Agriculture
The Mayan civilization in all stages--formative, flourishing, declining, and continuing--has been based on agriculture. Indian corn, or maize, was domesticated from a wild grass in central Mexico about 7,000 years ago and sustained most sedentary Indian civilizations from that time.
In the humid Peten a surplus of water and rapid growth of trees and vines encouraged the slash-and-burn farming method. The farmer cleared the cornfield by cutting bushes and girdling the trees, usually near the end of the rainy season, allowing the piled brush to dry under the hot sun of the dry season. Then the wood was burned and the ashes scattered among the stumps. A mattock of stone or wood to scoop the earth into a hummock and a fire-hardened pointed stick to poke a hole for the seed were used.
Culture
The productivity of the corn farmer sustained the Mayan civilization. It is estimated that as many as 150 days a year were free from daily drudgery in the fields. This surplus time was utilized by the nobility and the priests in a stratified society to build the cities, pyramids, and temples. There was sufficient leisure to support skilled craftsmen in arts and crafts. The Mayan workers who constructed the great stone structures and decorated the walls with artistic embellishment, however, were unaided by draft animals and wheeled carts. The lords of the land oversaw civic matters, while the priests conducted religious rituals, pursued intellectual studies, and corrected the calendar.
Cities that flourished in the classic period in lowland Guatemala are exemplified by Tikal, which has pyramid-temples more than 200 feet (60 meters) high and numerous carved stelae as time markers and reign recorders. Then the Old Empire collapsed. The stable city-states, comparable to ancient Greece in cultural accomplishment and administrative acumen, faded from memory.
No one knows why the culture declined and the cities were covered by encroaching forest until rediscovery in the 19th century. Possible causes include exhaustion of the cornfields by overpopulation, climatic changes, hurricanes, pestilences of epidemic proportions, wars, and insurrection.
Far to the north at the tip of Yucatan the New Empire waxed while the Old Empire waned. Archaeologists trace transition routes through Palenque in Chiapas, via Mirador and Rio Bec in Quintana Roo, and around Coba, where a network of causeway roads called sacbes connect distant cities.
The physical environment of the peninsula of Yucatan differs from that of the Peten. It too is lowland and limestone but arid and covered with desert scrub. Water is scarce and seasonal, draining underground via sinkholes and subterranean streams. Where the water table reaches the surface or the limestone layer can be breached, a cenote, or well, provides water for settlement and cultivation. Chaltunes are man-made cisterns lined with plaster to catch rainwater runoff. Such sites are typified by Uxmal and Chichen Itza with the Sacred Cenote, or Well of Sacrifice.
Palenque presents two notable features: the tomb of Lord Pacal (615-683), located inside the Temple of the Inscriptions, and the royal palace with a four-story square tower used not for defense observation but to notify the hospitable lords that visitors were approaching along the Usumacinta River, the artery of trade and travel to Tikal.
Uxmal (750-1000) is distinguished by the Temple of the Magician, which was rebuilt five times to comply with century cycles every 52 years according to the rounds of the lunar and solar calendars. The tracery of Kukulcan, or "feathered serpent" in the Mayan tongue, is intertwined through the mosaic of fretwork on the upper wall of the Nunnery Quadrangle.
El Castillo, or the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent" in the Nahuatl language of the Toltecs and Aztecs, is the outstanding feature of Chichen Itza (1000-1200). It heralds the coming of the Toltecs from Central Mexico and their dominance of the Maya of Old Chichen (800-1000). The themes of art and architecture duplicate Tula, the original capital in the highlands, with emphasis on the images and symbols of the feathered serpent. The Quetzalcoatl portal supported the lintel over the entrance to the Temple of the Warriors, and the memoirs of the associated military orders of Jaguar and Eagle are carved into the Court of the Thousand Columns. The head, body, and tail of the creator deity--the giver of corn and civilization--outline the grand staircase rising to the temple atop El Castillo. Inside, the red Jaguar throne is encrusted with pieces of precious jade. The Quetzalcoatl legend predicted the return of the god to Mexico, which happened to coincide with the arrival of the conquistadores, and Cortez astutely assumed the mantle of the deity to befuddle the superstitious Montezuma and complete the Spanish conquest.
Religion and the state among the Maya were as closely interconnected as among the Spaniards who conquered them. This convergence of customs and beliefs facilitated the merging of religions and the acceptance of authority during the colonial period. The Indians were converted to Roman Catholicism, but pagan practices persist, particularly in rural villages. In ancient days religious rites were conducted in temples by priests, and the government was administered by the aristocracy. The palace at Sayil and the governor's palace at Uxmal represent
The Mayan civilization in all stages--formative, flourishing, declining, and continuing--has been based on agriculture. Indian corn, or maize, was domesticated from a wild grass in central Mexico about 7,000 years ago and sustained most sedentary Indian civilizations from that time.
