Mayan civilization
Presented by Owen Wisdom
Mayan civilization and inventions
The ancient Maya civilization existed in present-day Mexico and Central America
from 2600 BC until the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. Part of the
Mesoamerican culture, which included various indigenous tribes in the region, the
Maya made important discoveries in the areas of science and cosmology which
enabled them to create a complex calendar system. They were gifted designers
and architects who built grand structures including royal residences, galactic
observatories, sanctuary pyramids, straight roads, and canals. The Maya also
invented elastic a long time before the process of vulcanization, or rubber-making,
was discovered. Other innovations included the creation of immense underground
repositories to store water during the dry season.
The famous Mayan calendar was based on a date system used in Mesoamerican
societies. However, it was the Maya who standardized this system into a modern
calendar. The Maya calendar uses three distinctive dating frameworks: the Tzolkin
(divine timetable), the Haab (common calendar), and the Long Count. The Tzolkin joins
a cycle of 20 named days with another cycle of 13 numbers to deliver 260 distinct days.
There are a few hypotheses for the 260-day Tzolkin including it being founded on the
human growth timeline, the agrarian system of the district, and the positioning of the
planet Venus. The Haab was the sun-based calendar with 365 days. It was made up of a
year and a half with 20 days in each month, and five additional days which were known
as Wayeb and were considered to represent a dangerous time.
The Long Count was a non-repeating calendar starting from the beginning of the Mayan
period. It counted single days in a system of base 20 and base 18 to make the calendar
match the estimated 360 days of the year.
The Maya loved their games, and had ball courts in every city,
much like present-day stadia. The games were of extraordinary
significance to the Maya and were frequently played during
religious celebrations, lasting for up to 20 days. The courts were
situated at the foot of sanctuaries to pay tribute to the gods and
goddesses.
Ball courts were expansive, each with a stone hoop mounted on a
divider at one side. The Maya loved one particular game called
pok-a-tok, or hotchpotch, the aim of which was to throw a strong
elastic ball through the hoop using just your hips, shoulders, or
arms. The victors regularly won the belongings of the losing side.
The losing side, regularly made up of prisoners, was relinquished
for the sake of the Maya gods.
While not an innovation in itself, Mayan art is widely applauded around the world. Maya
art was very modern in flavor. The Maya created artwork from a variety of materials
including wood, jade, obsidian, and earthenware, and decorated stone landmarks,
stucco, and walls. Woodcuts were common but only a few examples still survive. Stone
sculptures are much more common today, the most celebrated among them, from
Copan and Quirigua, are remarkable for their complexity of detail. The cities of Palenque
and Yaxchilan are well known for their beautifully decorated lintels including the famous
Yaxchilan Lintel 24.
Maya steps were decorated with a variety of scenes such as the one found at Tonina.
Zoomorphs are large rocks sculpted in the shapes of animals such as those found
Quirigua. The Maya had a long tradition of wall painting, dating back to around 300 or
200 BC. Among the best-preserved Maya wall paintings is a large-scale example at
Bonampak. The Maya were also famous for their flint sculptures which were incredibly
difficult to make.
The Maya took great pride in their customs and
traditions. Every occasion was feted in a grand way,
and people with special powers known as shamans
conducted rituals for the gods. The shamans took
stimulating drugs to induce trance-like states during
these rituals in order to make contact with the
spiritual world. These substances affected the body
in such a way that pain was not felt, and energy was
increased. A number of these substances have
subsequently been used as pain relief in modern
medicine.
The Maya studied the heavenly bodies and recorded information on the
development of the sun, the moon, Venus, and the stars. Despite the fact
that there were just 365 days in the Haab year, they knew that a year was
slightly longer than 365 days, calculating it to be 365.2420 days (the true
approximation is 365.2422). This is more precise than the estimation of
365.2425 which is used by the Gregorian calendar, meaning that the Maya
calendar was more accurate than our own. Maya astronomers worked out
that 81 lunar months constituted 2,392 days. This puts the length of the
lunar month at 29.5308 days, astoundingly close to the modern estimation
of 29.53059 days. They also worked out the 584-day cycle of Venus with a
slight difference of only two hours. The Maya studied Jupiter, Mars, and
Mercury and recorded celestial information like obscuration, or the path of
one planet in front of the other. Maya astronomers were very accurate and
way ahead of their European counterparts.
Maya civilization
Cosmology and Religion
The ancient Maya believed in recurring cycles of creation and destruction and thought in terms of eras
lasting about 5,200 modern years. The current cycle is believed by the Maya to have begun in either 3114
B.C. or 3113 B.C. of our calendar, and is expected to end in either A.D. 2011 or 2012.
Maya cosmology is not easy to reconstruct from our current knowledge of their civilization. It seems
apparent, however, that the Maya believed Earth to be flat and four-cornered. Each corner was located at
a cardinal point and had a colour value: red for east, white for north, black for west, and yellow for south.
At the centre was the colour green.
Some Maya also believed that the sky was multi-layered and that it was supported at the corners by four
gods of immense physical strength called "Bacabs". Other Maya believed that the sky was supported by
four trees of different colours and species, with the green ceiba, or silk-cotton tree, at the centre.
