The following is a collection of links to articles about the ancient and present day Maya.
Mayan Codices
Maya codices (singular codex) are folding books stemming from the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican paper, made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or Amate (Ficus Glabrata), this paper was named by the Mayas Huun, and contained many Glyph and paintings. They are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of the Howler Monkey Gods. The Maya developed their huun around the V century AD, in the same era that the Romans did, but their paper was more durable and a better writing surface than the papyrus. The codices have been named for the cities in which they eventually settled. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.
Background
There were many such books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century, but they were destroyed in bulk by the Conquistadors and priests soon after. In particular, all those in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July of 1562. Such codices were primary written records of Maya civilization, together with the many inscriptions on stone monuments and stelae which survive to the present day. However, their range of subject matter in all likelihood embraced more topics than those recorded in stone and buildings, and was more like what we find on painted ceramics (the so-called 'ceramic codex')...The Maya Pantheon: Some Principal Gods of the Ancient Maya
There are hundreds of gods in the crowded Mayan pantheon, a situation made even more confusing by gaps in our knowledge resulting from the loss of all but four of the thousands of ancient Mayan manuscripts and by the tendency of the gods to take different forms for each of the cardinal directions, for dualisms such as young-old, male-female, benevolent-malevolent, and so on. Certain major figures recur frequently in tales and artworks, and they can often be identified by their attributes; they can also be identified by their name glyphs.
The Gods Of Mayan Mythology
Introduction
South of the border down Mexico way, reaching down as far as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. This amazing civilisation started with the Zapotecs and included the Olmecs and Mixtecs before ending with the Toltecs.Their city, Teotihuacan, preceded Mayan culture and is full of mysteries from an earlier civilisation. It seems to have suffered fire at some point, but parts of it were in use up to Aztec times. With its pyramid of the sun built over a chambered cave, this may even have been PACARI, 'The Place Of Emergence', where the Incan Gods hid during a terrible disaster...
THE MAYAN CALENDAR
Among their other accomplishments, the ancient Mayas invented a calendar of remarkable accuracy and complexity. At right is the ancient Mayan Pyramid Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, constructed circa 1050 was built during the late Mayan period, when Toltecs from Tula became politically powerful. The pyramid was used as a calendar: four stairways, each with 91 steps and a platform at the top, making a total of 365, equivalent to the number of days in a calendar year.
The Maya calendar was adopted by the other Mesoamerican nations, such as the Aztecs and the Toltec, which adopted the mechanics of the calendar unaltered but changed the names of the days of the week and the months. An Aztec calendar stone is shown above right...Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse?
With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.
Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson's December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto...Mayan Spiritual Beliefs
The archaeologists place what they call the rise of the Maya Culture at about 250 ACE, its peak at about 900 ACE, and its gradual eventual decline with the depopulation of the pyramidal cities at about 1519 ACE The Maya were actually thriving in the area since well before the submergence of the Lost Continent of Lemuria.
Numerous prosperous and culturally advanced Maya villages once stretched across northern Belize, Guatemala, and southern Mexico. Their overall population numbered in the millions. Never united under one government or organization, the Mayan shared many beliefs, a pantheon of Deities, astronomy, writing, and calendar systems.
The Mayan calendrical vision of planetary evolution began around 22,000 years ago and was divided into Sun cycles of 5,200 years with the beginning of the 5th Sun cycle on December 21, 2012 when they anticipated the fulfillment of Mayan prophecy to occur - a radical change in human consciousness...
Maya Civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Preclassic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), many Maya cities reached their highest state development during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), and continued throughout the Postclassic period until the arrival of the Spanish.
At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world. [1]
The Maya civilization shares many features with other Mesoamerican civilizations due to the high degree of interaction and cultural diffusion that characterized the region. Advances such as writing, epigraphy, and the calendar did not originate with the Maya; however, their civilization fully developed them. Maya influence can be detected from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and to as far as central Mexico, more than 1000 km (625 miles) from the Maya area. Many outside influences are found in Maya art and architecture, which are thought to result from trade and cultural exchange rather than direct external conquest. The Maya peoples never disappeared, neither at the time of the Classic period decline nor with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and the subsequent Spanish colonization of the Americas...The Maya in Time
There is a vast pantheon of gods worshiped by the Maya. Different areas had different gods, and some were more important in one area than in another. Each location would also have it's special patron god. There was probably some sense of competitiveness between locations, where they felt that their patron god was stronger or more beneficent that others. When one area overtook another through war or politics, they would impose the worship of their favorite gods on their subjects.
Some of the gods that archaeologists and anthropologists have identified are...MAYAN NUMERATION SYSTEM
The Mayans used a vigesimal (base twenty) system of numeration with positional notation instead of the base ten decimal system used in today’s standards. The Mayan system of math was a place value system as is ours today. As stated by McLeish "In their system, place values go up in powers of twenty instead of ten. The first five places in the decimal system are 1, 10 100, 1000, 10000. The first five in the vigesimal system are 1, 20, 400, 8000, 160000."
