9.22.2018

MYSTERIES OF THE MAYA

Chichén Itzá
Deep in the rainforests of Mexico lie the ruins of an ancient civilisation.

Mesoamerica was home to some of the most iconic civilisations of the world, each with its own unique achievements. The Aztecs had their elite warriors, the Incas their engineering marvels, and the Maya made apocalyptic predictions. However, the Maya were responsible for much more than the 2012 Doomsday headlines.

Accomplished mathematicians, artists, astronomers and architects, they even developed the first writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas.

The Maya ruled much of Mexico and northern Central America, pre-dating the Aztec and Inca empires. Unlike their successors, the Maya did not have a single ruler or centralised authority, their realm instead comprising a collection of city states ruled independently by kings but united in their beliefs and culture. Religion was fiercely important, and they built towering temples to worship their pantheon of gods – there were as many as 250! It was these temples that led 20th-century archaeologists to believe these settlements were “vacant ceremonial centres”, inhabited only by priests. They were a peaceful community of forest dwellers – or so those who studied their ways thought.

In reality, war was not uncommon between these Maya cities, often sparked by rivalry over trade and territory, and the victors would leave with more than just status. Prisoners of war were ritually sacrificed, their skulls displayed on wooden trophy racks called tzompantli. The Maya believed human sacrifice would appease and nourish the gods, who had spilled their own blood to create humankind. Even the elite mutilated themselves, usually with stingray spines or blades made from obsidian.

One gruesome carving depicts King Shield Jaguar II holding a flaming torch over his wife, Lady Xook, who is pulling a barbed rope across her tongue. These gruesome rituals were thought to be a way of communicating with the supernatural world for guidance. Once blood was spilled onto cloth, it would be burned and the ‘vision serpent’ would appear in the smoke – a conduit for the gods or spirits of royal ancestors from the Underworld.

The Maya saw the universe as a great Tree of Life. The Middleworld (Earth) was the trunk, the Underworld was the roots and the Upperworld was the branches. Both the Upper and Underworld were feared and revered – they were where deities and spirits resided – but parts of the Middleworld could tap into these supernatural spheres too. Caves and cenotes (water-filled sinkholes) were considered portals to the Underworld. The word ‘cenote’ actually originates from the Maya word for ‘sacred well’, but rather than tossing in a few coins and making a wish, they made offerings in the form of human bodies, ceramics, sculptures and jewels. Their only wish was that this would be enough to keep the gods happy. Incurring their wrath would unleash famine, disease and other horrors upon their population.

On a practical level, these cenotes provided a fresh water supply for farming, which is another reason why many Maya cities were built in close proximity to them. For example, the temple of El Castillo in Chichén Itzá is near to cenotes in the north, east, south and west, and archaeologists believe an entrance to yet another subterranean sinkhole lies underneath the pyramid. This suggests that the Maya chose this site because of its religious significance.

The design and orientation of temples and other buildings were also influenced by the night sky – considered to be the Upperworld. Like much older civilisations, the Maya were keen astronomers. They thought of the sky as a double-headed serpent that swallowed the Sun and the Moon in the west, only for them to reappear in the east. The fact their words for snake and sky were very similar was probably no coincidence.

Astronomy was used to plan the Maya ceremonial calendar, in particular the position of Venus. This bright light captured their attention – they saw it as an omen of war and rulers would even organise military campaigns according to the planet’s movements.

Observations of the skies also informed farmers when to plant and harvest their crops. The Maya relied on a diet of mostly maize, squash and beans to feed their large population, but the challenging terrain of the rainforest wasn’t ideal for agriculture. Instead, they developed an ingenious solution. Canals were built between wetlands to divert the water to where it was needed. They also created raised beds alongside these canals so the crops were safe from the waterlogged soil. Maize was hugely important to the Maya – it didn’t just nourish them, it gave them life. According to their creation story, the gods made humans from ground maize and blood.

The majority of the Maya were farmers – men cultivated the crops and women prepared the meals – and they were the lowest in society’s pecking order. Next were the merchants and artisans, who traded goods with other city states and produced art to give thanks to the gods. Then came priests – the keepers of knowledge. They recorded key events using their own writing system of hieroglyphics, used mathematics to calculate the time and movement of the planets, and performed ceremonial rituals. The only people more important than priests were the nobles and the king, who had complete power over their city. They occupied enormous palaces – one was the size of several football pitches – and were thought to become gods after death.

