The Ancient Maya

By My Ebook Publishing House

“The Ancient Maya” creates a portrait of life in the ancient Mayan civilization. Describes the history, language, social classes, customs, culture, religion, and warfare of the ancient civilization of the Mayas.
Easy to read and very interesting, providing first an overview, then a chapter by chapter journey through major events in Maya history, concluding with a separated portion of highlighting major aspects in Maya knowledge and ancient ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: My Ebook Publishing House
• Release date: Dec 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311270917

My Ebook Publishing House

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The Ancient Maya

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Published by My Ebook Publishing House at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 My Ebook Publishing House

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Content

I. The Maya People

II. The mistey of their cities

III. The new empire

IV. The quetzal

V. Legends

VI. Location

VII. The calendar

VIII. The scripture

IX. The arhitecture

X. The believes

XI. Rituals

I. The Maya People

Statistics show that 7% of Latin America’s population is Indian. Therefore, the Southern frontier between the United States of America and the Cape Horn of Tierra del Fuego, on a territory comprising 20.500.000 square kilometers, 17.200.000 Indians live; they have a personal lifestyle and speak their own languages, different from the rest of the population.

For a long time, the provenance of the Native Americans has represented the object of some scientific controversies. (Lately, the term of Native American is used for the American Indians/the indigenous people). Today, the great majority of the scientists bias towards the Asian provenance of the indigenous people of America. The American archeologist George Vaillant believes that these people, skilled huntsmen, have arrived here by chasing animals across the Behring strait within Alaska; the displacement was made in small groups, which had as a result the diversification of the languages and of the physical type. In the years after the war, numerous archeological discoveries have come to support this hypothesis. In Tepexpan, near the frontier between Mexico and The Unites States, the archeologist Alfonso Caso has discovered, in the year of 1945, the skeleton of a man in circumstances that were indicating that, on these lands, the people have hunted 10.000 – 12.000 years ago. One of the most modern research methods, by radiocarbon 14, established, for some houses, the age of 35.000 years; the same dating method have establish the cultivation of corn and beans in Mexico approximately 5 millennia ago (BC). The evolution of the Native American nations has unfolded in a spectacular manner. Wherein the land was more bountiful, they have passed to its cultivation and to a sedentary lifestyle, they have built cities, devised crops, among which the Inca culture of Peru and the Maya culture of Mexico have reached a sublime degree of development.

The territory on which the Mayans live is among the ones inhabited tens of millennia ago. The archeologist Barnum Brown has discovered in the proximity of the Passion River a bone fragment arose from an extinct Three-toed sloth species (Bradypus), presenting scissions caused by a sharp weapon. Also, in the year of 1952, near Izatatapan, the skeleton of a mammoth was excavated, presenting an unanswerable proof: a flint peak was jabbed between two ribs, and other flint and obsidian instruments were found next to his bones.

The Maya Native Americans’ territory is situated among the oldest ones (of the New World), utilized for the growth of some plants: the corn, the black beans, the pumpkin, the agave and so on. Besides corn, originating from these lands, and as well as other plants of an American provenance, the others (the beans and the pumpkin, for example), represent species of some plants related with the ones cultivated a long time ago in the Ancient World.

In the period of the Spanish conquering, at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the subsequent one, the territory occupied by the Maya population comprised Guatemala (apart from a few regions of the Pacific Coast), the western parts of the Salvador and Honduras, the entire British Honduras, and from Mexico, the Yucatan and Campeche states, the Quintana Roo territory and the eastern regions of the Tabasco and Chiapas states. Consequently, a territory forming a trapeze with the north-south axis of approximately 900 km; in the east-west direction the great base attains 550 km and the small one, situated towards the extremity of the Yucatan Peninsula, approximately 400 km.

The entire territory is situated in the sub-tropical region, its southern confine descending close to the 14 °N.

At the arrival of the Spanish, the Maya Native Americans were adjoining to the west with groups that were speaking the Zoque and Chiapaneca Languages, as well as a few Nahuatl dialects, related to the language spoken by Aztecs, named, in general, the Ancient Mexican Language. In the south and south-east, the Pipil Indians were located, also speaking a distinguished language, whose regions were outstretching as far as the Pacific; also, the Tarascan and the Caribbean people were located.

In the classic periods of the Mayan culture development, 4 civilizations were encountered in a cultural contact with it: firstly, the Zapotec of the current Mexican State of Oaxaca whose center was constituted by Monte Alban; then, the renowned as the Teotihuacan civilization, after the name of the city situated at approximately 45 km north-east from Mexico; thirdly the La Venta civilization, created by the Olmec, which has thrived south of Veracruz and which was the nearest of the Mayan one; finally, the one of the center of the current state of Veracruz, materialized by the imposing ruins of El Tajin, whereof it is believed to belong to the Totonac People. The archeological discoveries have invalidated the old theory after which the Mayan civilization would have developed in an isolated manner. Recent researches have shown that the five centers, approximately contemporary, have inspired each other. In the last part of the classic period, around the years of 1200-1400, the flourishing city of Tula (or Tollan), situated in the Hidalgo state, at approximately 80 km north of the city of Mexico, has also exerted a considerable influence on the Mayan civilization.

During the entire classic period, the frontiers of the territory inhabited by the Mayans were approximately the same as the ones of the end of the 15th century, at the arrival of the Spanish.

It is probable that, in the first part of this period, they were spreading somewhat more towards the west, in the contemporary states of Tabasco and Chiapas.

In the 16th century, there was another group that was speaking a language related with the Mayan languages, namely the Huastec People,