Friday, January 28, 2022 – Maya Civilization
- Mary Reed
- Jan 29, 2022
- 31 min read
I just watched “Ancient Maya Metropolis” on PBS. The ancient ancestors of today’s Maya people thrived in large, sophisticated cities across Central America for centuries. In 750 CE they began to abandon many of their major cities. Archaeologists investigate dramatic new evidence of the catastrophic droughts and instability that pushed cities beyond their limits. Corn was a staple of their diet. Drastic weather changes caused economic hardship because corn required regular rainfall. People left the cities in search of better food and environmental conditions. In addition, Mayan leaders of neighboring cities often attacked each other to grab power, thinning out the population. It was such an advanced society with regards to agriculture, engineering, art, etc., and yet it fell prey to the same issues that threaten us today — climate change and the hunger for political power. Let’s learn more about the Maya civilization.
According to Wikipedia, the Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples and was noted for its logosyllabic script — the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in pre-Columbian Americas — as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in the area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. "Maya" is a modern term used to refer collectively to the various peoples that inhabited this area. They did not call themselves "Maya" and did not have a sense of common identity or political unity. Today, their descendants — known collectively as the Maya — number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than 28 surviving Mayan languages and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors.
The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest villages. The Preclassic period — c. 2000 BC to 250 AD — saw the establishment of the first complex societies in the Maya region and the cultivation of the staple crops of the Maya diet, including maize, beans, squash and chili peppers. The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC, and by 500 BC, these cities possessed monumental architecture including large temples with elaborate stucco façades. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC. In the Late Preclassic a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and the city of Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is largely defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. This period saw the Maya civilization develop many city-states linked by a complex trade network. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals — the cities of Tikal and Calakmul — became powerful. The Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the 9th century, there was a widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities and a northward shift of population. The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north and the expansion of the aggressive Kʼicheʼ kingdom in the Guatemalan Highlands. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonized the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city, in 1697.
Rule during the Classic period centered on the concept of the "divine king" who was thought to act as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural realm. Kingship was patrilineal, and power normally passed to the eldest son. A prospective king was expected to be a successful war leader as well as a ruler. Closed patronage systems were the dominant force in Maya politics, although how patronage affected the political makeup of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic period, the aristocracy had grown in size, reducing the previously exclusive power of the king. The Maya developed sophisticated art forms using both perishable and nonperishable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, ceramics, sculpted stone monuments, stucco and finely painted murals.
Maya cities tended to expand organically. The city centers comprised ceremonial and administrative complexes, surrounded by an irregularly shaped sprawl of residential districts. Different parts of a city were often linked by causeways. Architecturally, city buildings included palaces, pyramid-temples, ceremonial ballcourts and structures specially aligned for astronomical observation. The Maya elite were literate and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing. Theirs was the most advanced writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books — of which only three uncontested examples remain — the rest having been destroyed by the Spanish. In addition, a great many examples of Maya texts can be found on stelae and ceramics. The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars and employed mathematics that included one of the earliest known instances of the explicit zero in human history. As a part of their religion, the Maya practiced human sacrifice.
Mesoamerica
The Maya civilization developed within the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers a region that spreads from northern Mexico southwards into Central America. Mesoamerica was one of six cradles of civilization worldwide. The Mesoamerican area gave rise to a series of cultural developments that included complex societies, agriculture, cities, monumental architecture, writing and calendrical systems. The set of traits shared by Mesoamerican cultures also included astronomical knowledge, blood and human sacrifice and a cosmovision that viewed the world as divided into four divisions aligned with the cardinal directions, each with different attributes, and a three-way division of the world into the celestial realm, the earth and the underworld.
By 6000 BC, the early inhabitants of Mesoamerica were experimenting with the domestication of plants, a process that eventually led to the establishment of sedentary agricultural societies. The diverse climate allowed for wide variation in available crops, but all regions of Mesoamerica cultivated the base crops of maize, beans and squash. All Mesoamerican cultures used Stone Age technology; after c. 1000 AD copper, silver and gold were worked. Mesoamerica lacked draft animals, did not use the wheel and possessed few domesticated animals; the principal means of transport was on foot or by canoe. Mesoamericans viewed the world as hostile and governed by unpredictable deities. The ritual Mesoamerican ballgame was widely played. Mesoamerica is linguistically diverse, with most languages falling within a small number of language families — the major families are Mayan, Mixe–Zoquean, Otomanguean and Uto-Aztecan; there are also a number of smaller families and isolates. The Mesoamerican language area shares a number of important features, including widespread loanwords — a word permanently adopted from one language, the donor language, and incorporated into another language without translation — and use of a vigesimal number system or base-20 (base-score) numeral system based on 20 in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on 10.
