The Mayan civilization begun about 3000 years ago. Contrary to what people say the Mayan Culture is not one unified culture but it is a group of cultures with similar backgrounds. Similar to the Greek the Mayan Culture is artistic and religious.
Geography
The Mayan Civilization started around present day Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Mexico. It was separated into 2 different parts called the Highlands and the Lowlands. The highland climate was temperate and also had lots of volcano's making the ground fertile. Also in the Highland they found many minerals including jade, obsidian, cinnabar, and hematite. In contrast the Lowlands were drier and cooler. During the dry season or February through May the air was intensely hot and uncomfortable. At this time of year the fields had been recently cut and had to be burned according to the slash and burn form of agriculture. This possibly happened because they thought the land would be more fertile. The Mayans grew squash, beans, peppers, amaranth, manioc, cocoa, cotton for light cloth, and sisal for heavy cloth and rope.
Here are some of the main archaeological sites that are part of the Mayan Culture.
- Chichèn Itza in Mexicans Yucatan has the famous huge pyramid of the sun. Chichen Itza is basically it's own calender. The 4 sides of the monument have 91 stairs each. If you multiply the stairs times the sides you get 364. Then including the one stair on top 365. This is how and days we have in a year.
- Palanque stands at the foothills of the Chiapas Highlands. It was built as a portal to the 8th century, where Mayan kings might defeat the Lord Death and return in dreams and visions. In the observatory tower at the center of Palanque palace small portals were aligned to enable the sighting of Venus throughout the year at its first appearance on the horizon. This was the signal to begin war.
- Copan was one of the largest Mayan cities and is located further south in the old civilization near Honduras. At Copan is the best preserved of the ancient sacred ball courts, and a temple with the longest stone inscription in the western hemisphere- some of the most extensive and best material giving promise for decoding the hieroglyphic language. In Mimi II one of the sidebar scientific expeditions visits David Stuart the youth who began translating mayanglyphichs at age 9 in Copan.
- Cuello is the oldest excavated Mayan settlement dating back to 2500 B.C. Belize sponsored the summer excavation of a early Mayan rock cave site near an area close to Cuello.
- Tulum was a sea coast fortress and a port city for the vast trading empire the Mayan established, perhaps allied to the Olmec Civilization to the north. At Tulum a small temple arch just frames the rising sun on the Winter Solstice when the viewer is seated in a stone throne built in the wall surrounding Tulum. Tulum is where the smugglers shipped out artifacts.
- Coba is a Yucatan peninsula buried in the jungle but the Mayans knew the city. It is the jumping point of the undiscovered Site U which is being looted. Coba was actually famous because it was the point where Chac Balam was lost. This is big because he didn't have a stone inscription about his death. He was probably caught by his enemies.
Birth of the Mayan Civilization
The earliest Mayan settlements date to around 1800 B.C., or the beginning of what is called the Formative Period. The earliest Mayan were agricultural, growing crops such as corn, beans, squash, and manioc. During the Middle Formative Period, which lasted until about 300 B.C., Maya farmers began to expand their presence both in the highland and lowland regions. In addition to agriculture, the Formative Mayan also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments.
Middle of Mayan Civilization
The Classic Period, which began around A.D. 250, was the golden age of the Maya Empire. Classic Maya civilization grew to some cities, including Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, Bonampak, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Palenque and Río Bec; each city held a population of between 5,000 and 50,000 people. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,000,000.The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn. The Mayan's also built many temples and palaces with the step shape.
Customs
Death
The ancient Mayan believed that life and death are cyclical, like the seasons and astronomical cycles. These cycles spiral through time without begging or end and when one would end another would begin. Death rituals were very important to the society. Mayan's believed those who died by suicide, sacrifice, and in battle were sent to heaven immediately. The guilty or evil suffered eternally in Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. Mayan burial rituals were elaborate. As the archaeologists discovered, the dead person usually had a death mask made of jade, which ensured the recognition of the person in there afterlife. When they buried kings they buried them with animals. They thought this would help because dogs could help as guides in heaven. They buried regular people with clay dogs to help them in there afterlife.
The Ancient Ball Game
The Mayans used to play a game kind of like soccer. This game was played every March 23th during the spring equinox. Each team had seven players. At the end of the match one of the 14 players was sacrificed. This happened because the creator god had used so much of his blood, that the Mayans were repaying him with their own blood. The people were chosen from 7 different kingdom's.The leader's of each team were from the kingdom hosting the games. At the beginning of the game a ball was thrown up. After that the players had to use everything except there hands to get the ball into a goal. The game started sunrise and the game ended at sunset. At the end of the game the leader of the winning team was sacrificed. I know you're thinking what, but back then it was a honor to be sacrificed.
Snakes and Jaguars
Most of the Mayan Temples railings have a snake head on the end. This happened because the snake was one of there most respected animals. Also the god death, Ah Pooch, had a snake head. They also respected jaguars ( Go Jacksonville Jaguars). The snake was the symbol of the day and the jaguar was the symbol of the night. Many death burial graves had pictures of snakes and jaguars on them.
End of Mayan Civilization
From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Mayan civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A.D. 900, Maya civilization in that region had collapsed. The reason for this mysterious decline is unknown, though scholars have developed several competing theories. Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. Others believe a long drought made no food. That leads to death because of starvation.