Clearly the Maya way of life heavily revolved around the supernatural, but that didn’t stop them from being a little superficial too. In Maya society an elongated head shape was all the rage, so parents would flatten their babies’ soft skulls with wooden boards to create the desired effect. It’s thought that this beauty trend may have been inspired by a beloved maize god whose head vaguely resembled a husk of corn. Kernels may have also inspired the fashion for filing teeth into points. The wealthy would have holes carved into their enamel to hold precious stones, such as jade. This material was valuable to the Maya because it was associated with water and the colour of the maize plant. Ear, lip and nose piercings were also popular, while some brave Maya opted to have tattoos, which were carved into the skin. Plenty of jade jewellery and bright body paint completed the look.

The Maya thrived from 250 to 900 CE, what historians call the Classic Period. But then something happened that triggered entire cities to be abandoned. What exactly caused this is still debated – deforestation, drought, wars – and speculation is rife. Some communities survived but by the 11th century the Maya were past the peak of their powers.

When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the mid-1500s they were eventually overpowered. Bows, arrows and swords made of obsidian were no match for modern technology. The Spanish were armed with iron, steel, gunpowder and carried with them foreign diseases. The latter proved fatal for the majority of the remaining Maya population. Their cities were left in ruins and their written records were destroyed – only four books (codices) remain today. Yet despite the odds, archaeologists are constantly making new discoveries, and we know substantially more than we did even a few decades ago. There could be more secrets yet to be revealed.

**********

The Maya Way of Life

1. Cities

No single empire existed but many independent city states with their own rulers, united in their beliefs and views.

2. Beliefs

These pyramid-like temples were sacred and used for rituals, including human sacrifice.

3. Hunting and fishing

Nets and spears were used for catching fish, but they also hunted deer, dogs, rabbits and other animals.

4. Food

Women prepared meals of maize, squash and beans. Animals were also eaten, including dogs and iguanas.

5. Art and craft

The Maya are famous for their stone sculptures, pottery, weaving and carvings.

6. Ball games

Two teams would compete to get a rubber ball through a stone ring, with the losers – and sometimes winners – being ritually sacrificed afterwards.

**********

The Wheels of Time

The Maya used three calendars simultaneously: the Tzolk’in, the Haab’ and the Long Count. The Tzolk’in lasts for 260 days and has a cycle of 20 periods of 13 days. The days are numbered from one to 13, and they each have a name represented by a symbol (glyph). This calendar was used to schedule religious ceremonies.

The Haab’ is a 365-day calendar divided into 18 months of 20 days each, and one month of five ‘unlucky’ days. This measures the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, but it doesn’t account for the extra quarter-day the Earth needs to complete its journey (which is why we have leap years). The Haab’ has an outer ring of glyphs that symbolise the 19 months, while dots and bars indicate the days.

Meanwhile, the Long Count tracks what the Maya called the ‘universal cycle’ of 2,880,000 days (around 7,885 solar years). The Maya believed the universe is destroyed and re-created every cycle. One of the cycles ended during the 2012 winter solstice, which triggered the prediction that the world would end on 21 December 2012.

**********

The End of the Maya

By the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s, many Maya cities were already in ruin. They had been abandoned hundreds of years before, leaving experts clueless as to why. One theory is that warfare tore them apart, and a recent gruesome discovery supports this. The skeletons of 31 assassinated royals and nobles were unearthed in the ruins of the Maya city Cancuén. The area was abandoned soon after, as were other nearby cities.

Others believe collapsing trade routes, diseases or severe droughts were to blame, and recent evidence suggests the latter certainly dealt a crippling blow. Scientists have found that rainfall plummeted by half during the period of the Maya’s demise, sometimes by as much as 70 per cent. This drought would have turned land to desert, evaporating water from lakes and dooming crops to dust. Perhaps as a sign of their desperation, masks of the Maya rain god Chaac can be found among the ruins. The Classic era of the Maya had come to an end, but some major cities like Chichén Itzá continued to thrive until the Spanish arrived on their shores.

Written by Jodie Tyley in "How It Works", UK, issue 116, 2018, excerpts pp. 72-77. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments...