Maya - American Archaeology

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Maya

The ancient Maya were a group of American Indian peoples who lived in southern Mexico, particularly the present-day states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, and in Belize, Guatemala, and adjacent Honduras. Their descendants, the modern Maya, live in the same regions today, in both highlands and lowlands, from cool highland plains ringed by volcanos to deep tropical rain forests.

Through the region runs a single major river system, the Apasion-Usumacinta and its many tributaries, and only a handful of lesser rivers, the Motagua, Hondo, and Belize among them. The ancestors of the Maya, like those of other New World peoples, crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Asia more than 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age.

The Maya were the first people of the New World to keep historical records: their written history begins in 50 BC, when they began to inscribe texts on pots, jades, bones, stone monuments, and palace walls. Maya records trace the history of the great kings and queens who ruled from 50 BC until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. All Maya "long count" calendar inscriptions fall between AD

292 and AD 909, roughly defining the period called Classic.

Protected by difficult terrain and heavy vegetation, the ruins of few ancient Maya cities were known before the 19th century, when explorers and archaeologists began to rediscover them. The age and proliferation of Maya writings have been recognized since about 1900, when the calendrical content of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions was deciphered and the dates correlated with the Christian calendar. For most of the 20th century, only the extensive calendrical data of Maya inscriptions could be read, and as a result, Maya scholars hypothesized that the inscriptions were pure calendrical records. Because little evidence of warfare had been recognized archaeologically, the Classic Maya were thought of as peaceful timekeepers and skywatchers. Their cities, it was thought, were ceremonial centers for ascetic priests, and their artwork anonymous, without concern

.for specific individuals.

More recent scholarship changes the picture dramatically. In 1958 Heinrich Berlin demonstrated that certain Maya hieroglyphs, which he called emblem glyphs, contained main signs that varied according to location, indicating dynastic lines or place names. In 1960, Tatiana Proskouriakoff showed that the patterns of dates were markers of the important events in rulers' lives. The chronological record turned out to serve history and the perpetuation of the memory of great nobles. Subsequently, major archaeological discoveries, particularly at Palenque and Tikal, confirmed much of what the writings said, and examination of Maya art has revealed not only historical portraiture but also a pantheon of gods, goddesses, and heroes--in other words, Maya religion and mythic history.

Architecture
Maya architectural forms were derived from domestic architecture: stone or earthen platform and wattle-and-daub shelter, covered by a hip roof of thatch. The shrine and platform of the pyramid grew from the house form, and the Maya corbel arch, often called a "false" arch, preserves the hip roof in stone. With these elements the Maya built ranging palaces, pyramids, shrines, and even ballcourts. Maya builders frequently set a new structure directly over an old one, and within ranging palace complexes, doorways were frequently walled up and changed.
Maya cities follow no grid and show centuries of accretions. Buildings cluster along causeways and hillsides, following the difficult topography of most Maya sites. During the Postclassic, Chichen Itza builders introduced new forms, particularly columns, and great colonnades with thatch roofs were set in front of many administrative buildings. Palaces with galleries of columns opened onto private patios. Later buildings at Mayapan and Tulum imitated the ones at Chichen Itza, but they were poorly made and coated in thick layers of plaster and paint

Present Day Maya
The modern Maya live in roughly the same geography as did their predecessors, now divided by modern political boundaries. Some 4 million or so Maya speak one of the 30 or more Maya languages and retain traditional customs, diet, dress, or housing. Many, particularly in Merida and Cancun, have adopted an urban life, but most continue to live in rural areas. Particularly in highland Guatemala, where insufficient land is available, men accept seasonal work away from their families and spend months harvesting coffee or other crops on the Pacific coast.
During the Colonial period, Spanish slavers hauled thousands of Maya to the mines in northern Mexico, where most died, leaving the tropical lowlands virtually unpopulated. In Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, many Maya have gone to the tropical lowlands in search of land in recent years. Prior to this incursion, only the Lacandon, a small group of 350 people living in a handful of communities, had dwelt in the jungle in this century. Now many Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, and Yucatec Maya have been granted new ejidos, or collective farms, by the Mexican government, where they raise coffee or cattle. In Guatemala, Kekchi and Mopan settlers have pushed into the Peten rain forest. Civil and racial strife in Guatemala in the 1970s and 1980s forced many Maya, particularly Quiche, to flee across the border to Mexico, where thousands of refugees remained. The Mexican government moved a large number to a permanent settlement near Edzna, Campeche

In both the highland and the lowlands, the Maya have maintained age-old traditions. Maya rituals for naming children, nurturing the agricultural cycle, marriage, sickness, death, and even auguring the future have been widely retained.

In the northern lowlands, Chaac the rain god is worshiped, and in times of need a chachaac, or rainmaking ceremony, is performed. Before the conquest, the uayeb, or last five days of the year, was a dangerous time; most Maya now identify uayeb with Holy Week, and it and Carnival are carefully observed. Particularly in the Mexican highland communities of Zinacantan and Chamula, the cargo system of rotating civil offices is retained. Although the Spanish quickly established their capitals after the conquest, Maya rebellions were common until the 20th century. In Yucatan, Mexico established (1902) a separate territory, Quintana Roo on the east side of the peninsula, where many rebels fled. Made a state in 1974, Quintana Roo is now the location of Mexico's prosperous Caribbean resorts.