Advertisement
Maya Civilization, an ancient Native American culture that represented one of the most advanced civilizations in the western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. The people known as the Maya lived in the region that is now eastern and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. They thrived for more than 2,000 years. The Maya built massive stone pyramids, temples, and sculpture; developed a system of writing using hieroglyphs; and recorded their achievements in mathematics and astronomy. Archaeologists long believed that Maya culture reached its highest development from about AD 300 to 900, during what is known as the Classic period. Recent discoveries in northern Guatemala, however, have challenged that assumption. There, archaeologists have found highly developed cities, sophisticated art, and examples of Maya writing that date from as early as 600 years before the Classic period began.
After 900 the Maya mysteriously declined in the southern lowlands of Guatemala. They later revived in the north on the Yucatán Peninsula and continued to dominate the area until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Descendants of the Maya still form a large part of the population of the region. Although many have adopted Spanish ways, a significant number of modern Maya maintain traditional cultural practices.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
Maya Writings, Math and Science
The Maya develped a system of pictures and symbols to record their history. These writings are known as hieroglyphic inscriptions. For the most part they were carved into stones, but the Maya also wrote books. The books were made of folded pieces of paper made from the bark of the wild fig tree. Very few of these books have survived. Most of the surviving records of Maya writings can be found on stelae. These are stone slabs that would be placed around the cities. In the Maya civilization, only the rulers and specially trained scribes could read and write. They would record the lives and deeds of rulers and nobles. They would also record the positions of the heavenly bodies, particularly the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Elaborate hieroglyphics would also be found on pottery and buildings. The Maya would record their mythology, and keep track of rituals and offerings that took place that year. In addition, the history of the kings was also inscribed. It has taken many years for archaeologists to discover the meaning of their writings. There is still more to learn.
The Maya are most remembered for their contributions in math and science. They developed a calendar system based on the observations of the earth's relationship to the sun with amazing accuracy. In fact, it is more accurate than the calendar we use today. They kept track of the solar and lunar years and the cycles of the visible planets. They were able to calculate the summer and winter equinox. They determined the spring planting and fall harvest time from their observations of the earth's rotation around the sun. Astronomers studied the heavenly bodies, charting the movement of planets and other heavenly bodies.
The Maya had a number system which used a base 20. Numbers were written with dots for ones and bars for fives. They would write their numbers vertically rather than horizontally. Their number system also used a placeholder that functioned like zero, which allowed them to calculate enormous sums. They were the first civilization to use a placeholder for zero. The zero looked somewhat like a football.
lsa.colorado.edu/~lsa/texts/Maya.html
MAYAN RELIGION
The Maya cosmos comprised a wide range of diverse and varied supernatural beings or deities. The chief god, Hunab Ku, the creator of the world, was considered too far above men to figure in worship. He was more important in his manifestation as Itzamna, a sky deity considered lord of the heavens and lord of day and night who brought rain and patronized writing and medicine. He was worshiped especially by the priests, and he appears to have been the patron deity of the royal lineages. Closer to the common people were Yum Kaax, the maize deity, and the four Chacs, or rain gods, each associated with a cardinal direction and with its own special color. Women worshiped Ix Chel, a rainbow deity associated with healing, childbirth, and weaving. All the Maya revered Ixtab, goddess of suicide, and thought that suicides went to a special heaven. The Maya also recognized the gods who controlled each day, month, and year.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
RITUALS AND CEREMONIES
The Maya performed many rituals and ceremonies to communicate with their deities. At stated intervals, such as the Maya New Year in July, or in emergencies—such as famine, epidemics, or a great drought—the people gathered in ritual plazas to honor the gods. They hung feathered banners in doorways all about the plaza. Groups of men or women in elaborate feathered robes and headdresses, with bells on their hands and feet, danced in the plaza to the music of drums, whistles, rattles, flutes, and wood trumpets. Worshipers took ritual steam baths and drank intoxicating balche. Participants often ingested other hallucinogenic drugs, such as mushrooms, and they smoked a very strong form of tobacco with hallucinogenic effects. Young Maya nobles played a sacred ball game on specially constructed courts. Without using their hands, players tried to knock a rubber ball through one of the vertical stone rings built into the walls of the court. On special occasions players who lost the game would be sacrificed to the gods.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
SACRIFICES
Many ceremonies focused on sacrifices to gain the favor of the gods. The sacrifices took place on the great stone pyramids that rose above the plazas, with stairs leading to a temple and altar on top. The temple, a resting place for the god, was deeply carved or painted with designs and figures and was topped with a carved vertical slab of stone called a roof comb. Some had distinctive corbeled arches, in which each stone extended beyond the one beneath it until the two sides of the arch were joined by a single keystone at the top. Before the altar, smoke rose from copal incense burning in pottery vessels.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
MORE ON SACRIFICES
“Worshipers sometimes gave the gods simple offerings of corn, fruit, game, or blood, which a worshiper obtained by piercing his own lips, tongue, or genitals. For major favors they offered the gods human sacrifice, usually children, slaves, or prisoners of war. A victim was painted blue and then ceremonially killed on top of the pyramid, either by being shot full of arrows or by having his arms and legs held while a priest cut open his chest with a sacrificial flint knife and tore out his heart as an offering. Captured rulers were sometimes ritually sacrificed by decapitating them with an axe.”
