Within that expanse, the Maya lived in three separate sub-areas with distinct environmental and cultural differences: the northern Maya lowlands on the Yucatan Peninsula; the southern lowlands in the Peten district of northern Guatemala and adjacent portions of Mexico, Belize and western Honduras; and the southern Maya highlands, in the mountainous region of southern Guatemala.
Most famously, the Maya of the southern lowland region reached their peak during the Classic Period of Maya civilization A. The earliest Maya settlements date to around B. The earliest Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as corn maize , beans, squash and cassava manioc. During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about B.
The Middle Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic Maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments. The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Its size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, and its existence proves that the Maya flourished centuries before the Classic Period. The Classic Period, which began around A. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,, or as many as 10,, Excavations of Maya sites have unearthed plazas, palaces, temples and pyramids , as well as courts for playing the famous Maya ball game ulama , all ritually and politically significant to Maya culture.
Maya cities were surrounded and supported by a large population of farmers. The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn. They were thought to serve as mediators between the gods and people on earth, and performed the elaborate religious ceremonies and rituals so important to the Maya culture.
The Classic Maya built many of their temples and palaces in a stepped pyramid shape, decorating them with elaborate reliefs and inscriptions. These structures have earned the Maya their reputation as the great artists of Mesoamerica.
Guided by their religious ritual, the Maya also made significant advances in mathematics and astronomy , including the use of the zero and the development of complex calendar systems like the Calendar Round, based on days, and later, the Long Count Calendar, designed to last over 5, years.
Serious exploration of Classic Maya sites began in the s. By the early to midth century, a small portion of their system of hieroglyph writing had been deciphered, and more about their history and culture became known.
Most of what historians know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments. The Maya also made paper from tree bark and wrote in books made from this paper, known as codices; four of these codices are known to have survived.
They are also credited with some of the earliest uses of chocolate and of rubber. One of the many intriguing things about the Maya was their ability to build a great civilization in a tropical rainforest climate. Traditionally, ancient peoples had flourished in drier climates, where the centralized management of water resources through irrigation and other techniques formed the basis of society. This was the case for the Teotihuacan of highland Mexico, contemporaries of the Classic Maya.
In the southern Maya lowlands, however, there were few navigable rivers for trade and transport, as well as no obvious need for an irrigation system. These eras are briefly described here, but will be more fully covered in later articles. Once the Spanish arrived in and conquered, the Colonial Era began. The Spanish brought European diseases that killed millions of Mesoamericans, including the Maya.
Nevertheless, Mayans survived to the present time and still live on the same lands as their ancestors. Over the centuries, Mayans built hundreds of stone cities, some of which were prominent in one era but faded into obscurity in later years. After a period of recovery, new Mayan cities were built and the culture continued to flourish. The Maya were not a single group of people; rather they were different tribes, clans and families of people, speaking a variety of Mayan languages who all shared strong cultural ties and traditions.
The strength of Maya culture and civilization is evidenced by the great span of time it dominated Mesoamerica, over 3, years. Scholars debate the beginning of Maya civilization, but generally place the first settlements around B. When the Spanish arrived in Central America in the 16th century, the diseases they brought devastated the Maya. Additionally, the Spanish forced many of the Maya to convert to Christianity, going so far as to burn their religious books.
This is the reason why so few Maya codices survive today. However, Maya people live on today and can be found all over the world. The Maya are not a single entity, a single community, or a single ethnic group. However, the Maya are an indigenous group tied both to their distant past as well as to events of the last several hundred years," wrote Richard Leventhal, Carlos Chan Espinosa and Cristina Coc in the April edition of Expedition magazine , a peer-reviewed magazine from the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.
The Popol Vuh was written between and , according to Britannica , during the protracted conquest of the region by Spanish forces. The stories in the Popol Vuh tell how the forefather gods Tepew and Q'ukumatz "brought forth the earth from a watery void, and endowed it with animals and plants. Creating sentient beings proved more difficult, but eventually humans were created, including the hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who embarked on a series of adventures, which included defeating the lords of the underworld.
Their journey climaxed with the resurrection of their father, the maize god. The late Robert Sharer, who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, noted in his book " Daily Life in Maya Civilization " Greenwood Press, that the ancient Maya believed everything "was imbued in different degrees with an unseen power or sacred quality," called k'uh, which meant "divine or sacredness.
Caves played a special role in Maya religion, as they were seen as entranceways to the underworld. Sharer noted that the ancient Maya followed a number of deities, the most important of which was Itzamnaaj. Other ancient Maya deities included the sun god K'inich Ajaw, the rain and storm god Chaak and the lightning deity K'awiil, among many others.
The Maya believed that each person had a "life force," and that draining a person's blood in a temple could give some of this life force to a god. In , archaeologists identified an arrowhead containing the blood of a person who may have participated in a blood-letting ceremony. In times when water was scarce, Maya kings and priests would hold incense-scattering ceremonies that they believed could provide wind and rain.
In , archaeologists in Belize discovered a Maya pendant inscribed with 30 hieroglyphs that researchers believe was used in these ceremonies, Live Science previously reported. Hallucinogenic substances were also used in religious ceremonies to help the Maya try to contact spirits and seek advice on how to deal with problems or situations. Ancient Maya religion also included stories of dangerous creatures such as the sea monster Sipak. Fossilized teeth from the extinct sharks Carcharodon megalodon were used as sacred offerings at several Maya sites, and research suggests that stories involving Sipak were inspired by the fossilized remains of these massive, extinct sharks.
According to Sharer, human sacrifices were made on special occasions. The victims were often prisoners of war, he noted.
Additionally, near the site's ball court, there is a panel that shows a person being sacrificed. This may depict a ball-player from either the winning or losing team being killed after a game. Sharer noted that record keeping was an important part of the Maya world and was essential for agriculture, astronomy and prophecy. Additionally, by "recording the movements of the sky deities sun, moon, planets, and stars , they developed accurate calendars that could be used for prophecy," Sharer wrote.
The movements of the planet Venus appear to have played a particularly important role in ancient Maya religion.
Two Maya books, called the Dresden and Grolier codices, contain detailed records of the movements of the planet.
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