The history of the Maya

Lost Civilizations (@lostcivilizations)

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The classic period

The classic civilization of the Maya is the only culture of pre-Columbian America that knew writing. In the plains of Petén and Yucatan for six centuries great monumental centers flourished with towering stone pyramid-temples faced with stucco, with buildings of many rooms termed "palaces", with chambers covered by "false arch" vaults, with buildings connected by causeways, with masonry spheristers, with monumental inscriptions, with well-kept burials under the buildings, accompanied by rich offerings and, in some cases, by human sacrifices. During the Classic Period (300-900) the Maya from the high lands differed from the rest of the Maya by no longer using writing and stones in architecture.

THE LATE CLASSICAL PERIOD

The Mayan political system represented a scenario of great fragmentation, comparable to the Etruscan, Sumerian or Greek city-states. It appears that the Maya were in a state of constant war and that the main objective was the capture of high-ranking prisoners to be sacrificed after prolonged torture. The Maya ruling class made up of aristocracies gave high importance to the devotion to the patron deities of the families who had given birth to the princely dynasties. Rulers were directly descended from the gods. In the Late Classic Period, Maya civilization reached its apogee in the central Petén area, the Usumacinta Basin, and finally western Honduras. The centers are formed by successive aggregation and it is difficult to estimate the demographic density, which is constantly changing.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION

At the end of the 9^th century AD, an extraordinary transformation, of a catastrophic nature, determined the extinction of the Maya civilization in the central area: the cities were abandoned and only in the north, in the area of Puuc continued to be occupied. Various hypotheses have been formulated to explain this sudden and total collapse, but for now they are unsatisfactory. It seems that some groups of aristocrats from the central area settled in northern Yucatàn: with them began in this area the last phase of the Maya civilization, considerably transformed. In the central area only small groups reverted to nomadic forms remained which, while the Pipil, Mexican people, had infiltrated the southern area.

THE TOLTECS AND THE END OF THE MAYANS

While the Mayan centers in Yucatàn survived, towards the end of the X century the civil struggles of the Toltecs of Tula pushed the vanquished party to emigrate; thus came King Quetzalcoatl, who made Chichén Itza his capital, giving life to a Mayan-Toltec hybrid city.

Subsequent events saw the formation of new cities and the formation of a league: for two centuries a culture flourished which recovered aspects of the two civilizations, the Maya and the Toltec. Natural scourges and epidemics followed one another during the 15^th century in Yucatàn, until the conquistadors appeared and decreed the end of the ancient Maya civilization.

The religion of the Maya and its social and political influence

A spiritual leader of the Spaniards in Yucatàn, the fanatical bishop Diego de Landa, ordered that the documents had to be destroyed, since they were pagan writings and therefore the words of the devil. And so a great bonfire was made in a public square of the city of Mani and most precious manuscripts were burned. A Spanish chronicler who recorded the scene wrote that when the manuscripts were thrown into the fire the people "gave a great cry of pain". This is no cause for wonder, said Edward Thompson, an archaeologist who worked extensively in that area, because the people saw

"not only their belongings burned in the blazing fire, but also the written records, the accumulated wisdom of their race go into smoke and ashes."

The destruction of the written record of this industrious people deprived future scholars of an irreplaceable treasure. However, three Mayan sacred texts survived, from which we can obtain information on their civilization.

These are:

• the Popol Vuh ("book of the pasture"), which tells the story of the Mayan people of the Quiché (it was published in 1721 by the Dominican friar F. Ximenez with the title Historia del origen del los Indios de ésta provincia de Guatemala)
• the writings of the Chilam Balam ("jaguar haruspic priests"), which refer to the traditions of the Tutul Xiu people of the city of Mani and to the events of the Xahila family
• the books of the Quiché and the Kakchiquel

The Mayan pantheon was very rich, as there were gods for almost every human activity and natural phenomenon. In the most ancient times the religious practices of the Maya were connected to the forces of nature which had a preponderant influence on daily life: the sun, the moon, the rain. The earth was conceived as flat and square. The sky was supported by four Bacabs, species of Atlantes, positioned near the cardinal points. The sky was then divided into thirteen levels to which a divinity corresponded, while the lower world had nine. Earth was the back of a crocodile resting in a lake full of lilies and Heaven was a serpent with two heads. In the configuration of the world the Maya distinguished nine spheres of heaven, the Upper World, and nine of the underworld, the Lower World. The highest celestial sphere is inhabited by the generating couple; according to tradition, the earth was shaped and formed by the gods before the creation of man, generated from an ear of corn after two failed attempts, one with clay, the other with wood.

To prepare for the most important ceremonies, the Maya had to observe fasting, abstention from sexual intercourse and confession of sins. Among the cultural ceremonies, the sacrificial functions had particular importance, which involved the offering of blood and even (although rarely) of human lives; in general, different species of animals were used, especially birds and dogs, together with products of the earth (corn, fruit and flowers).

A fact that largely highlights the great presence of religion in Mayan culture is the composition of the social hierarchy, at the top of which was the priestly caste ah kin ("the solar"), headed by the ahaucan ("prince of snakes"). The higher-ranking priests dealt with the scientific aspects, from writing to observing the stars, from sacred architecture to medical practices. Lower-ranking priests presided over the sacrifices.
Even the game of pelota took on a sacred character for the Maya, as it was believed that it could influence the course of the sun in the sky. The rite, which is mentioned in the sacred book of Popol Vuh, was a sacrificial game during which the fight was represented between the mythical brothers Hun Hunahpu ("flower of one") and Vucub Hunahpu ("flower of seven") defeated and cast into the Underworld by the death deities Hun Came (“death of one”) and Vubun Came (“death of seven"). During these competitions, which took place in sacred places surrounded by walls, the ball had to pass through stone rings fixed to the wall.

In Mayan burials, the corpse was accompanied by some objects that could be more or less rich depending on the social status of the deceased. The equipment of the less well-off people was in fact different and of lesser value; it consisted of crudely made objects of both pottery and stone. Burials also changed according to the social class to which the deceased belonged. The less important class used to bury the dead in large low-lying artificial mounds of beaten earth, in which sometimes more than fifty individuals were placed. The most important class, on the other hand, was deposited in heaps of higher heights, which contained only one person. Cremation was also used in some places, commonly for leaders.

The ashes were enclosed in large terracotta censers, or in special undecorated containers. A very rich grave goods accompanied the remains of a shaman; one of the kits found, for example, contained objects of particular wealth and rarity and consisted of ten containers of shells and fragments of quartz used for practices of prophecy and magic; there were two turtle shells, symbols of the earth's surface, also used as musical instruments, and fragments of mica and small shells which originally belonged to a mirror. Finally there was some showy decorative jewels which served as personal adornment, magical object and ritual offering. Pins used by the Shaman for ritual self-sacrifices have been found. The kit could also contain weapons of obsidian or flint and personal ornaments often of jadeite.

Small encyclopedia of Mayan gods

Ah Bolon-Caan-Chac: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Ah Bolon Yoctè: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Ah Hoyab: "the Sprinkler", name taken in some cases from the god Chac.

Ah Kinchil: "lord face of the Sun". In Mayan mythology he is the god of the Sun. Considered a manifestation of Itzamnà. He was married to Ixchel, goddess of the Moon. According to legend, the god, tired of his partner's repeated betrayals, ripped out her eye and for this reason the Moon is less bright than the Sun.

Ah Puch: in Mayan mythology he is the god of death. Often associated with the god of war and the bird Moam, god of the Clouds, is depicted as a skeleton carrying his glyph in his hand.

Ahau Chamahez: he is together with Cit Bolom Tum the Mayan god of medicine.

Ah Bolom Tzacab: the god of agriculture.

Ahmakiq: Mayan god of agriculture. When the wind threatens to destroy the crop he locks it up.

Akhushtal: Mayan goddess of childbirth.

Alaghom Naom: she is the Mayan goddess of earth, abundance and hope. She is the inspirer of men's thoughts and advice.

Alom: god of the sky. One of the seven gods who participated in the creation of the world.

Ampo: Mayan god of frogs.

Bacabs:it means “children” and they are the four archaic gods who support the universe, representing the four cardinal points. A sort of Atlanteans who, as supporters of the world, are mentioned in the Chilam Balam code. Bacabs have no distinct names; they are the four Gods, which are part of that numerical symbology of the Maya which indicates the divinities with numbers. According to the ancient text Rituals of the Bacabs, discovered by William Gates and translated by E. Wilkins in 1919, everything in Mayan cosmogony takes place on the basis of the number four: four are the major Gods; four real Men; four the Ages of the Maya; four corners of the temples and four colors. They were later associated with the four Chacs.

Balam: "jaguar", god of the Underworld, corresponding to the Aztec Tepeotl.

Bolomac: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Bolon-Hacmaz: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Bolon-Hobon : divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Bolon Mix: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Bolon-Mayel: divinity of the underworld, of the Bolontikù group.

Bolontikù: they are the nine ancestral deities of the Mayan-Toltec religion. According to the Mayan numerical symbology, which indicates the deities with numbers, the Bolontikù are called the nine gods (characterized bybolon "nine" in the name) and represent the lower world, the Michtlan. They are: Bolon-Mayel, Bolontzacab, Bolon-Hacmatz, Ah-Bolon-Yoctè, Ah Bolon-Caan-Chac, Bolon-Hobon, Cit-Bolon Tun, Bolomac, Bolon Imix. They are the most important gods after the 13 deities collectively defined as Oxlahuntiku.

Camazotz: the bat-god of the Maya.

Chac: “god of thunder”, “god of rain”; he was depicted in the act of catching fire, which symbolizes lightning. He corresponds to the Aztec Tlaloc. He was considered a benevolent god in some cases and areas (the less arid ones) due to his function as bringer of rain, necessary for the success of the crops, but he also assumed negative values, as a personification of Thunder and Lightning. Often the god Chac was accompanied by frogs and toads as musicians. He is also from the agricultural and vegetable world and as such is famous for the large number of representations. In the Death glyph aspect he is characterized by a long, proboscis-shaped nose, ball eyes, horned ears, and fanged teeth protruding from a satanic mouth; this glyph is present everywhere in Mayan architecture, endlessly repeated on the facades of monuments, at the corners of temples and even above the doors, as an ornamental motif. As a river god, he appears in the act of pouring water, a symbol of fertility, from a large vase. In the vast Mayan iconography, four types of Chac are distinguished, represented by the four cardinal points, each distinguished by a particular colour:

1. Chac-Xib-Chac the Red or Chac of the East;
2. Sac-Xib-Chac the White or Chac of the North;
3. Kan-Xib-Chac the Yellow or Southern Chac;
4. Ek-Xib-Chac the Black or Chac of the West.

The four Chacs were often combined with the four Bacabs of the cardinal points. There was also an agricultural Chac, who was considered the good brother of Yum Kax, god of Corn. Virgins were sacrificed to him in the Cenotes.

Chirakan-Ixmucane: the four gods who created the world. Each split in two creating four more (female) deities.

Cit Bolom Tun: is together with Ahau Chamaez the Mayan god of medicine. He belongs to the Bolontikù group.

Cohui: another name of the god of Corn in Colhuacàn.

Ekahau: is the Mayan god protector of travelers and merchants.

Ek Chuah: god of war, later called Hun Pic Tock, "captain of a troop of eight thousand men". He was a malevolent deity, sometimes also considered the god of Death, he assumed a positive value in times of peace as the protector of travelers.

Hunabku merchants: from hunab, "one" and ku, "god"; he is the Supreme Being revered in Yucatan. Mayan God of the Fourth Age; creator of the terrestrial world and of the four Bacabs. As a civilizer, Hunabku is reborn on Earth and becomes the agricultural god of the Maize civilization. In the Popol Vuh he is mentioned as a cosmogonic god of the Fourth Age, created by the superior deities after the destruction of the previous three worlds. His wife is the goddess Ixquic, who is also twice his size, therefore mother of the Creator and divine ancestor of all Mayan women. The first born of this primordial couple are imperfect men, created with saliva.

Hunakau: "the chief"; he rules over the metnal, the realm of the dead, and is usually depicted with a skeleton, or with a rotten body.

Huracan: “with only one leg”; he is a deity of thunder and storm as well as fertility. He one of the four supporters of the world; primordial god of creation, who reveals himself in the four manifestations which are also his brothers:

1. Huracàn himself, or rather the Hurricane;
2. Cuculhà Huracàn, the Thunderbolt;
3. Cipi Cuculhà, the Thunder;
4. Razà Cuculhà, the Reflection, the most beautiful light blue ray.

He is the terrible god of storms who rules over the other gods. In the Copan statuary the four brothers, in addition to representing the four props of the world, synthesize the totality of the natural world. From Hurakan, also called Ug ux cah ("lord of the sky"), descended Orkan and Hurrikan.

Ix Cheb Yax: another aspect of the goddess Ixchel, as goddess of crafts, weaving and the tides.

Ixchel: means "woman who acts" and is the goddess of the earth and the moon, as well as fertility and childbirth, and a symbol of profane love and immorality. The Maya represented her with only her head, without a bust, to keep faith with a pre-Aztec legend according to which the goddess Luna had been beheaded out of jealousy by her husband Sun. According to the Popol Vuh, the spouses Moon-Sun would have fallen to Earth, becoming the progenitors of mankind. She is also the mother of all gods, the wisest and most powerful of all, goddess of the moon and waters. She is also called the Eagle-Woman. She is the unfaithful companion of Ah Kinchil, god of the Sun. Her glyph is made up of the plum flower, symbol of sexual pleasure.

Ixtab: "the lady of the rope", is the Mayan goddess of the hanged and of suicide, she has the task of receiving their souls in paradise, since in Mayan culture suicide was considered a positive act. She is part of the late Mayan Toltec mythology and not the classical pantheon. She is depicted as a woman hanged with a rope coming down from the sky, her eyes closed and her body already decomposing.

Itzamna: “the dripping house”, the sky; son of Hunabku and consort of Ixchel, he is the personification of the Sun, lord of the sky, god of sunlight and subterranean fire. God of fire, present in all Mesoamerican civilizations with different names, in Mayan mythology he was often associated with the sun god Ah Kinchil. His middle name, with reference to the solar disk, was Kinich Ahau ("the lord with the sun on his forehead"); in the Yucatàn he was designated by the name of Yaxcocahmut ("green firefly"). In the Mayan codes he is mentioned as the patron saint of priests, inventor of writing and science in general and is considered a divinity who is always well-disposed towards men, as he is seen not so much as a creator deity of the early universe as a kind of civilizing hero, very similar in this to the Gemini of the Popol Vuh. The glyph of his name has been traced to the Popol Vuh. Many scholars attribute the rather widespread habit among the Maya of inducing this defect, however considered by them a sign of distinction and nobility, in young people to his strabismus. It is depicted as a lizard with two heads. In his honor solemn feasts were celebrated, during which the animals sacred to him were sacrificed. His simulacrum was adorned with sumptuous clothes and jewels.

Kabrakan: means "earthquake" and is precisely the god of the earthquake.

Kan-U-Uayeyab: is the Mayan god placed to protect cities.

Kinich Kakmo: Mayan god of the sun.

Kisin: In Mayan mythology Kisin is considered the evil spirit of earthquakes. He lives in the depths of the earth in a sort of purgatory where he temporarily welcomes all souls, except those of warriors who died in battle and women who died in childbirth. Suicides are meant to stay there forever.

Ku: Mayan term meaning "Gods".