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
HUMAN SACRIFICE
Human sacrifice was performed in several different ways. Human sacrifices involved prisoners, slaves, and children, with orphans and illegitimate children, being purchased for the occasion. Women as well as men were also used in the ceremonies. To begin the sacrifice, the victim was stripped, painted blue, and adorned with a special headdress. They were then led to the place of sacrifice, either the temple courtyard or to the top of the pyramid. After the evil spirits were expelled, the alter was covered in blue paint. The priests were assisted by four chacs, also painted blue and named in honor of the Rain God, who grasped the victim by the arms and legs and stretched them on their back over the alter. The chest was then opened with a flint or obsidian knife by a nacom. He thrust his hand into the chest and tore the beating heart from the victim. The nacom then passed the heart to the chilan, the officiating priest, who smeared blood from the victim on the respective idol. If the victim was sacrificed on the temple, the chacs would throw the body to the court below. There the lower ranking priest skinned the body, except for the hands and feet. The chilan would then drape himself in the skin of the victim and dance with the spectators. If the victim was a warrior or soldier, his body may be divided and eaten by the nobles and spectators. The hands and feet were saved for the chilan and, if the victim was a prisoner, their bones may have been worn by the chilans.
FROM: EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY MAYA RELIGION DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY MILTON CARTER
(Great read in its entirety.) http://216.145.95.162/social/mcarter/doc%20&%20pdf%20files/maya.pdf
BELIEFS
The Maya even believed the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies passed through the Underworld after they disappeared below the horizon. It is also thought the Maya believed in an afterlife. The future was divided into a place of suffering and a place of rest. Maya who committed suicide by hanging or those who were sacrificed, warriors who were killed in battle, women who died at childbirth, priests, and rulers all went directly to paradise. It was almost certain that those who hanged themselves went to heaven, so many who felt sorrow, trouble or sickness, took their own life to get to heaven. The Maya paradise was described as a place of great delight, where there was no suffering or pain and everyone had a cornucopia of food and drink. Those whose lives had been evil descended to the lowest level of the Under World, Mitnal, or Hell. There they were tormented by cold, hunger, and grief.
Death from natural causes was dreaded by every Maya because you did not automatically go to heaven. The body was wrapped in a shroud, usually made of straw, then painted red. Their mouths were filled with maize and a jade bead. The common people were buried under the floors or behind their houses. The houses were then abandoned. The graves were usually filled with idols of clay, wood, and stone indicating the profession of the dead.
http://216.145.95.162/social/mcarter/doc%20&%20pdf%20files/maya.pdf
After 900 the Maya mysteriously declined in the southern lowlands of Guatemala. They later revived in the north on the Yucatán Peninsula and continued to dominate the area until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Descendants of the Maya still form a large part of the population of the region. Although many have adopted Spanish ways, a significant number of modern Maya maintain traditional cultural practices.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
Maya Writings, Math and Science
The Maya develped a system of pictures and symbols to record their history. These writings are known as hieroglyphic inscriptions. For the most part they were carved into stones, but the Maya also wrote books. The books were made of folded pieces of paper made from the bark of the wild fig tree. Very few of these books have survived. Most of the surviving records of Maya writings can be found on stelae. These are stone slabs that would be placed around the cities. In the Maya civilization, only the rulers and specially trained scribes could read and write. They would record the lives and deeds of rulers and nobles. They would also record the positions of the heavenly bodies, particularly the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Elaborate hieroglyphics would also be found on pottery and buildings. The Maya would record their mythology, and keep track of rituals and offerings that took place that year. In addition, the history of the kings was also inscribed. It has taken many years for archaeologists to discover the meaning of their writings. There is still more to learn.
The Maya are most remembered for their contributions in math and science. They developed a calendar system based on the observations of the earth's relationship to the sun with amazing accuracy. In fact, it is more accurate than the calendar we use today. They kept track of the solar and lunar years and the cycles of the visible planets. They were able to calculate the summer and winter equinox. They determined the spring planting and fall harvest time from their observations of the earth's rotation around the sun. Astronomers studied the heavenly bodies, charting the movement of planets and other heavenly bodies.