The Mayans used a system of dots and bars for counting. A dot (pebble) stood for one and a bar (stick or rod) stood for five. Depending on what level in the column the dots and lines were in would determine how many times it would need to be multiplied by twenty to give the right number. The Mayans wrote their numbers vertically instead of horizontally with the lowest denominations at the bottom, increasing as we move to the top...
The Maya Civilization, Maya Numerals And Calendar
Mayan Numeric System
Ancient Maya discovered two fundamental ideas in mathematics: positional value and the concept of zero. This feat was accomplished by only one other great culture of antiquity, the Hindu. But they did it 300 years or so after the Maya.These two elements, positional value and zero, might be considered simple and basic concepts nowadays. In fact, they are, and that is precisely what set them apart as a distinct stroke of genius. Greek and Romans, with all the force of their spirit and all the strength of their institutions, did not manage to find these principles. Just try to write down a large number using the Roman notation to see how important are the notions of positional value and zero.
The Maya system is based on the number 20, not on the number 10 as our own. This means that the Maya counted from zero to nineteen before they had to move to the next order, instead of using 10 digits, from zero to nine, as we do. Perhaps they employed fingers and toes to keep the count...
THE ANCIENT MAYA
The story of the Maya begins during the Fourth Ice Age about 60,000 years ago. At this time the earth's ice caps were much larger than today, glaciers extended as far south as the central United States and no tropical climate existed anywhere on our planet. The so-called tropics were covered with savannah and grassland. So much water was trapped in the ice caps that the level of the sea was lower than today and a land bridge about 1,000 miles wide connecting Asia and North America at the Bering Strait was exposed. The first humans to inhabit the Americas came across this land bridge. At first, travel south was impeded by vast walls of ice but gradually, as the ice melted, people began to spread south.
It is believed the first humans reached Central America about 15,000 years ago. The first identifiable culture, Clovis, existed around 10,000 BC. Some stone tools dating back to 9,000 BC have been found in Guatemala. Around this time, the Fourth Ice Age was drawing to a close and the climate was gradually warming up enabling humans to begin eating more plants and less meat. This change was underway around 8,000 BC.
From 8,000 BC to 2,000 BC the inhabitants of Central America gradually became more agrarian and they domesticated beans, corn, peppers, squash and other plants. During this time there was still no jungle, just savannah and grassland and some trees. Evidence indicates that a tropical jungle climate appeared in Central America only quite recently, after the Mayan civilization was well underway. Towards the end of this period, some recognizably Mayan villages appeared and pottery and ceramics appeared. Some villages had a temple...
Mayan Ruins, Mayan Temples and Mayan Sites
The Mayan civilization was one of the most advance and sophisticated cultures in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of European explorers. It flourished between 300 and 900 AD and once consisted of over 40 cities spread across southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and northern Belize. This category lists some of the most impressive ruins of these ancient cities that can be visited today. Many of these Mayan ruins have been designated World Heritage Sites.
The Mayan cities, full of magnificent stone temples and pyramids, were primarily ceremonial centers. Most of the Maya lived in rural areas and were farmers who looked to the priests of the cities for direction on the best days to plant, harvest, and marry. The Maya are famed for their impressive knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, which were integral to their religious rituals. They are also known for the practice of human sacrifice, which was a means of appeasing and nourishing the gods.
Below is an illustrated index of the 7 Mayan Ruins, Mayan Temples and Mayan Sites profiled on Sacred Destinations so far. For photo credits, please see corresponding articles...
SOLOLÁ PANAJACHEL
Like at the present time the territory of the department of Sololá was occupied by three towns, k´iche´, tz'utujil and cakchiquel. One of more important indigenous documents is the Memorial of Sololá, also known like Memorial Tecpán Atitlán, Annals of the Cakchiqueles or Anales of the Xahil. This document was written by two members of the family Xahil, Francisco Hernandez Arana and Francisco Diaz, between 1573 and 1610, like a title or proves for a judicial process. This department offers two attractive natural ones fundamentally: the volcanos (San Pedro, Tolimán and Atitlán) and the imposing lake of Atitlán. The lake is located to 5,000 feet of height and has 18 km in length. There are two versions of the formation of the lake, first it is that the lake is an old dead crater and the other than the sprouting of volcanos interrupted the course of the three rivers that come from the north, which when reuniting its waters in the place, gave origin to the lake. The lake does not have visible water-drainage. Around this geographic feature it goes up to around the legend of the “Xocomil”. The etimología of Xocomil, comes from the voices cakchiqueles Xocom, jocom = to gather; il = sins, that is the wind that gathers the sins of the inhabitants of the towns located to border of the lake...
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
  |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