Kukulcan or Kukumatz: means "green feathered serpent", and has affinities with the Aztec feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl; protector of priests, a temple and a spring at Chichèn Itzà were consecrated to him.

Mitnal: "place of the dead"; it is the hell of Mayan mythology, where the souls of sinners are barbarously tortured.

Nacon: it is the Mayan god of war.

Opop: Mayan god of the month and of the festivities in honor of the jaguar.

Pauahtuns: another name of the four Bacabs.

Uo: Mayan god of Toads.

Yaxche: tree of Paradise under which the souls of the good rest.

Yumkaax: “lord of the woods”; he was the god of wheat and corn. Third divinity in order of importance after Itzamnà and Chac. He is depicted as a young boy with his hair braided with large maize leaves and holding an ear of maize in his hand. Sometimes considered Chac's brother. Yumkaax's companion is a goddess, of which very little is known. She is depicted as a buxom woman, with large breasts and all decorated on the head and body with maize leaves.

Xaman Ek: god of the North Star, but also considered the personification of every other star, patron of merchants, adventurers and navigators. He is depicted holding his own glyph and wearing the Moam bird on his head.

Zipakna: "bipedal";he is the god of the earth.

Mayan Calendars

August 10, 3113 BC, which some say is the day of creation, marks the beginning of the Mayan calendar. From the study of this calendar we learn how the Maya had perfected a sophisticated technique of measuring time.

They distinguished four calendars: the Tzolkin, the Haab, the Long Count and the Venus Calendar.

TZOLKIN, the religious calendar

The rather complex Tzolkin demonstrates the mathematical abilities of the Maya. Each day is characterized by a number, in a sequence of thirteen (Mayan sacred number), and by a name, in a sequence of twenty names of gods. So to be able to return to the starting point, a good 260 days must pass, which constitute precisely the duration of the religious year. This calendar is still in use among some tribes of the Guatemalan highlands. This scheme represents the cycle of days of the religious calendar: turning the wheel with the numbers ANTICLOCKWISE, and the one with the letters CLOCKWISE, matching each number a letter, we will obtain, in the point indicated by the arrow, the denominations of the various days according to the Mayan Tzolkin calendar, where the twenty letters indicate the names of the gods, and the numbers,

HAAB, the civil and solar calendar

The civil calendar, the Haab, was used by the Maya, parallel to the Tzolkin. The Haab consisted of 365 days: the year was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each, numbered from 0 to 19, and ended with five inauspicious days, the uayet, in which it was believed that the dead awoke from sleep eternal to take revenge for the wrongs suffered. Each month was also represented by its own glyph. Since the two calendars were used together, it was a usual practice for the Mayan civilization that the same day was indicated with two different dates; to return to the departure date, 52 calendar years had to pass. This period, called "The Tour of the Calendar", covered a very long space of time and its conclusion was solemnly celebrated, due to the Mayan obsession with time and its cycles. To address this phobia, the Mayans also assigned names to huge time periods, such as the Aulatun (64 million years), not required by any need of a practical nature, but which illustrate the mentality of the priests to dominate and capture time, pushing towards a very distant future, almost making infinity finite.

THE LONG COUNT, the calendar year

In classical times the Maya added a third calendar to the Tzolkin and Haab, called the Long Count, which had characteristics similar to the calendar currently used by our astronomers. It began on August 13, 3114 BC, and, built according to an original system with two notched wheels, it represented the integration of the other two calendars.

THE CALENDAR OF VENUS, an astronomical calendar

One of the oldest Mayan calendars is the Venus Calendar, an important compendium of astronomical calculations. Although dating back to about 3000 years ago, it still amazes today for the precision with which it predicts the eclipse.

This calendar is engraved on a large stone, once affixed to the Porta del Sole, in the center of Tiahuanaco, an Andean city near Lake Titicaca at an altitude of 4,000 metres. It is essentially the Haab calendar, combined with some characters of the Tzolkin and astronomical discoveries made by this people (especially those on Venus).

Customs and traditions

Some questionable traditions of the Maya were those of crushing the skull of newborns between two planks to "artificially" assume a flatter and more elongated shape. Although this custom could cause trauma in children, still having fragile bones, this physical appearance was viewed positively because it was more similar to that of the gods. Another custom was to make children cross-eyed through a small ball placed in front of their eyes, because this characteristic was also a symbol of beauty. Many Mayan traditions have been handed down to the present day and are still respected by the Indians, such as respect for nature (for mother earth), marriage, pregnancy, help and collaboration between village families.

Nature: the most important tradition concerns the true and proper respect for nature; the earth is considered a real mother and permission is asked to cultivate it with each sowing or for any other agricultural operation.

Marriage: according to Mayan traditions, it is the boy who goes to the house of the interested girl to make the marriage proposal. If the girl does not consent immediately, the boy still has two possibilities, after which he will never again be able to ask her in marriage. If the girl agrees instead, the boy must ask permission from the girl's family, which is responsible for the final decision. After which various meetings will be held between the parents of the two families who, having reached an agreement, will prepare the celebrations. During the marriage ritual, as in many others, part of the ceremony is performed in remembrance of the ancestors.

Pregnancy: when a woman is pregnant, for the period of pregnancy she must not see any other child and she must take long walks in the fields, to get in touch with nature and to make the child love her. For childbirth, even today, the woman cannot go to the hospital because the traditions forbid it. After birth, the placenta is burned and the baby is left alone with the mother for eight days. After this period the child is presented to the community with a big party.

