The Features of the Maya Civilization and Its Importance

Categories: Civilization Culture Mayan Civilization

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The Maya Civilization is considered one of the most advanced cultures in the western hemisphere prior to the arrival of the Europeans to America. They lived in a region that is now the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan, and the countries of Guatemala, Belice, El Salvador and the western region of Honduras. Their culture is divided in three periods: The Preclassic, that lasted from about 2000 B.C. to A.D. 300, the Classic, From A.D. 300 to 900 and the Postclassic covering from A.D. 900 to 1521.

According to the Maya Long Count Calendar, the creation of the world takes place in the year A.D. 3114. Their origin is linked to the Olmecs, but information obtained from their traditions in Maya books like the Chilam Balam and the Popol Vuh, indicates they came from the Orient crossing the sea.

The earlier Mayas were farmers living in small and dispersed villages (around 1500 BC) in constructions made of pole and thatch, but as the population increased they created cities (by AD200) with great stone buildings, pyramids palaces, plazas and courts to play ball.

The cities were ceremonial centers, and only the high class lived there, the rest of the population lived in small farm villages next to them. In the beginning they cultivated their fields as a community, planting seeds in a hole made with a wood stick. Later they used better farming techniques, like crop rotation and fertilizers. Their main crops were corn, beans, squash, avocados and cacao, from this they made a chocolate drink.

They cleared large sections of tropical rain forest for Farming and build underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater where it was scarce. Hunting and fishing was also part of their diet.

The Mayas produced fine pottery, jade carvings, gold and silver ornaments, tools made of obsidian and basaltic rock. They made clothes out of cotton fibers and from the maguey plant. To conduct interchange of goods with distant cities they made paths and routes through the jungle. As units of exchange cacao beans and copper bells were used.

In science their mayor achievements include a pair of interlocking calendars, one was based on the sun and contained 365 days, it was the most accurate calendar known, until the introduction of the present Gregorian calendar we actually have in use, the second was a religious calendar used to find good or bad days. Both calendars were combined to form the name of every new day.

Another of their greatest accomplishments was the use of the concept of cero in mathematics, something most civilizations of the world at that time had no way to symbolize and they also knew the four basic arithmetic operations, which they used with a numeric system based in values of twenty. Maya astronomers were capable of doing difficult mathematical calculations, this and with constant astronomical observations they compiled tables of positions for the Moon and Venus and how to predict solar eclipses. One interesting thing is the fact about their knowledge of the wheel, which they only used it in toys.

The Mayas created a complex system of writing using hieroglyphs, which they wrote using paper made from the inner bark of wild fig trees, and in carvings made in stone or wood. Their symbols represent complete words and sounds or a mixture of both. Some of their surviving writing works made in paper are called codices (Dresden Codex, Perez Codex Etc.), we have two writings made in Quiche language but wrote in Latin, done by Mayas after the Spaniard s arrival; one them, the Chilan Balam is about rites religion, literature and past events, the second; the Popol Vuh, is the book of advise, and is considered the Maya s Bible.

In religion, the Mayas believed in many gods, the principal was Hunab ku, considerd the creator of the world and who made the man from corn, this god was worshiped mostly by the priests. Close to the common people was Yum Kaax the maize god, Chac the god of rain and Kulkukan the peace god, who is represented as a feathered snake like the Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs and Aztecs. Some of the religious ceremonies included sacrifices to please the gods, these sacrifices were conducted in the great stone pyramids, sometimes they gave less important offerings of corn, fruits or blood- The

last obtained by piercing his own lips, tongue or other parts of their body- the Mayas believed that there is a soul in everything created by the gods and in the people the soul was in the blood. They had a different concept of beauty, they praised long backward sloping forehead and to obtain this look they pressed the heads of their kids between boards when only a few days old and would have objects dangled in front of their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes.

Until the Mid-1960s the traditional perception of the Mayas was of a basically peaceful people, but discoveries made in their ruins and writings are exposing that arms and warfare were an important part of their life. Their history is characterized by cycles of rise and fall, cities rose to later fall in decline, only to be replaced by a new one. The early Maya organized their settlements headed by chiefs, who inherited their power. A council of chiefs governed a group of several settlements relatively close. Later they developed into structured kingdoms with large urban sites built around ceremonial centers. Every city was independent from the others with their own political government.

By the year AD 250 the rise of the Maya culture began, marking the Classic period, during this time their civilization consisted of more than 40 cities, with 5,000 to 50,000 people on each. Some of the most important cities were Bonampak, Copan, Tikal, Palenque and Rio Bec. At their peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,000,000 people, mostly in the area of what is now Guatemala. The mayor cities featured pyramidal temples or palaces overlaid with limestone highly ornamented with reliefs, and beautiful sculptures which make the Mayas one of the greatest civilizations in the history.

After AD 900, when the Postclassic period starts their civilization declined, leaving great cities and ceremonial centers abandoned, is unknown the cause of this decline, of the possible factors suggested by some scholars are natural disasters, disease, foreign invasions or the exhaustion of the agricultural land. Some cities in the Yucatan peninsula, such as Mayapan, Chichen Itza and Uxmal continued to flourish for some time until the Spanish Conquest.

In our times the modern Maya base their living in the agriculture, they live in communities organized around central villages and almost all are of Catholic religion, but they still believe in their native pre- Columbian Gods. There are close to 2 millions Mayas living in Mexico and Central America, who spoke not less than 24 different dialects.

There is an enormous amount of things still waiting to be discovered in the ruins of Mayas, just as an example, lets see the area of Tikal, where according to the archeologists they must work another 100 years to investigate what lies under the central area which is being studied since 1956.