The territory of the Maya covered a third of Mesoamerica, and the Maya were engaged in a dynamic relationship with neighboring cultures that included the Olmecs, Mixtecs, Teotihuacan, the Aztecs and others. During the Early Classic period, the Maya cities of Tikal and Kaminaljuyu were key Maya foci in a network that extended beyond the Maya area into the highlands of central Mexico. At around the same time, there was a strong Maya presence at the Tetitla compound of Teotihuacan. Centuries later, during the 9th century AD, murals at Cacaxtla — another site in the central Mexican highlands — were painted in a Maya style. This may have been either an effort to align itself with the still-powerful Maya area after the collapse of Teotihuacan and ensuing political fragmentation in the Mexican Highlands or an attempt to express a distant Maya origin of the inhabitants. The Maya city of Chichen Itza and the distant Toltec capital of Tula had an especially close relationship.
Preclassic period c. 2000 BC-250 AD
The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Maya occupation at Cuello or modern-day Belize has been carbon dated to around 2600 BC. Settlements were established around 1800 BC in the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast, and the Maya were already cultivating the staple crops of maize, beans, squash and chili pepper. This period was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines.
During the Middle Preclassic Period, small villages began to grow to form cities. Nakbe in the Petén department of Guatemala is the earliest well-documented city in the Maya lowlands, where large structures have been dated to around 750 BC. The northern lowlands of Yucatán were widely settled by the Middle Preclassic. By approximately 400 BC, early Maya rulers were raising stelae. A developed script was already being used in Petén by the 3rd century BC. In the Late Preclassic Period, the enormous city of El Mirador grew to cover approximately 6.2 square miles. Although not as large, Tikal was already a significant city by around 350 BC.
In the highlands, Kaminaljuyu emerged as a principal center in the Late Preclassic. Takalik Abaj and Chocolá were two of the most important cities on the Pacific coastal plain, and Komchen grew to become an important site in northern Yucatán. The Late Preclassic cultural florescence collapsed in the first century AD, and many of the great Maya cities of the epoch were abandoned; the cause of this collapse is unknown.
Classic period c. 250-900 AD
The Classic period is largely defined as the period during which the lowland Maya raised dated monuments using the Long Count calendar. This period marked the peak of large-scale construction and urbanism and the recording of monumental inscriptions, along with demonstrating significant intellectual and artistic development, particularly in the southern lowland regions. The Classic period Maya political landscape has been likened to that of Renaissance Italy or Classical Greece, with multiple city-states engaged in a complex network of alliances and enmities. The largest cities had populations numbering 50,000 to 120,000 and were linked to networks of subsidiary sites.
During the Early Classic, cities throughout the Maya region were influenced by the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico. In AD 378, Teotihuacan decisively intervened at Tikal and other nearby cities, deposed their rulers and installed a new Teotihuacan-backed dynasty. This intervention was led by Siyaj Kʼakʼ or "Born of Fire" who arrived at Tikal in early 378. The king of Tikal, Chak Tok Ichʼaak I, died on the same day, suggesting a violent takeover. A year later, Siyaj Kʼakʼ oversaw the installation of a new king, Yax Nuun Ahiin I. The installation of the new dynasty led to a period of political dominance when Tikal became the most powerful city in the central lowlands.
Tikal's great rival was Calakmul, another powerful city in the Petén Basin. Tikal and Calakmul both developed extensive systems of allies and vassals; lesser cities that entered one of these networks gained prestige from their association with the top-tier city and maintained peaceful relations with other members of the same network. Tikal and Calakmul engaged in the maneuvering of their alliance networks against each other. At various points during the Classic period, one or other of these powers would gain a strategic victory over its great rival, resulting in respective periods of florescence and decline.
In 629, Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil — a son of the Tikal king Kʼinich Muwaan Jol II — was sent to found a new city at Dos Pilas in the Petexbatún region, apparently as an outpost to extend Tikal's power beyond the reach of Calakmul. For the next two decades he fought loyally for his brother and overlord at Tikal. In 648, king Yuknoom Chʼeen II of Calakmul captured Balaj Chan Kʼawiil. Yuknoom Chʼeen II then reinstated Balaj Chan Kʼawiil upon the throne of Dos Pilas as his vassal. He thereafter served as a loyal ally of Calakmul.
In the southeast, Copán was the most important city. Its Classic-period dynasty was founded in 426 by Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ. The new king had strong ties with central Petén and Teotihuacan. Copán reached the height of its cultural and artistic development during the rule of Uaxaclajuun Ubʼaah Kʼawiil who ruled from 695 to 738. His reign ended catastrophically when he was captured by his vassal, king Kʼakʼ Tiliw Chan Yopaat of Quiriguá. The captured lord of Copán was taken back to Quiriguá and was decapitated in a public ritual. It is likely that this coup was backed by Calakmul, in order to weaken a powerful ally of Tikal. Palenque and Yaxchilan were the most powerful cities in the Usumacinta region. In the highlands, Kaminaljuyu in the Valley of Guatemala was already a sprawling city by 300. In the north of the Maya area, Coba was the most important capital.
Classic Maya collapse
During the 9th century AD, the central Maya region suffered major political collapse, marked by the abandonment of cities, the ending of dynasties and a northward shift in activity. No universally accepted theory explains this collapse, but it likely had a combination of causes, including endemic internecine warfare, overpopulation resulting in severe environmental degradation and drought. During this period — known as the Terminal Classic — the northern cities of Chichen Itza and Uxmal showed increased activity. Major cities in the northern Yucatán Peninsula continued to be inhabited long after the cities of the southern lowlands ceased to raise monuments.
Classic Maya social organization was based on the ritual authority of the ruler, rather than central control of trade and food distribution. This model of rulership was poorly structured to respond to changes, because the ruler's actions were limited by tradition to such activities as construction, ritual and warfare. This only served to exacerbate systemic problems. By the 9th and 10th centuries, this resulted in collapse of this system of rulership. In the northern Yucatán, individual rule was replaced by a ruling council formed from elite lineages. In the southern Yucatán and central Petén, kingdoms declined; in western Petén and some other areas, the changes were catastrophic and resulted in the rapid depopulation of cities. Within a couple of generations, large swathes of the central Maya area were all but abandoned. Both the capitals and their secondary centers were generally abandoned within a period of 50 to 100 years. One by one, cities stopped sculpting dated monuments; the last Long Count date was inscribed at Toniná in 909. Stelae were no longer raised, and squatters moved into abandoned royal palaces. Mesoamerican trade routes shifted and bypassed Petén.
Postclassic period c. 950-1539 AD
Although much reduced, a significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources. Unlike during previous cycles of contraction in the Maya region, abandoned lands were not quickly resettled in the Postclassic. Activity shifted to the northern lowlands and the Maya Highlands; this may have involved migration from the southern lowlands, because many Postclassic Maya groups had migration myths. Chichen Itza and its Puuc neighbors declined dramatically in the 11th century, and this may represent the final episode of Classic Period collapse. After the decline of Chichen Itza, the Maya region lacked a dominant power until the rise of the city of Mayapan in the 12th century. New cities arose near the Caribbean and Gulf coasts, and new trade networks were formed.
The Postclassic period was marked by changes from the preceding Classic period. The once-great city of Kaminaljuyu in the Valley of Guatemala was abandoned after continuous occupation of almost 2,000 years. Across the highlands and neighboring Pacific coast, long-occupied cities in exposed locations were relocated, apparently due to a proliferation of warfare. Cities came to occupy more easily defended hilltop locations surrounded by deep ravines, with ditch-and-wall defenses sometimes supplementing the protection provided by the natural terrain. One of the most important cities in the Guatemalan Highlands at this time was Qʼumarkaj, the capital of the aggressive Kʼicheʼ kingdom. The government of Maya states — from the Yucatán to the Guatemalan highlands — was often organized as joint rule by a council. However, in practice one member of the council could act as a supreme ruler, while the other members served him as advisors.
Mayapan was abandoned around 1448, after a period of political, social and environmental turbulence that in many ways echoed the Classic period collapse in the southern Maya region. The abandonment of the city was followed by a period of prolonged warfare, disease and natural disasters in the Yucatán Peninsula, which ended only shortly before Spanish contact in 1511. Even without a dominant regional capital, the early Spanish explorers reported wealthy coastal cities and thriving marketplaces. During the Late Postclassic, the Yucatán Peninsula was divided into a number of independent provinces that shared a common culture but varied in internal sociopolitical organization. On the eve of the Spanish conquest, the highlands of Guatemala were dominated by several powerful Maya states. The Kʼicheʼ had carved out a small empire covering a large part of the western Guatemalan Highlands and the neighboring Pacific coastal plain. However, in the decades before the Spanish invasion, the Kaqchikel kingdom had been steadily eroding the kingdom of the Kʼicheʼ.
Contact period and Spanish conquest 1511-1697 AD
In 1511, a Spanish caravel — small, highly maneuverable sailing ship — was wrecked in the Caribbean, and about a dozen survivors made landfall on the coast of Yucatán. They were seized by a Maya lord and most were sacrificed, although two managed to escape. From 1517 to 1519, three separate Spanish expeditions explored the Yucatán coast and engaged in a number of battles with the Maya inhabitants. After the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish in 1521, Hernán Cortés dispatched Pedro de Alvarado to Guatemala with 180 cavalry, 300 infantry, 4 cannons and thousands of allied warriors from central Mexico; they arrived in Soconusco in 1523. The Kʼicheʼ capital, Qʼumarkaj, fell to Alvarado in 1524. Shortly afterwards, the Spanish were invited as allies into Iximche, the capital city of the Kaqchikel Maya. Good relations did not last, due to excessive Spanish demands for gold as tribute, and the city was abandoned a few months later. This was followed by the fall of Zaculeu, the Mam Maya capital, in 1525. Francisco de Montejo and his son, Francisco de Montejo the Younger, launched a long series of campaigns against the polities of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1527 and finally completed the conquest of the northern portion of the peninsula in 1546. This left only the Maya kingdoms of the Petén Basin independent. In 1697, Martín de Ursúa launched an assault on the Itza capital Nojpetén and the last independent Maya city fell to the Spanish.