The Maya had a number system which used a base 20. Numbers were written with dots for ones and bars for fives. They would write their numbers vertically rather than horizontally. Their number system also used a placeholder that functioned like zero, which allowed them to calculate enormous sums. They were the first civilization to use a placeholder for zero. The zero looked somewhat like a football.
lsa.colorado.edu/~lsa/texts/Maya.html
MAYAN RELIGION
The Maya cosmos comprised a wide range of diverse and varied supernatural beings or deities. The chief god, Hunab Ku, the creator of the world, was considered too far above men to figure in worship. He was more important in his manifestation as Itzamna, a sky deity considered lord of the heavens and lord of day and night who brought rain and patronized writing and medicine. He was worshiped especially by the priests, and he appears to have been the patron deity of the royal lineages. Closer to the common people were Yum Kaax, the maize deity, and the four Chacs, or rain gods, each associated with a cardinal direction and with its own special color. Women worshiped Ix Chel, a rainbow deity associated with healing, childbirth, and weaving. All the Maya revered Ixtab, goddess of suicide, and thought that suicides went to a special heaven. The Maya also recognized the gods who controlled each day, month, and year.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
RITUALS AND CEREMONIES
The Maya performed many rituals and ceremonies to communicate with their deities. At stated intervals, such as the Maya New Year in July, or in emergencies—such as famine, epidemics, or a great drought—the people gathered in ritual plazas to honor the gods. They hung feathered banners in doorways all about the plaza. Groups of men or women in elaborate feathered robes and headdresses, with bells on their hands and feet, danced in the plaza to the music of drums, whistles, rattles, flutes, and wood trumpets. Worshipers took ritual steam baths and drank intoxicating balche. Participants often ingested other hallucinogenic drugs, such as mushrooms, and they smoked a very strong form of tobacco with hallucinogenic effects. Young Maya nobles played a sacred ball game on specially constructed courts. Without using their hands, players tried to knock a rubber ball through one of the vertical stone rings built into the walls of the court. On special occasions players who lost the game would be sacrificed to the gods.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
SACRIFICES
Many ceremonies focused on sacrifices to gain the favor of the gods. The sacrifices took place on the great stone pyramids that rose above the plazas, with stairs leading to a temple and altar on top. The temple, a resting place for the god, was deeply carved or painted with designs and figures and was topped with a carved vertical slab of stone called a roof comb. Some had distinctive corbeled arches, in which each stone extended beyond the one beneath it until the two sides of the arch were joined by a single keystone at the top. Before the altar, smoke rose from copal incense burning in pottery vessels.
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
MORE ON SACRIFICES
“Worshipers sometimes gave the gods simple offerings of corn, fruit, game, or blood, which a worshiper obtained by piercing his own lips, tongue, or genitals. For major favors they offered the gods human sacrifice, usually children, slaves, or prisoners of war. A victim was painted blue and then ceremonially killed on top of the pyramid, either by being shot full of arrows or by having his arms and legs held while a priest cut open his chest with a sacrificial flint knife and tore out his heart as an offering. Captured rulers were sometimes ritually sacrificed by decapitating them with an axe.”
encarta.msn.com/encycloped...zation.html
HUMAN SACRIFICE
Human sacrifice was performed in several different ways. Human sacrifices involved prisoners, slaves, and children, with orphans and illegitimate children, being purchased for the occasion. Women as well as men were also used in the ceremonies. To begin the sacrifice, the victim was stripped, painted blue, and adorned with a special headdress. They were then led to the place of sacrifice, either the temple courtyard or to the top of the pyramid. After the evil spirits were expelled, the alter was covered in blue paint. The priests were assisted by four chacs, also painted blue and named in honor of the Rain God, who grasped the victim by the arms and legs and stretched them on their back over the alter. The chest was then opened with a flint or obsidian knife by a nacom. He thrust his hand into the chest and tore the beating heart from the victim. The nacom then passed the heart to the chilan, the officiating priest, who smeared blood from the victim on the respective idol. If the victim was sacrificed on the temple, the chacs would throw the body to the court below. There the lower ranking priest skinned the body, except for the hands and feet. The chilan would then drape himself in the skin of the victim and dance with the spectators. If the victim was a warrior or soldier, his body may be divided and eaten by the nobles and spectators. The hands and feet were saved for the chilan and, if the victim was a prisoner, their bones may have been worn by the chilans.