The beauty

The canons of Mayan beauty decreed an elongated skull, a broad and aquiline nose, almond-shaped eyes, a sagging lower lip, a slightly retracted chin. As soon as they were born, the children were subjected to a flattening and compression treatment of the skull using leather straps, with aesthetic but also practical purposes: the upper part of the skull, thus elongated, offered perfect support for the transport nets. Children were induced to squint, a sign of social distinction, by suspending balls in front of their eyes. The earlobes were pierced and deformed to insert discs or hold huge pendants. Thus among the Maya there was a remarkable physical uniformity; pure-blood Mayans had straight or slightly wavy black hair and dark eyes. For tattoos, wooden tablets were used on which sharp fish teeth were fixed, this permanent and colored sign was associated with religious or magical rituals and was then also imported into Europe with different meanings. Less permanent but just as bloody were the wounds that the Maya got for ritual self-sacrifice by piercing their tongue or fingers to offer their blood as nourishment to the gods. The Mayans filed their teeth in many ways. It is likely that each design had a particular tribal or religious significance, because more than fifty different patterns have been identified. The incisor edges of some teeth were filed with a single incision, others with a double one; some had the distal parts of the rims removed, leaving the middle part intact, and some were engraved with dots. Thanks to Diego de Landa who left us numerous annotations on the civilization of the people, we know some of their practices, including the filing of the teeth. He says, referring to the Maya of Yucatan:

"They used to file their teeth and make them similar to those of a saw: they did this for vanity. The practice was performed by elderly women who used particular stones and water"

An interesting controversy has arisen around a skeleton fragment found in the south of the Maya area, in Esmeraldas in Ecuador (preserved today in the Collection of the Museum of the American Indian in New York City). This, first described by Marshall H. Saville in 1913, represents part of a jaw with all posterior teeth except third molars. The two incisors contain round gold inlays on their labial surfaces. It is quite evident that these two incisors were pressed into their sockets by fracturing the alveolar process. One of the incisors was filed down the medial aspect of the crown to fit the available space. Many specialists, especially Bernhard Weinberger, one of America's great dental historians, are from the opinion that this is a clear example of tooth transplantation from one individual to another. But Samuel Fastlicht of Mexico City, arguably the world's foremost authority on pre-Columbian dentistry, contradicts this hypothesis for one obvious reason: there is no bone regeneration in the fracture lines. Therefore the transplant was certainly done post-mortem, perhaps preparing the body for burial following religious beliefs similar to those of the ancient Egyptians.

However, there is clear evidence that the Maya practiced the implantation of alloplastic (non-organic) material in living people; in fact digging at Playa de los Muertos in the Ulúa Valley of Honduras in 1931, Wilson Popenoe and his wife found a fragment of jaw of Mayan origin, datable around 600 AD. This fragment, now in the Peadoby Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, was studied by Amadeo Bobbio of S. Paulo, Brazil, a world authority on implants. He observed three tooth-shaped pieces of shell that had been placed in the sockets of three missing lower incisor teeth; Contrary to an earlier opinion that they had been inserted after death, Bobbio demonstrated compact bone formation around two of the implants with X-rays in 1970, bone finding radiographically similar to that which would surround an endosseous implant today. Consequently, the fragment represents the oldest endosseous alloplastic implants discovered to date.

The members of the higher classes wore jade, obsidian or shell inlays in the incisors: a very painful practice, adopted on healthy teeth since it is not a matter of prostheses or caries fillings. Rulers had their noses reshaped with putty or nostril deformation to resemble Chac, the long-nosed rain god; the king's face was also subjected to scarification, with deep incisions on the skin. To bear the pain these characters chewed coca sheets or drank chocolate, which is the equivalent of today's grappa.

Writing

The Maya developed a hieroglyphic writing method and recorded history, mythology, and rituals in carved and painted inscriptions on stone slabs or columns, lintels, stairways, or other monuments. In addition, books of folded paper obtained from agave fibers were written, containing information on agriculture, climate, medicine, hunting and astronomy. In 1549, seven years after the partial conquest of the Indios Maya of Yucatàn, Father Diego de Landa arrived in Mérida, the capital of the territories. He strives by all means to eradicate the customs and beliefs of the people around him, to convert them to Catholicism. To this end, he comes to use a procedure that he considers very effective: a gigantic fire, in which all the indigenous books are burned. This rash, irreparable gesture will nevertheless be minimized by its author, who, moreover, does not understand its seriousness. In 1566, Father de Landa drew up the Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan. He reproduces in his work certain calendar glyphs and signs still in use in Yucatan at the time of his ministry. He saw them drawn in the "blasphemous" books that he had burned and provides us with the transcript. Father de Landa's work of destruction was unfortunately executed to perfection. Only three Mayan codices remain, all three discovered in Europe, where in all probability they had been sent by monks or soldiers at the time of the conquest.