Persistence of Maya culture
The Spanish conquest stripped away most of the defining features of Maya civilization. However, many Maya villages remained remote from Spanish colonial authority, and for the most part, continued to manage their own affairs. Maya communities and the nuclear family maintained their traditional day-to-day life. The basic Mesoamerican diet of maize and beans continued, although agricultural output was improved by the introduction of steel tools. Traditional crafts such as weaving, ceramics and basketry continued to be practiced. Community markets and trade in local products continued long after the conquest. At times, the colonial administration encouraged the traditional economy in order to extract tribute in the form of ceramics or cotton textiles, although these were usually made to European specifications. Maya beliefs and language proved resistant to change, despite vigorous efforts by Catholic missionaries. The 260-day tzolkʼin ritual calendar continues in use in modern Maya communities in the highlands of Guatemala and Chiapas, and millions of Mayan-language speakers inhabit the territory in which their ancestors developed their civilization.
Investigation of Maya civilization
The agents of the Catholic Church wrote detailed accounts of the Maya, in support of their efforts at Christianization, and absorption of the Maya into the Spanish Empire. This was followed by various Spanish priests and colonial officials who left descriptions of ruins they visited in Yucatán and Central America. In 1839, American traveler and writer John Lloyd Stephens set out to visit a number of Maya sites with English architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood. Their illustrated accounts of the ruins sparked strong popular interest and brought the Maya to the attention of the world. The later 19th century saw the recording and recovery of ethnohistoric accounts of the Maya and the first steps in deciphering Maya hieroglyphs.
The final two decades of the 19th century saw the birth of modern scientific archaeology in the Maya region, with the meticulous work of Alfred Maudslay and Teoberto Maler. By the early 20th century, the Peabody Museum was sponsoring excavations at Copán and in the Yucatán Peninsula. In the first two decades of the 20th century, advances were made in deciphering the Maya calendar and identifying deities, dates and religious concepts. Since the 1930s, archaeological exploration increased dramatically, with large-scale excavations across the Maya region.
In the 1960s, the distinguished Mayanist J. Eric S. Thompson promoted the ideas that Maya cities were essentially vacant ceremonial centers serving a dispersed population in the forest, and that the Maya civilization was governed by peaceful astronomer-priests. These ideas began to collapse with major advances in the decipherment of the script in the late 20th century, pioneered by Heinrich Berlin, Tatiana Proskouriakoff and Yuri Knorozov. With breakthroughs in understanding of Maya script since the 1950s, the texts revealed the warlike activities of the Classic Maya kings, and the view of the Maya as peaceful could no longer be supported.
Society
From the Early Preclassic, Maya society was sharply divided between the elite and commoners. As population increased over time, various sectors of society became increasingly specialized, and political organization became increasingly complex. By the Late Classic, when populations had grown enormously and hundreds of cities were connected in a complex web of political hierarchies, the wealthy segment of society multiplied. A middle class may have developed that included artisans, low-ranking priests and officials, merchants and soldiers. Commoners included farmers, servants, laborers and slaves. According to indigenous histories, land was held communally by noble houses or clans. Such clans held that the land was the property of the clan ancestors, and such ties between the land and the ancestors were reinforced by the burial of the dead within residential compounds.
King and court
Classic Maya rule was centered in a royal culture that was displayed in all areas of Classic Maya art. The king was the supreme ruler and held a semi-divine status that made him the mediator between the mortal realm and that of the gods. From very early times, kings were specifically identified with the young maize god, whose gift of maize was the basis of Mesoamerican civilization. Maya royal succession was patrilineal, and royal power only passed to queens when doing otherwise would result in the extinction of the dynasty. Typically, power was passed to the eldest son. A young prince was called a “chʼok” or "youth," although this word later came to refer to nobility in general. The royal heir was called “bʼaah chʼok” or "head youth". Various points in the young prince's childhood were marked by ritual; the most important was a bloodletting ceremony at age five or six years. Although being of the royal bloodline was of utmost importance, the heir also had to be a successful war leader, as demonstrated by taking of captives. The enthronement of a new king was a highly elaborate ceremony, involving a series of separate acts that included enthronement upon a jaguar-skin cushion, human sacrifice and receiving the symbols of royal power, such as a headband bearing a jade representation of the so-called "jester god," an elaborate headdress adorned with quetzal feathers and a scepter representing the god Kʼawiil.