Earth in its flat form was thought by the Maya to be the back of a giant crocodile, resting in a pool of water
lilies. The crocodile's counterpart in the sky was a double-headed serpent - a concept probably based on
the fact that the Maya word for "sky" is similar to the word for "snake". In hieroglyphics, the body of the
sky-serpent is marked not only with its own sign of crossed bands, but also those of the Sun, the Moon,
Venus and other celestial bodies.
Heaven was believed to have 13 layers, and each layer had its own god. Uppermost was the muan bird, a kind of screech-
owl. The Underworld had nine layers, with nine corresponding Lords of the Night. The Underworld was a cold, unhappy
place and was believed to be the destination of most Maya after death. Heavenly bodies such as the Sun, the Moon, and
Venus, were also thought to pass through the Underworld after they disappeared below the horizon every evening.
Very little is known about the Maya pantheon. The Maya had a bewildering number of gods, with at least 166 named
deities. This is partly because each of the gods had many aspects. Some had more than one sex; others could be both
young and old; and every god representing a heavenly body had a different Underworld face, which appeared when the
god "died" in the evening.
Glyph from Palenque representing a Maya deity
Some Maya sources also speak of a single supreme deity, called Itzamná, the inventor of writing, and patron of the arts
and sciences. His wife was Ix Chel, the goddess of weaving, medicine and childbirth; she was also the ancient goddess of
the Moon.
The role of priests was closely connected to the calendar and astronomy. Priests controlled learning and ritual, and were in
charge of calculating time, festivals, ceremonies, fateful days and seasons, divination, events, cures for diseases, writing
and genealogies. The Maya clergy were not celibate, and sons often succeeded fathers.
All Maya ritual acts were dictated by the 260-day Sacred Round calendar, and all performances had symbolic meaning.
Sexual abstinence was rigidly observed before and during such events, and self-mutilation was encouraged in order to
furnish blood with which to anoint religious articles. The elite were obsessed with blood - both their own and that of their
captives - and ritual bloodletting was a major part of any important calendar event. Bloodletting was also carried out to
nourish and propitiate the gods, and when Maya civilization began to fall, rulers with large territories are recorded as
having rushed from one city to the other,
Human sacrifice was perpetrated on prisoners, slaves, and particularly children, with orphans and illegitimate children specially
purchased for the occasion. Before the Toltec era, however, animal sacrifice may have been far more common than human -
turkeys, dogs, squirrels, quail and iguana being among the species considered suitable offerings to Maya gods.
Priests were assisted in human sacrifices by four older men who were known as chacs, in honour of the Rain God, Chac. These
men would hold the arms and legs of a sacrificial victim while the chest was opened up by another individual called a nacom. Also in
attendance was the chilam, a shaman figure who received messages from the gods while in a trance, and whose prophecies were
interpreted by the assembled priests.
The Maya believed that when people died, they entered the Underworld through a cave or a cenote. When kings died, they followed
the path linked to the cosmic movement of the sun and fell into the Underworld; but, because they possessed supernatural powers,
they were reborn into the Sky World and became gods. Death from natural causes was universally dreaded among the Maya,
particularly because the dead did not automatically go to paradise. Ordinary people were buried beneath the floors of their houses,
their mouths filled with food and a jade bead, accompanied by religious articles and objects they had used when alive. The graves of
priests contained books.
Great nobles were cremated - a practice of Mexican origin - and funerary temples were placed above their urns. In earlier days,
nobles had been buried in sepulchres beneath mausoleums. Some Maya even mummified the heads of dead lords. These were
then kept in family oratories and "fed" at regular intervals.
Following the Spanish conquest, there was a great deal of overlap between Maya and Catholic belief systems. Some archaeologists
have suggested that the systems were similar in many respects: both burned incense during rituals; both worshipped images; both
had priests; both conducted elaborate pilgrimages based on a ritual calendar.
Most Maya today observe a religion composed of ancient Maya ideas, animism and
Catholicism. Some Maya still believe, for example, that their village is the ceremonial centre
of a world supported at its four corners by gods. When one of these gods shifts his burden,
they believe, it causes an earthquake. The sky above them is the domain of the Sun, the
Moon and the stars; however, the Sun is clearly associated with God the Father or Jesus
Christ. The Moon is associated with the Virgin Mary.
Many Maya are convinced that the mountains which surround them are analogous to the
ancient temple-pyramids. Mountains and hills are also thought to be the homes of ancestral
deities: elderly father and mother figures who are honoured in the home with prayers and
offerings of incense, black chickens, candles and liquor. In many Maya villages, traditional
shamans continue to pray for the souls of the sick at mountain shrines. The Maya also
believe in an Earth Lord - a fat, greedy half-breed who lives in caves and cenotes, controls all
waterholes, and produces lightning and rain.
There is also a supernatural belief in the spirits of the forest. Some villages today have four
pairs of crosses and four jaguar spirits or balam at the village's four entrances, in order to
keep evil away. In agricultural rites, deities of the forest are still invoked, and it is still believed
that evil winds loose in the world cause disease and sickness.
