a dot on top of the whole thing representing an additional group of 20. The Maya set of numbers is easy to use and allowed uneducated people to add and subtract. For example, to add 9 and 6 you would have a bar and four dots on one side (9) and a bar with one dot (6) on the other. The two merge to make three bars representing 15.
The Maya considered some numbers sacred. One of these special numbers was nine for the levels of the underworld. Thirteen was sacred for the number of original Maya gods. 20 represented the number of fingers and toes a human being could count on. Another sacred number was 52, representing the number of years in a "bundle". Another number, 400, had sacred meaning as the number of Maya gods of the night.
Mathematics was very important to the Maya and representations of it have been found in Maya art such as wall paintings, where mathematicians can be recognized by number scrolls which trail from under their arms. The first mathematician identified as such on a glyph was a female figure. THE WRITTEN WORD - The Maya still use many of the calendars from the past. And astronomy is still performed by the Maya people. In villages all over mesoamerica the Mayan language and numbering system is still used. But, the elaborate writing system of the ancient Maya is gone. It is considered by archaeologists to be the most sophisticated writing system ever developed in the Americas, yet it only exists in the ruins of the great civilization.
Archaeologists have been studying the writing of the Maya for many years, but it wasn't until 1962, that the Maya hieroglyphs were first catalogued. Since then a great deal of progress has been made in understanding glyphs found at ruins and excavation sites. The ongoing work of decoding the glyphs holds promise that many of the mysteries surrounding the Maya may one day be solved.
They wrote using hundreds of individual signs or glyphs that represented words or syllables that could be combined. These combinations then would form a word in the Mayan language, including numbers, time periods, seasons, animals, names, titles, events, the names of gods, scribes, sculptors, objects, places, and food. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were either carved in stone and wood, monuments and architecture, or painted on paper, plaster walls and pottery.
The unit of the Maya writing system is the glyph, which is equivalent to the words and sentences of a modern language. There is no Maya alphabet. The Maya considered writing to be a sacred gift from the gods. Most ancient Maya could not read. Reading and writing was limited to a small part of the nobles and was jealously guarded. It was thought that reading and writing was a form of communication with the gods, and only the elite of the ruling class was allowed.
This writing is very difficult to interpret for a number of reasons. The glyphs can represent both sounds or ideas. The glyphs must be combined with the context to know how each glyph actually reads. This is because many Maya concepts can be written in more than one way. Numbers, for example, can be written with symbols or with the picture of a god associated with that number or a combination of the two.
This means that a single idea can be written in many different ways. Because of the variations in glyphs and their multiple meanings, deciphering the hieroglyphic writing of the Maya has not been completed. So rather than reading the writing of the Maya it needs to be decoded or interpreted. Advances at Palenque, Bonampak, Yaxchilan and other sites have provided more opportunity recently so the decoding is progressing.
Cabañas Copal, Tulum, Riviera Maya, Mexico
Other Maya books include the Popol Vuh which was written in Roman characters and
concerns the history of the Quiché Maya. The Chilam Balam are books of songs, prophecies
and
Father Diego de Landa wrote "An Account of Things in the Yucatan" after destroying countless ancient Maya texts, codices and documents. There are also 93 historic and geographic accounts written by the Maya. They discuss aspects of the flora, fauna, inhabitants and ruins, and include customs, traditions and history.
|
They probably
migrated into the region from North America. Asiatic peoples pushed their way into North
America using the Bering Straits when Siberia and Alaska were connected via a land bridge. 
The Maya look to
the heavens for guidance. The ancient Maya used observatories, shadow-casting devices, and
observations of the horizon to trace the complex motions of the sun, the stars and
planets. From these observations, the Maya developed calendars to keep track of celestial
movements and the passage of time. Using a forked stick and the naked eye Maya astronomers
would take observations and calculate the path of Venus and other celestial bodies. They
could calculate with precision events such as solar eclipses and the alignment of Venus
and other important planets.
These
three symbols were used in various combinations so that uneducated people could do simple
arithmetic. 
calendars. The
Annals of Cakchiquel were written in 1605, in the Cakchiquel language. They are similar in
content to the Popol Vuh.