Maya political administration, based around the royal court, was not bureaucratic in nature. Government was hierarchical, and official posts were sponsored by higher-ranking members of the aristocracy; officials tended to be promoted to higher levels of office during the course of their lives. Officials are referred to as being "owned" by their sponsor, and this relationship continued even after the death of the sponsor. The Maya royal court was a vibrant and dynamic political institution. There was no universal structure for the Maya royal court, instead each polity formed a royal court that was suited to its own individual context. A number of royal and noble titles have been identified by epigraphers translating Classic Maya inscriptions. “Ajaw” is usually translated as "lord" or "king."
In the Early Classic, an ajaw was the ruler of a city. Later, with increasing social complexity, the ajaw was a member of the ruling class and a major city could have more than one, each ruling over different districts. Paramount rulers distinguished themselves from the extended nobility by prefixing the word kʼuhul to their ajaw title. A kʼuhul ajaw was "divine lord," originally confined to the kings of the most prestigious and ancient royal lines. Kalomte was a royal title — whose exact meaning is not yet deciphered — but it was held only by the most powerful kings of the strongest dynasties. It indicated an overlord or high king, and the title was only in use during the Classic period. By the Late Classic, the absolute power of the kʼuhul ajaw had weakened, and the political system had diversified to include a wider aristocracy, that by this time may well have expanded disproportionately.
A sajal was ranked below the ajaw and indicated a subservient lord. A sajal would be lord of a second- or third-tier site, answering to an ajaw, who may himself have been subservient to a kalomte. A sajal would often be a war captain or regional governor, and inscriptions often link the sajal title to warfare; they are often mentioned as the holders of war captives. Sajal meant "feared one." The titles of ah tzʼihb and ah chʼul hun are both related to scribes. The ah tzʼihb was a royal scribe, usually a member of the royal family; the ah chʼul hun was the Keeper of the Holy Books, a title that is closely associated with the ajaw title, indicating that an ajaw always held the ah chʼul hun title simultaneously. Other courtly titles — the functions of which are not well understood — were yajaw kʼahk' or "Lord of Fire," tiʼhuun and ti'sakhuun. These last two may be variations on the same title, and Mark Zender has suggested that the holder of this title may have been the spokesman for the ruler. Courtly titles are overwhelmingly male-oriented, and in those relatively rare occasions where they are applied to a woman, they appear to be used as honorifics for female royalty. Titled elites were often associated with particular structures in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Classic period cities, indicating that such office holders either owned that structure, or that the structure was an important focus for their activities. A lakam or standard-bearer was possibly the only nonelite post-holder in the royal court. The lakam was only found in larger sites, and they appear to have been responsible for the taxation of local districts.
Different factions may have existed in the royal court. The kʼuhul ahaw and his household would have formed the central powerbase, but other important groups were the priesthood, the warrior aristocracy and other aristocratic courtiers. Where ruling councils existed — as at Chichen Itza and Copán — these may have formed an additional faction. Rivalry between different factions would have led to dynamic political institutions as compromises and disagreements were played out. In such a setting, public performance was vital. Such performances included ritual dances, presentation of war captives, offerings of tribute, human sacrifice and religious ritual.
Commoners
Commoners are estimated to have comprised over 90% of the population, but relatively little is known about them. Their houses were generally constructed from perishable materials, and their remains have left little trace in the archaeological record. Some commoner dwellings were raised on low platforms, and these can be identified, but an unknown quantity of commoner houses were not. Such low-status dwellings can only be detected by extensive remote-sensing surveys of apparently empty terrain. The range of commoners was broad; it consisted of everyone not of noble birth, and therefore included everyone from the poorest farmers to wealthy craftsmen and commoners appointed to bureaucratic positions. Commoners engaged in essential production activities, including that of products destined for use by the elite — such as cotton and cacao — as well as subsistence crops for their own use and utilitarian items such as ceramics and stone tools. Commoners took part in warfare and could advance socially by proving themselves as outstanding warriors. Commoners paid taxes to the elite in the form of staple goods such as maize, flour and game. It is likely that hard-working commoners who displayed exceptional skills and initiative could become influential members of Maya society.
Warfare
Warfare was prevalent in the Maya world. Military campaigns were launched for a variety of reasons, including the control of trade routes and tribute, raids to take captives and scaling up to the complete destruction of an enemy state. Little is known about Maya military organization, logistics or training. Warfare is depicted in Maya art from the Classic period, and wars and victories are mentioned in hieroglyphic inscriptions. Unfortunately, the inscriptions do not provide information upon the causes of war or the form it took. In the 8th–9th centuries, intensive warfare resulted in the collapse of the kingdoms of the Petexbatún region of western Petén. The rapid abandonment of Aguateca by its inhabitants has provided a rare opportunity to examine the remains of Maya weaponry in situ. Aguateca was stormed by unknown enemies around 810 AD, who overcame its formidable defenses and burned the royal palace. The elite inhabitants of the city either fled or were captured, and never returned to collect their abandoned property. The inhabitants of the periphery abandoned the site soon after. This is an example of intensive warfare carried out by an enemy in order to completely eliminate a Maya state, rather than subjugate it. Research at Aguateca indicated that Classic period warriors were primarily members of the elite.
