Mayan Civilization
I. Who are the Maya? Great borrowers of ideas. 4000B.P.- 1000 B.P.
A. They occupied three zones in present day Latin America.
1. Pacific coastal highlands were temperate, much volcanic activity. Enough rain and raw materials, exceptional soil fertility.
a. No known great masonry edifices, no great stelae.
b. But very densely populated, known cocoa production.
i. oldest cocoa remains dated at 2,600 BP found in pottery. Research by Hershey.
2. Central area of tropical rain forest 10 feet of rain/year. Shallow soil over limestone formation.
a. Center of most sophistication in art, astronomy, mathematics.
b. Largest structures and cities, bukoo stelae.
c. Richest area for art finds, oldest fine art centers here.
3. Yucatan peninsula best known and most visited of areas.
a. Surviving codices are from here.
b. No surface water, cenotes and wells.
c. Monumental architecture, but no earlier than 1000 B.C..
B. Lived by swidden agriculture, some old butts 150’ tall.
C. Practiced a religion of bloodletting similar to the religion of the central Mexicans. Quetzalcoatl reappears as Kukulcan. Hummingbird deity, too.
D. Played the ball game without rings.
E. Lived in peace (no battlements or forts) but took captives and sacrificed victims.
II. The Maya calendar is reckoned off the original date of 3113 B.C.=
A. Calendar Round is comprised of two intermeshed rounds.
1. Venus cycle is 20 day names repeated 13 times =260 days.
2. Sun cycle is 18 months with 20 day names and five unlucky days = 365.
3. The least common multiple of 260 x 365 is 52 years = 18,980 days = Calendar Round.
B. Numbers are written with bars and dots or by picture symbols.
1. “Teens” are indicated by a fleshless lower jaw.
2. Numbers over 20 are symbols like an eagle head for 144,000.
3. A tun is a unit of 360 days. The largest known cycle recorded is 64,000,000 tuns.
a. These are similar to the counting methods at Teotehuacan.
C. Mayans knew more than we know they knew about Mars.
III. What is their art like?
A. Architectural masters who used limestone block and corbeled vaults to create temples, tombs and houses for the wealthy.
1. Exterior surfaces ornamented with bas-relief.
a. House of the Governors at Uxmal has 20,000 stones cut to exact specs. for a mosaic facade on a building 320’ long x 40’ wide x 26’ high.
2. Temples topped with roof combs.
3. Steeper and smaller based than Mexican pyramids.
4. Flying facade was used here like in the old west (USA).
B. Large scale sculpture was used in interiors, stelae, and altars.
1. In early times the stone was left unadorned, later after influence from Teotehuacan painted stucco elements and fresco were used.
2. The largest stela is 35’ high and located at Quirigua (771 A.D.
a. Most stelae are about 10’ high and depict an individual surrounded by astrological calculations with names of towns and rulers.
b. Most figures are carved in relief and shown laterally until the early classic when some frontal presentations of the bodies appear even though the head remains in profile.
c. They were erected every 5, 10 or twenty years for reasons we still don’t understand.
3. The underside of door lintels were carved in house interiors.
a. One depicts a blood letting ceremony, another a chief sitting upon an altar.
b. This undoubtedly is indicative of otherwood carving long rotted.
4. Altars.
a. Usually are found in association with stelae.
b. They may be round or square, but at Copan are in the shape of dragons.
c. They are usually carved on the top and/or sides.
C. Small-scale stone carving.
1. The earliest has deinite Olmec traits.
2. Frequently painted and decorated with other elements.
3. Jewelry (ear spools, necklaces, pectorals and bracelets) of jade.
a. All MesoAmericans considered jade the most precious of objects.
b. Large quantities of “killed” jade objects found in cenotes.
c. Full-scale portraits as death masks made of small pieces of jade mosaiced or joined.
D. Pottery was usually painted and in the late classic stuccoed.
1. Polychrome pottery appears in central area in late pre-classic.
a. Ths is influence from Teotehuacan.
2. Figurines were popular in the pre-classic period, then dropped from favor to reappear during the later classic in a few isolated spots. Trends.
3. By the late classic jars depict scenes which evidently commemorate people and events with text and dates.
a. Have been found in association with burials.
E. Mural paintings, the most famous is at Bonampak in Chiapas (700-900 A.D.).
1. Murals are believed to have been used on both exteriors and interiors, although only a few interior murals have survived.
2. Perspective created by layering on the vertical plane. Distance created by foreshortening.
3. The Bonampak murals are animated and detailed.
F. Codices, only three remain mostly unscathed, the Paris, the Madrid and the Dresden.
1. Bark paper books stuccoed and painted on both sides.
2. they record astronomical data, methods of divination, and ritual are illustrated.
3. A fourth was excavated but as all of the pages are stuck together it awaits examination by future technicians.
Bishop de Landa said, “These people (of Yucatan) also made use of certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books their ancient affairs and their sciences, and with these and drawings and with certain signs in their drawings, they understood their affairs and made others understand them and taught them. We found a great number of books in these characters, and, as they contained nothing in which there was not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree and caused them affliction”