FROM: EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY MAYA RELIGION DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY MILTON CARTER
(Great read in its entirety.) http://216.145.95.162/social/mcarter/doc%20&%20pdf%20files/maya.pdf
BELIEFS
The Maya even believed the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies passed through the Underworld after they disappeared below the horizon. It is also thought the Maya believed in an afterlife. The future was divided into a place of suffering and a place of rest. Maya who committed suicide by hanging or those who were sacrificed, warriors who were killed in battle, women who died at childbirth, priests, and rulers all went directly to paradise. It was almost certain that those who hanged themselves went to heaven, so many who felt sorrow, trouble or sickness, took their own life to get to heaven. The Maya paradise was described as a place of great delight, where there was no suffering or pain and everyone had a cornucopia of food and drink. Those whose lives had been evil descended to the lowest level of the Under World, Mitnal, or Hell. There they were tormented by cold, hunger, and grief.
Death from natural causes was dreaded by every Maya because you did not automatically go to heaven. The body was wrapped in a shroud, usually made of straw, then painted red. Their mouths were filled with maize and a jade bead. The common people were buried under the floors or behind their houses. The houses were then abandoned. The graves were usually filled with idols of clay, wood, and stone indicating the profession of the dead.
http://216.145.95.162/social/mcarter/doc%20&%20pdf%20files/maya.pdf
posted by:
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Maya Civilization
Sat, June 16, 2007 - 12:38 PM"After over a thousand years of success, most of the kingdoms of the southern lowlands collapsed in the ninth century. In the wake of this upheaval, the Maya of the northern lowlands tried a different style of government. They centered their world around a single capital at Chichen Itza. Not quite ruler of an empire, Chichen Itza became, for a time, first among the many allied cities of the north and the pivot of the lowland Maya world. It also differed from the royal cities before it, for it had a council of many lords rather than one ruler."
"To the Maya, the world was alive and imbued with a sacredness that was especially concentrated at special points, like caves and mountains. The principal pattern of power points had been established by the gods when the cosmos was created. Within this matrix of sacred landscape, human beings built communities that both merged with the god-generated patterns and created a second human-made matrix of power points. The two systems were perceived to be complementary, not separate....The world of human beings was connected to the Otherworld along the wacah chan axis which ran through the center of existence. This axis was not located in any one earthly place, but could be materialized through ritual at any point in the natural and human-made landscape. Most important, it was materialized in the person of the king, who brought it into existence as he stood enthralled in ecstatic visions atop his pyramid-mountain....When new buildings were to be constructed, the Maya performed elaborate rituals both to terminate the old structure and contain its accumulated energy. The new structure was then built atop the old and, when it was ready for use, they conducted elaborate dedication rituals to bring it alive....So powerful were the effects of these rituals that the objects, people, buildings, and places in the landscape in which the supernatural materialized accumulated energy and became more sacred with repeated use. Thus, as kings built and rebuilt temples on the same spot over centuries, the sanctums within them became ever more sacred. The devotion and ecstasy of successive divine kings sacrificing within those sanctums rendered the membrane between this world and the Otherworld ever more thin and pliable. The ancestors and the gods passed through such portals into the living monarch with increasing facility. To enhance this effect, generations of kings replicated the iconography and sculptural programs of early buildings through successive temples built over the same nexus....As the Maya exploited the patterns of power in time and space, they used ritual to control the dangerous and powerful energies they released. There were rituals which contained the accumulated power of objects, people, and places when they were no longer in active use. And conversely, when the community became convinced that the power was gone from their city and ruling dynasties, they just walked away."
www.sacredsites.com/americas...itza.html
-
Re: Maya Civilization
Sun, June 17, 2007 - 10:55 PM"After 900 the Maya mysteriously declined in the southern lowlands of Guatemala."
My recommendation is not to trust any source that refers to anything the ancient Maya did as "mysterious". The decline of the Maya is not nearly as "mysterious" as the public tends to believe. In fact, there have been numerous books written about the problems that affected Maya settlements of central Guatemala at the end of the Late Classic period. Among these were endemic warfare caused by the conflicts between dynasties of Tikal and Dos Pilas.
Some reliable sources of information about the ancient Maya (written by archaeologists rather than professional science writers):
www.mesoweb.com
www.famsi.org -
-
Re: Maya Civilization
Mon, June 18, 2007 - 6:57 AMit was the winners that were sacrificed...
and like in egypt, the mayans knew about electricity, batteries, and mechanical flight.
-
Re: Maya Civilization
Mon, June 18, 2007 - 7:06 AM
My recommendation is not to trust any source that refers to anything the ancient Maya did as "mysterious".