From as early as the Preclassic period, the ruler of a Maya polity was expected to be a distinguished war leader and was depicted with trophy heads hanging from his belt. In the Classic period, such trophy heads no longer appeared on the king's belt, but Classic period kings are frequently depicted standing over humiliated war captives. Right up to the end of the Postclassic period, Maya kings led as war captains. Maya inscriptions from the Classic show that a defeated king could be captured, tortured and sacrificed. The Spanish recorded that Maya leaders kept track of troop movements in painted books.
The outcome of a successful military campaign could vary in its impact on the defeated polity. In some cases, entire cities were sacked and never resettled, as at Aguateca. In other instances, the victors would seize the defeated rulers, their families and patron gods. The captured nobles and their families could be imprisoned or sacrificed. At the least severe end of the scale, the defeated polity would be obliged to pay tribute to the victor.
Warriors
During the Contact period, it is known that certain military positions were held by members of the aristocracy and were passed on by patrilineal succession. It is likely that the specialized knowledge inherent in the particular military role was taught to the successor, including strategy, ritual and war dances. Maya armies of the Contact period were highly disciplined, and warriors participated in regular training exercises and drills; every able-bodied adult male was available for military service. Maya states did not maintain standing armies; warriors were mustered by local officials who reported back to appointed war leaders. There were also units of full-time mercenaries who followed permanent leaders. Most warriors were not full-time, however, and were primarily farmers; the needs of their crops usually came before warfare. Maya warfare was not so much aimed at destruction of the enemy as the seizure of captives and plunder.
There is some evidence from the Classic period that women provided supporting roles in war, but they did not act as military officers with the exception of those rare ruling queens. By the Postclassic, the native chronicles suggest that women occasionally fought in battle.
Weapons
The atlatl or spear-thrower was introduced to the Maya region by Teotihuacan in the Early Classic. This was a 1.6-foot stick with a notched end to hold a dart or javelin. The stick was used to launch the missile with more force and accuracy than could be accomplished by simply hurling it with the arm alone. Evidence in the form of stone blade points recovered from Aguateca indicate that darts and spears were the primary weapons of the Classic Maya warrior. Commoners used blowguns in war, which also served as their hunting weapon. The bow and arrow is another weapon that was used by the ancient Maya for both war and hunting. Although present in the Maya region during the Classic period, its use as a weapon of war was not favored; it did not become a common weapon until the Postclassic. The Contact period Maya also used two-handed swords crafted from strong wood with the blade fashioned from inset obsidian, similar to the Aztec macuahuitl. Maya warriors wore body armor in the form of quilted cotton that had been soaked in salt water to toughen it; the resulting armor compared favorably to the steel armor worn by the Spanish when they conquered the region. Warriors bore wooden or animal hide shields decorated with feathers and animal skins.
Trade
Trade was a key component of Maya society and in the development of the Maya civilization. The cities that grew to become the most important usually controlled access to vital trade goods or portage routes. Cities such as Kaminaljuyu and Qʼumarkaj in the Guatemalan Highlands and Chalchuapa in El Salvador variously controlled access to the sources of obsidian at different points in Maya history. The Maya were major producers of cotton, which was used to make the textiles to be traded throughout Mesoamerica. The most important cities in the northern Yucatán Peninsula controlled access to the sources of salt. In the Postclassic, the Maya engaged in a flourishing slave trade with wider Mesoamerica.
The Maya engaged in long distance trade across the Maya region and across greater Mesoamerica and beyond. As an illustration, an Early Classic Maya merchant quarter has been identified at the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan, in central Mexico. Within Mesoamerica beyond the Maya area, trade routes particularly focused on central Mexico and the Gulf coast. In the Early Classic, Chichen Itza was at the hub of an extensive trade network that imported gold discs from Colombia and Panama and turquoise from Los Cerrillos, New Mexico. Long-distance trade of both luxury and utilitarian goods was probably controlled by the royal family. Prestige goods obtained by trade were used both for consumption by the city's ruler and as luxury gifts to consolidate the loyalty of vassals and allies.
Trade routes not only supplied physical goods, they facilitated the movement of people and ideas throughout Mesoamerica. Shifts in trade routes occurred with the rise and fall of important cities in the Maya region and have been identified in every major reorganization of the Maya civilization, such as the rise of Preclassic Maya civilization, the transition to the Classic and the Terminal Classic collapse. Even the Spanish Conquest did not immediately terminate all Maya trading activity; for example, the Contact period Manche Chʼol traded the prestige crops of cacao, annatto and vanilla into colonial Verapaz.