Codex

These are the Codex Dresdensis, the Codex Tro-Cortesianus and the Codex Peresianus. The codes consist of long strips of ficus bark, beaten, impregnated with resin, then covered with a light layer of slaked lime on which glyphs, numbers, images of gods and animals are painted, always with the same colors: black, yellow, green, blue and red. The strips are about twenty-five centimeters wide, but several meters long; they were written first on one and then on the other side and were then folded like an accordion. The Codex Dresdensis, the most valuable, measures 3.50 meters in length and has 78 pages. It has belonged to the Dresden library since 1739. It is mainly a treatise on astronomy, but it also contains numerous horoscopes and some indications on rituals. Thanks to this code, E. Fostermann was able to decipher the internal structure of the Mayan calendar and the long account. The Codex Tro-Cortesianus is the longest (7.15m). It has one hundred and twelve pages and is located in the National Library of Madrid. It is in essence a book of divination, a sort of memo used by diviner priests. The Codex Peresianus is incomplete and in very bad condition (1.45m long). It has twenty-two pages. Treats of the gods of the katuns and the ceremonies relating to the succession of eleven such katuns. It belongs to the National Library of Paris. The glyphs of these codes are identical to certain glyphs appearing on the monuments of Petén and adjacent regions, as well as those in the work of Father Diego de Landa. Thanks to them, it was possible to establish the close cultural kinship existing between the Maya of the southern lands and the Maya of Yucatàn.

Books

The Popol Vuh, or "Book of Council", written in the Mayan language with Latin characters in the sixteenth century, provides us with information on the religion, mythology, emigration, history of the Quiché Maya, whose descendants still live on the highlands of Guatemala. It is a book of capital importance. But it was the Books of Chilam Balam, accounts in the Mayan language written in Latin characters in the centuries following the Spanish conquest, which allowed us to have the first historical evidence of the Maya of Yucatan. Their content is often extremely symbolic and contradictory. Nonetheless, the study of the monuments and the archaeological excavations carried out in the Mayan cities of Yucatan have confirmed, or clarified, numerous passages from these precious Indian books. For a long time the Maya writing, of ancient origin, was considered an invention of the Maya people themselves, but in reality, after the latest studies, it has become increasingly evident that it was the Olmecs, the northern neighbors of the Maya, who left them in legacy glyphography.

There were two ancient Maya writing styles: one monumental and one featuring handwritten glyphs on bark paper and buckskin. Both styles, signs of an ideographic, phonetic or mixed character, have for a long time presented a certain difficulty of interpretation.

Maya writing is ideographic because each character represents an abstract idea and also involves elements of rebus-type writing; it is pictographic and symbolic but not syllabic, although it contains a large number of phonetic elements. The complicated writing system elaborated by the Maya and the fact that they considered it a sacred gift granted by the Gods in favor of a select and privileged few meant that glyphography was jealously guarded by a small ruling elite who had, according to tradition, the power to mediate between the deities and the people.

Characteristics of writing

The Maya inscriptions were composed of rows of signs (glyphs) usually arranged in vertical columns which were therefore read from top to bottom or with a system of alternations between one row and another which varied according to whether the lines of signs present on the same monument were in even or odd number. Each of the glyphs could be composed of a main element and a series of affixes connected to it so as to form a complex design generally inscribed in a quadrangular or oval shape. A graphic rule that made the Mayan inscriptions particularly elegant and orderly. One of the main problems faced by decipherers is that the Maya could write each word of their language in different ways without altering the meaning. The various possible solutions have created considerable difficulties for scholars but, in some cases, have even proved to be useful. It is in fact known that a pictographic element of their writing could replace a syllable and thanks to this it was possible to identify the phonetic symbols that accompanied the known figure. Then there are the glyphs that have different meanings according to the context in which they are inserted and others that had the same pronunciation, but different meanings.

This exclusivity in the use of writing can bring to mind a typical character of other civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, which developed during the same historical period, which elaborated a type of writing in many ways similar to the Maya one, with the use of hieroglyphic characters and wedges form; for characters and purposes the Maya writing also appeared to have many affinities with the oriental scripts of India and China.

Another civilization, Phenicia, had the boast, with respect to the type of writing used by the aforementioned civilizations, of having invented the phonetic alphabet; a rather practical system born from the need to use a simple means to trade and communicate between men. However, we can find a fundamental difference between Phoenician and Mayan writing. The latter was born with the aim of handing down chronological data, the names and influences of the gods who presided over time, or again astronomical discoveries, and subsequently events linked to history, but not for commercial purposes (in fact glyphography was not never used to draw up contracts); the Phoenicians, on the other hand, perfected writing and invented the phonetic alphabet precisely to satisfy the need to record all commercial transactions accurately and with a practical and fast system.

Arithmetic

To write numbers, today we use the so-called positional system: this means that, if we read a number from right to left, in our base 10 or decimal system, each digit has a value ten times higher than that of the previous digit. For example, in the number 1987 we have 7 units, 8 tens, 9 hundreds, and 1 thousand, where the ten equals 10 units, the hundred equals 10 tens, and the thousand equals 10 hundreds. The Maya employed an equivalent system, but the numerical progression went from low to high, and each level was twenty times higher than the previous level (vigesimal or base 20 system). The figures were expressed by means of a dot, which stood for the unit, and a horizontal bar, equivalent to five. They could also be expressed by glyphs in the shape of a head.