In the humid Peten a surplus of water and rapid growth of trees and vines encouraged the slash-and-burn farming method. The farmer cleared the cornfield by cutting bushes and girdling the trees, usually near the end of the rainy season, allowing the piled brush to dry under the hot sun of the dry season. Then the wood was burned and the ashes scattered among the stumps. A mattock of stone or wood to scoop the earth into a hummock and a fire-hardened pointed stick to poke a hole for the seed were used.
Culture
The productivity of the corn farmer sustained the Mayan civilization. It is estimated that as many as 150 days a year were free from daily drudgery in the fields. This surplus time was utilized by the nobility and the priests in a stratified society to build the cities, pyramids, and temples. There was sufficient leisure to support skilled craftsmen in arts and crafts. The Mayan workers who constructed the great stone structures and decorated the walls with artistic embellishment, however, were unaided by draft animals and wheeled carts. The lords of the land oversaw civic matters, while the priests conducted religious rituals, pursued intellectual studies, and corrected the calendar.
Cities that flourished in the classic period in lowland Guatemala are exemplified by Tikal, which has pyramid-temples more than 200 feet (60 meters) high and numerous carved stelae as time markers and reign recorders. Then the Old Empire collapsed. The stable city-states, comparable to ancient Greece in cultural accomplishment and administrative acumen, faded from memory.
No one knows why the culture declined and the cities were covered by encroaching forest until rediscovery in the 19th century. Possible causes include exhaustion of the cornfields by overpopulation, climatic changes, hurricanes, pestilences of epidemic proportions, wars, and insurrection.
Far to the north at the tip of Yucatan the New Empire waxed while the Old Empire waned. Archaeologists trace transition routes through Palenque in Chiapas, via Mirador and Rio Bec in Quintana Roo, and around Coba, where a network of causeway roads called sacbes connect distant cities.
The physical environment of the peninsula of Yucatan differs from that of the Peten. It too is lowland and limestone but arid and covered with desert scrub. Water is scarce and seasonal, draining underground via sinkholes and subterranean streams. Where the water table reaches the surface or the limestone layer can be breached, a cenote, or well, provides water for settlement and cultivation. Chaltunes are man-made cisterns lined with plaster to catch rainwater runoff. Such sites are typified by Uxmal and Chichen Itza with the Sacred Cenote, or Well of Sacrifice.
Palenque presents two notable features: the tomb of Lord Pacal (615-683), located inside the Temple of the Inscriptions, and the royal palace with a four-story square tower used not for defense observation but to notify the hospitable lords that visitors were approaching along the Usumacinta River, the artery of trade and travel to Tikal.
Uxmal (750-1000) is distinguished by the Temple of the Magician, which was rebuilt five times to comply with century cycles every 52 years according to the rounds of the lunar and solar calendars. The tracery of Kukulcan, or "feathered serpent" in the Mayan tongue, is intertwined through the mosaic of fretwork on the upper wall of the Nunnery Quadrangle.
El Castillo, or the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent" in the Nahuatl language of the Toltecs and Aztecs, is the outstanding feature of Chichen Itza (1000-1200). It heralds the coming of the Toltecs from Central Mexico and their dominance of the Maya of Old Chichen (800-1000). The themes of art and architecture duplicate Tula, the original capital in the highlands, with emphasis on the images and symbols of the feathered serpent. The Quetzalcoatl portal supported the lintel over the entrance to the Temple of the Warriors, and the memoirs of the associated military orders of Jaguar and Eagle are carved into the Court of the Thousand Columns. The head, body, and tail of the creator deity--the giver of corn and civilization--outline the grand staircase rising to the temple atop El Castillo. Inside, the red Jaguar throne is encrusted with pieces of precious jade. The Quetzalcoatl legend predicted the return of the god to Mexico, which happened to coincide with the arrival of the conquistadores, and Cortez astutely assumed the mantle of the deity to befuddle the superstitious Montezuma and complete the Spanish conquest.
Religion and the state among the Maya were as closely interconnected as among the Spaniards who conquered them. This convergence of customs and beliefs facilitated the merging of religions and the acceptance of authority during the colonial period. The Indians were converted to Roman Catholicism, but pagan practices persist, particularly in rural villages. In ancient days religious rites were conducted in temples by priests, and the government was administered by the aristocracy. The palace at Sayil and the governor's palace at Uxmal represent