Merchants
Little is known of Maya merchants, although they are depicted on Maya ceramics in elaborate noble dress. From this, it is known that at least some traders were members of the elite. During the Contact period, it is known that Maya nobility took part in long-distance trading expeditions. The majority of traders were middle class, but were largely engaged in local and regional trade rather than the prestigious long-distance trading that was the preserve of the elite. The traveling of merchants into dangerous foreign territory was likened to a passage through the underworld; the patron deities of merchants were two underworld gods carrying backpacks. When merchants traveled, they painted themselves black, like their patron gods, and went heavily armed.
The Maya had no pack animals, so all trade goods were carried on the backs of porters when going overland; if the trade route followed a river or the coast, then goods were transported in canoes. A substantial Maya trading canoe was encountered off Honduras on Christopher Columbus's fourth voyage. It was made from a large hollowed-out tree trunk and had a palm-covered canopy. The canoe was 8.2 feet broad and was powered by 25 rowers. Trade goods carried included cacao, obsidian, ceramics, textiles, food and drink for the crew copper bells and axes. Cacao was used as currency — although not exclusively, and its value was such that counterfeiting occurred by removing the flesh from the pod and stuffing it with dirt or avocado rind.
Marketplaces
Marketplaces are difficult to identify archaeologically. However, the Spanish reported a thriving market economy when they arrived in the region. At some Classic period cities, archaeologists have tentatively identified formal arcade-style masonry architecture and parallel alignments of scattered stones as the permanent foundations of market stalls. A 2007 study analyzed soils from a modern Guatemalan market and compared the results with those obtained from analysis at a proposed ancient market at Chunchucmil. Unusually high levels of zinc and phosphorus at both sites indicated similar food production and vegetable sales activity. The calculated density of market stalls at Chunchucmil strongly suggests that a thriving market economy already existed in the Early Classic. Archaeologists have tentatively identified marketplaces at an increasing number of Maya cities by means of a combination of archaeology and soil analysis. When the Spanish arrived, Postclassic cities in the highlands had markets in permanent plazas, with officials on hand to settle disputes, enforce rules and collect taxes.
Art
Maya art is essentially the art of the royal court. It is almost exclusively concerned with the Maya elite and their world. Maya art was crafted from both perishable and non-perishable materials and served to link the Maya to their ancestors. Although surviving Maya art represents only a small proportion of the art that the Maya created, it represents a wider variety of subjects than any other art tradition in the Americas. Maya art has many regional styles and is unique in the ancient Americas in bearing narrative text. The finest surviving Maya art dates to the Late Classic period.
The Maya exhibited a preference for the color green or blue-green and used the same word for the colors blue and green. Correspondingly, they placed high value on apple-green jade and other greenstones, associating them with the sun-god Kʼinich Ajau. They sculpted artefacts from fine mosaic tiles and beads to carved heads weighing 9.7 lbs. The Maya nobility practiced dental modification — the practice of manually sharpening the teeth, usually the front incisors, and some lords wore encrusted jade in their teeth. Mosaic funerary masks could also be fashioned from jade, such as that of Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal, king of Palenque.
Maya stone sculpture emerged into the archaeological record as a fully developed tradition, suggesting that it may have evolved from a tradition of sculpting wood. Because of the biodegradability of wood, the corpus of Maya woodwork has almost entirely disappeared. The few wooden artefacts that have survived include three-dimensional sculptures and hieroglyphic panels. Stone Maya monuments are widespread in city sites, often paired with low, circular stones referred to as altars in the literature. Stone sculpture also took other forms, such as the limestone relief panels at Palenque and Piedras Negras. At Yaxchilan, Dos Pilas, Copán and other sites, stone stairways were decorated with sculpture. The hieroglyphic stairway at Copán comprises the longest surviving Maya hieroglyphic text and consists of 2,200 individual glyphs.
The largest Maya sculptures consisted of architectural façades crafted from stucco. The rough form was laid out on a plain plaster base coating on the wall, and the three-dimensional form was built up using small stones. Finally, this was coated with stucco and molded into the finished form; human body forms were first modeled in stucco, with their costumes added afterwards. The final stucco sculpture was then brightly painted. Giant stucco masks were used to adorn temple façades by the Late Preclassic, and such decoration continued into the Classic period.
The Maya had a long tradition of mural painting; rich polychrome murals have been excavated at San Bartolo, dating to between 300 and 200 BC. Walls were coated with plaster, and polychrome designs were painted onto the smooth finish. The majority of such murals have not survived, but Early Classic tombs painted in cream, red and black have been excavated at Caracol, Río Azul and Tikal. Among the best-preserved murals are a full-size series of Late Classic paintings at Bonampak in Mexico.