Mayan observers

The Maya were very attentive to the motion of the stars, in fact they built their cities following particular alignments. Many cities were oriented towards the rising or setting of the Sun on the solstices, moreover the orientation took into account the latitude of the place, so that not all cities have the same absolute disposition, but relative to their own geographical position. Furthermore, the Maya used the axes of their cities and those of the most important buildings to determine the passage of the Sun to the zenith one or two months in advance. This moment was of particular importance since it coincided with the beginning of the rainy season, the most important of the agricultural year. There are numerous temples that present fundamental observation points for the life of the Maya. One of these is located in the ancient city of Uaxactum, Guatemala; there is a temple complex where from the top of the steps of a pyramid it was possible to observe the rising of the Sun on the solstices and equinoxes. In fact, on the summer solstice, the sun appeared in the morning on the north corner of a small temple located in front of the pyramid; at the equinoxes it stood behind the door of another sacred building and at the winter solstice it stood behind the south corner of a third temple. The best-known monument as an observatory is the Caracol (snail) of the city of Chichèn Itzà. It is a cylindrical tower placed on a square base, inside a spiral staircase leads to the upper floor where there are three windows from which astronomical observations were made. There were probably many more openings which unfortunately have been destroyed. The Caracol has numerous alignments, among them there is that of the access steps which point to the setting of the sun on the summer solstice. On the steps of the upper platform there is a niche in which two small columns (one white and one red) framed a person who, looking in front, could see the sunset of Venus when, every 8 years, it reached its maximum negative declination. You could also make alignments from the windows at the top of the tower: on the first you could observe the sunset at the equinoxes; the second pointed to the setting of Venus when it had the maximum negative declination and the third to the rising of Achernar, the main star of the constellation Eridanus. The study of the motion of Venus was very important, as can be seen from the tables of the Dresden Code which deal accurately with the predictions on the apparitions of this planet. It is also interesting to note that the Mayan temples all had 365 steps, one for each day of the year, to highlight even more how this people were good observers of the time.

Art & culture

The large stone stele depicting a ruler flanked by an inscription celebrating his deeds is a classic example of Mayan art. The art of this people was steeped in religion and political propaganda and was intended to represent the cosmological concepts that formed the context for the sovereign's power. Maya architects built massive buildings that symbolized the principal elements of the cosmos; the sculptors created steles, altars and bas-reliefs on which glyphic inscriptions often appear; we know the painters above all for the painted ceramics on which scenes relating to the life of the sovereigns abound, the main patrons of the works of art together with the members of the high nobility. The nobles were also destined for semi-precious stone jewels (jade in particular), shells and bone. The artists often belonged to the nobility and their activity was believed to be linked to the sacred forces of creation: for this reason they were characters held in high esteem and, given the content of their works, they must have been profound connoisseurs of cosmology, religion and the calendar.

The painters were also writers at the same time. As for architecture, the ruins of numerous cities built for religious ceremonies show the skill of the Maya in the field of architecture. These centers usually included various pyramidal bases, often surmounted by temples or other buildings, which in turn overlooked a large common square. The pyramids, generally of earth and rubble, were covered with stone blocks and were accessed via steep stairs, placed on one or more sides. The interior and exterior were painted in bright colors while decorations, painted wood carvings, stucco and stone mosaics embellished the facades. The common dwellings were probably similar to the brick and branch huts in which the descendants of the Maya still live today.

Stone working

The Maya were skilled at placing inlays of beautifully engraved stones into carefully prepared cavities in the upper and lower anterior teeth and, sometimes, in the premolar teeth. These inlays were made of a variety of minerals, including jadeite (a silicate related to and similar in appearance to oriental jade), iron pyrites, hematite (which they called "bloodstone"), turquoise, quartz, serpentine (which, when it is combined with dolomite, magnesite or calcite, looks similar to jade) and cinnabar, the mineral from which mercury is extracted. It is established that the cavities were made on living teeth. A hard round tube, similar to a drinking straw, made first of jade and then of copper, was spun by hand or in a corded drill, with a suspension of powdered quartz in water as an abrasive, so as to obtain a perfectly round hole in the enamel and dentin.

The radiographs showed that if the pulp was inadvertently penetrated the inlay was placed anyway, the pulp died resulting in a a periapical abscess. The inlaid stone was arranged to fill the cavity. This is how many have remained in situ for a thousand years. To ensure better retention and resistance to friction, the space between the inlay and the wall of the cavity was filled with concrete. Modern spectrographic examinations of the residues of these cements show that they were made of various materials, especially calcium phosphate. Particles of silicone were also found, but we don't know if the latter was mixed with the cement to obtain a better adhesive, or if it was part of the abrasive used to form the cavity.

The Palenque slab

The Palenque slab is the lid of a sarcophagus found on June 15, 1952 in the city of Palenque and probably belonging to the nobleman Pacal, founder of the city.

Dimensions are 3.80 x 2.20 meters and it weighs about five tons.

The Palenque slab

For many years there has been discussion about what the figures reproduced on the slab represent, but a decision has not yet been reached: according to archaeologists it would represent the otherworldly journey that the deceased was preparing to make, but according to others it could be a representation of the main divinities Maya. However, the ufological interpretation of the scene is not negligible: the deceased is represented in what appears to be a capsule, in the act of flying: in confirmation of this there is what appears to be smoke at the base of the spacecraft, but this interpretation also seems too fanciful, although the relief represents this very scene. The American scholar Maurice M. Cotterell in his book "The prophecies of the Maya" analyzes the Palenque slab in depth, giving an interpretation that, even if it sometimes seems a bit bizarre, above all from the point of view of the method seems to be the best.