----
yeah, we know pretty well what happened was the same old sorry tale like what happened in rome,
or what happened in egypt, or what happened to the USA.
their society became corrupted, self indulgent, fascistic, classist, and inoperable, just as their population
got to be too big for them to support via the agriculture they had going.
they lost track of what was important, became overly indulgent in crap that did not matter, or even worse,
invoved in social behaviors and cultural norms which were actually counter productive to social stability.
they created an economy based on non real values, and thus more or less bought themselves into
an inoperable civilization... just like so many other cultures, including ours.
-
-
honor the present
Mon, June 18, 2007 - 9:44 AMas we explore the fascinating fabric of mayan history, it seems important to take a quick second to remember that it is not all history. that the mayans still exist. that though their culture has been influenced and shaped by time and other cultures, they remain alive. and strong. and rooted. many of the beliefs mentioned in this history lesson still shape the days and lives of many mayan people today. the gods and godesses of rain and weaving, etc are all still honored -- though sometimes alongside the virgin mary and good ol' jesus. anyway, i know you know this... just had to take a moment to give thanks that though the civilization you teach of is no longer here, it has evolved and remains a strong presence on this planet. blessings. -
-
Unsu...
you grow girl :D
Mon, June 18, 2007 - 10:06 AMthat's the freshest thing i have read in a long time; nothing like turning the soil.
thanks -
-
Re: anthro-crap!
Tue, June 19, 2007 - 3:21 AMThis kind of disinformation is debunking again and again. Amazing that the brainwashing goes on and on!
All that crap written by non-Mayan people which supports the useless models from the global elite which is designed to turn people away from ceremonial, esoteric, mystery school based, tantric, 'shamanic', deep astrology and astronomy based culture. Why keep buying into such crap?
The endless focus on sacrifice is a deliberate attempt to belittle and deride people whose cultures survived for thousands of years far greater than the present imperialist, capitalist, child-labour and slave-based, drug dealing, nuclear, war-mongering semi-fascist 'democratic' culture.
Visualise millions of people across vast areas of the world, in magnificent ceremonial centres that were often built using stones that modern technology cannot move today, coordinating in Equinox, Solstice and other great ceremonies. Then you will have a tiny understanding of what our global ancestors were doing. The ceremonial and celebration focussed people were so much more than the cheap summaries by the media and mis-education liars. These people honoured the natural forces and cycles that are shaping our world and future right now, which is a far cry from the limited, dumbed-down, brainwashed, centralised, highly taxed wage-slavery that most people live under now (mostly to support corruption, programmes of chemicalisation, massive arms dealing and war-mongering).
Their descendants have been consistently warning about the changes that we all face now, for many generations (despite genocide on a vast scale). The same descendants are offering to share the ancient secrets and understanding, with people who are open and awake enough to understand.
Time for some respect and an end to the debunking crap! This debunking approach is for uninitiated juveniles! Time to wake up!
In Lak'ech
OM
-
-
Unsu...
Re: anthro-crap!
Tue, June 19, 2007 - 4:06 AM"All that crap written by non-Mayan people which supports the useless models from the global elite which is designed to turn people away from ceremonial, esoteric, mystery school based, tantric, 'shamanic', deep astrology and astronomy based culture. Why keep buying into such crap?
The endless focus on sacrifice is a deliberate attempt to belittle and deride people whose cultures survived for thousands of years far greater than the present imperialist, capitalist, child-labour and slave-based, drug dealing, nuclear, war-mongering semi-fascist 'democratic' culture."
Awesome!!
People who see the Mayans as "mysterious" simply don't understand a culture based on " ceremonial, esoteric, mystery school based, tantric, 'shamanic', deep astrology and astronomy" as Psi mentions.
There is nothing mysterious about any of this if you have the knowledge and know how to apply it.
It's like if you have never seen a compute before. it seems "mysterious". But if you know how it works then there is nothing mysterious to it.
Most mainstream archaeologists interpret an "ancient" culture without having any clue about the ancient teachings or deeper aspects of reality, as they interpret everything according to their limited and conditioned view of reality and can't go beyond the brainwashed worldview they learn about through the modern educational system based on a material world view and so they project this conditioning on the interpreation of such ancient cultures. It's nothing new really.
Officlal history, recent and ancient is mostly a complete fabrication designed to steer the people away from any deeper knowledge.
I'm sure Hoopes has all kinds of "facts" that speak against what I'm saying ( or links form the obvious disinformation siite sceptic.com).....but that isn't really anything new either. All part of the "academic thought police" who cannot afforf to let the house of cards topple beause they have an "image" and might loose a career or funding if they'd ever admit they could be wrong and so they fight off anything which might be a threat to the offical version and the crap we're being taught in school.
-
-
-
