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Mayans: Their Architecture, Calendars and Language
- 1. Mayans
Notes de l'éditeur
- Where did the Mayans come from? Countries to celebrate the Costa Maya Festival we thought it appropriate to re-run this article. The story is one of the many that Dr. Smith, an Archeologist, wrote specifically for the San Pedro Sun about the Mayan culture.Dr. Smith compiled these stories into a book entitled "Archeology Without Tears" which is available at the Ambergris Museum. Where did the Mayans live? They live mostly in mexico.
- The architecture? Maya architecture spans many thousands of years; yet, often the most dramatic and easily recognizable as Maya are the stepped pyramids from the Terminal Pre-classic period and beyond. There are also cave sites that are important to the Maya. These cave sites include Jolja Cave, the cave site at Naj Tunich, the Candelaria Caves, and the . There are also cave-origin myths among the Maya. Some cave sites are still used by the modern Maya in the Chiapas highlands. It has been suggested[ who? ] that temples and pyramids were remodeled and rebuilt every fifty-two years in synchrony with the Maya Long Count Calendar. It appears now that the rebuilding process was often instigated by a new ruler or for political matters, as opposed to matching the calendar cycle. However, the process of rebuilding on top of old structures is indeed a common one. Most notably, the North Acropolis at Tikal seems to be the sum total of 1,500 years of architectural modifications. In Tikal and Yaxhá, there are the Twin Pyramid complexes (seven in Tikal and one in Yaxhá, that commemorate the end of a Through observation of the numerous consistent elements and stylistic distinctions, remnants of Maya architecture have become an important key to understanding the evolution of their ancient civilization.
- Like the Aztec and Inca who came to power later, the Maya believed in a cyclical nature of time. The rituals and ceremonies were very closely associated with celestial and terrestrial cycles which they observed and inscribed as separate calendars. The Maya priest had the job of interpreting these cycles and giving a prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the number relations of all their calendars. They also had to determine if the heavens were propitious for performing certain religious ceremonies. The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person's chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. This is depicted on ancient objects such as pictorial texts, known as codices. It is believed that children were often offered as sacrificial victims because they were believed to be pure.[ citation needed ] Much of the Maya religious tradition is still not understood by scholars, but it is known that the Maya believed that the cosmos had three major planes, the Earth, the underworld beneath and the heavens above. The Maya underworld is reached through caves and ball courts.[ citation needed ] It was thought to be dominated by the aged Maya gods of death and putrefaction. The Sun (Kinich Ahau) and Itzamna, an aged god, dominated the Maya idea of the sky. Another aged man, god L, was one of the major deities of the underworld. The night sky was considered a window showing all supernatural doings. The Maya configured constellations of gods and places, saw the unfolding of narratives in their seasonal movements, and believed that the intersection of all possible worlds was in the night sky.
- Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya , primarily in Guatemala , Mexico , Belize and Honduras . In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, [2] and Mexico recognizes eight more. [3] The Mayan language family is one of the best documented and most studied in the Americas . [4] Modern Mayan languages descend from Proto-Mayan , a language thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method .
- zero (shell shape), one (a dot) and five (a bar). For example, nineteen (19) is written as four dots in a horizontal row above three horizontal lines stacked upon each other.
- of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and by some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala and Oaxaca, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BC. It shares many aspects with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec, and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec and Aztec calendars. Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements of it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Aztecs, the Maya calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.