The Legend of the Feathered Serpent

Upon the arrival of the Spaniards, Quetzalcòatl represented the god of the wind to the Aztecs. He also symbolized water and fertility and, by extension, rain and greenery or even the green mantle of nature that awakens in spring. It sat first in the pantheon of Teotihuacán, the great theocratic city in the highlands of central Mexico, long before the Toltec and Aztec invasions occurred. At the end of the eighth century, when the Nahua-speaking Toltec tribes, specialists in human sacrifices, infiltrated the territory of Teotihuacàn and destroyed the city, they adopted, according to their traditions, the Feathered Serpent, to which they gave the Nahua name of Quetzalcòatl (quetzal "precious feathers", and còatl "snake"). The Feathered Serpent spread throughout Mexico in the wake of the fierce conquerors. With his essential and beneficial power of "rain bringer", he soon became the predominant Toltec divinity, to the point that his name alone was clothed with magical virtues and ended up becoming the supreme title reserved for the king-priests of that people. When Aztec warriors, also Nahua-speaking, also swept the highlands from the 13^th century, they picked up and assimilated the traditions, legends, and historical deeds of their Toltec cousins. From their chronicles we learn that the fifth Toltec ruler, Quetzalcòatl, lived fifty-two years, from 947 to 999. In reality he was called Ce-Acatl (One-Reed) from the name of the year of his birth; he received the title of Quetzalcòatl when he was elected priest-king of Tollan, on his father's death. Quetzalcòatl was a man of great ugliness: he wore a beard, but he was chaste, pious, just and benevolent. He was a great achiever. With him begins the golden age of the Toltecs. Too short, unfortunately; because the ruler of Tollan made a grave mistake. Having attempted to abolish human sacrifices and replace them with offerings of flowers, incense, butterflies, and cornbread, he made many enemies, particularly among the war chiefs. The latter multiplied the occasions to make their king fall into error and sin. Impure, he automatically became unworthy of the throne and could be deposed. All their attempts failed, until one day they offered him a mirror. Afraid of his own ugliness and deep wrinkles, he agreed to drink a highly alcoholic liquid to get rid of the unpleasant impression. He sang, drank again, forgot all dignity and sank into sad debauchery. The next day his heart was heavy with shame. He therefore preferred to leave Tollan and took, with him followed by him, the road of Tlapollan, in an easterly direction. Quetzalcòatl died in the one-reed year, a year which bore the same name as that of his birth, having lived fifty-two years, that is to say a whole cycle of time. When he died, another important cycle began for fifty-two years. Quetzalcòatl's heart reached Venus, the morning star, and the planet assumed the name of Ce-Acatl from then on. The Aztec chronicles insist a lot on the fact that the bearded king of the city of Tollan, i.e. of the western region, country of the color white, fled to the east, country of the color red and black, in order to take to the sea and perish in the flames. These pre-Columbian accounts add that Quetzalcòatl had declared, before his departure, that he would return from the east by sea to restore his Toltec kingdom. This prediction would have greatly simplified Cortés' task upon his arrival in the Aztec land. Emperor Moctezuma guessed that the old prophecy would translate into reality. Everything agreed: the foreigner wore a beard, he was white, the symbolic color of the west, and therefore of Quetzalcòatl, and he came from the east, by sea, in the year one-reed! So, instead of crushing the newly landed Spaniard with the hundreds of thousands of warriors he had at his disposal, he hastened to make offerings to the gods and gifts to Cortés. Among these gifts there was the sumptuous headdress of quetzat feathers that had belonged, according to tradition, to Quetzalcòatl himself. Thus Moctezuma handed over the Aztec empire to the Spanish. And yet this culture has survived centuries of events and expands our horizons with new aesthetic evaluations and applications of surprisingly modern architectural modules; just as its oldest texts incite us to study original ways of conceiving the universe, the afterlife, the destiny of man, the sciences, the arts, the function of thought.

The Mayans today

The fascination exercised by the ruins of the ancient Mayan civilization and the numerous theories about their "end" often make us forget that the Mayans never disappeared and that they still populate vast regions of Mexico and Guatemala today. The misunderstanding probably arises from the confusion between the "archaeological" civilization of the Maya and the linguistic and ethnic family of the same name. As in ancient times, even today the Maya are divided into several ethnic groups including Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol, Tojolab and others.

Furthermore, the way of life of today's Maya does not differ much from that of their ancestors: in fact, it retains many of the ancient customs, and in the prayers it continues to name the divinities of the past together with the Catholic saints. Even the economic activities have not changed: agriculture is still the main source of livelihood.

Currently, Maya speakers are probably over a million, but this figure does not do justice to the overwhelming presence of Spanish-speaking indigenous people and the role of Mayan culture in the area of ​​Mexican culture. The "Cultural Resistance of the Maya" is the consequence of the political, cultural and economic colonization to which they have been subjected; situation that has caused an infinite number of revolts over the centuries, the last of which (that of the Zapatista Army of Chiapas, made up largely of Tzotzil and Tzeltal indigenous people) shows us the Maya under a very different aspect from the oleographic one in which a certain historiography has accustomed us.