Flint, chert and obsidian all served utilitarian purposes in Maya culture, but many pieces were finely crafted into forms that were never intended to be used as tools. Eccentric flints are among the finest lithic artefacts produced by the ancient Maya. They were technically very challenging to produce, requiring considerable skill on the part of the artisan. Large obsidian eccentrics can measure over 12 inches in length. Their actual form varies considerably but they generally depict human, animal and geometric forms associated with Maya religion. Eccentric flints show a great variety of forms, such as crescents, crosses, snakes and scorpions. The largest and most elaborate examples display multiple human heads, with minor heads sometimes branching off from larger one.
Maya textiles are very poorly represented in the archaeological record, although by comparison with other pre-Columbian cultures — such as the Aztecs and the Andean region — it is likely that they were high-value items. A few scraps of textile have been recovered by archaeologists, but the best evidence for textile art is where they are represented in other media, such as painted murals or ceramics. Such secondary representations show the elite of the Maya court adorned with sumptuous cloths, generally these would have been cotton, but jaguar pelts and deer hides are also shown.
Ceramics are the most commonly surviving type of Maya art. The Maya had no knowledge of the potter's wheel, and Maya vessels were built up by coiling rolled strips of clay into the desired form. Maya pottery was not glazed, although it often had a fine finish produced by burnishing. Maya ceramics were painted with clay slips blended with minerals and colored clays. Ancient Maya firing techniques have yet to be replicated. A quantity of extremely fine ceramic figurines have been excavated from Late Classic tombs on Jaina Island in northern Yucatán. They stand from 3.9 to 9.8 inches high and were hand-modeled, with exquisite detail. The Ik-style polychrome ceramic corpus — including finely painted plates and cylindrical vessels — originated in Late Classic Motul de San José. It includes a set of features such as hieroglyphs painted in a pink or pale red color and scenes with dancers wearing masks. One of the most distinctive features is the realistic representation of subjects as they appeared in life. The subject matter of the vessels includes courtly life from the Petén region in the 8th century AD, such as diplomatic meetings, feasting, bloodletting, scenes of warriors and the sacrifice of prisoners of war.
Bone, both human and animal, was also sculpted; human bones may have been trophies or relics of ancestors. The Maya valued Spondylus shells and worked them to remove the white exterior and spines to reveal the fine orange interior. Around the 10th century AD, metallurgy arrived in Mesoamerica from South America, and the Maya began to make small objects in gold, silver and copper. The Maya generally hammered sheet metal into objects such as beads, bells and discs. In the last centuries before the Spanish Conquest, the Maya began to use the lost-wax method to cast small metal pieces.
One poorly studied area of Maya folk art is graffiti. Additional graffiti — not part of the planned decoration — was incised into the stucco of interior walls, floors and benches in a wide variety of buildings including temples, residences and storerooms. Graffiti has been recorded at 51 Maya sites, particularly clustered in the Petén Basin and southern Campeche, and the Chenes region of northwestern Yucatán. At Tikal, where a great quantity of graffiti has been recorded, the subject matter includes drawings of temples, people, deities, animals, banners, litters and thrones. Graffiti was often inscribed haphazardly, with drawings overlapping each other, and display a mix of crude, untrained art, and examples by artists who were familiar with Classic-period artistic conventions.
Architecture
Palaces and acropoleis
These complexes were usually located in the site core, beside a principal plaza. Maya palaces consisted of a platform supporting a multiroom range structure. The term acropolis, in a Maya context, refers to a complex of structures built upon platforms of varying height. Palaces and acropoleis were essentially elite residential compounds. They generally extended horizontally as opposed to the towering Maya pyramids and often had restricted access. Some structures in Maya acropoleis supported roof combs. Rooms often had stone benches used for sleeping, and holes indicate where curtains once hung. Large palaces, such as at Palenque, could be fitted with a water supply, and sweat baths were often found within the complex or nearby. During the Early Classic, rulers were sometimes buried underneath the acropolis complex. Some rooms in palaces were true throne rooms; in the royal palace of Palenque there were a number of throne rooms that were used for important events, including the inauguration of new kings.
Palaces are usually arranged around one or more courtyards, with their façades facing inwards; some examples are adorned with sculpture. Some palaces possess associated hieroglyphic descriptions that identify them as the royal residences of named rulers. There is abundant evidence that palaces were far more than simple elite residences and that a range of courtly activities took place in them, including audiences, formal receptions and important rituals.
Pyramids and temples
Temples were sometimes referred to in hieroglyphic texts as kʼuh nah, meaning "god's house." Temples were raised on platforms, most often upon a pyramid. The earliest temples were probably thatched huts built upon low platforms. By the Late Preclassic period, their walls were of stone, and the development of the corbel arch allowed stone roofs to replace thatch. By the Classic period, temple roofs were being topped with roof combs that extended the height of the temple and served as a foundation for monumental art. The temple shrines contained between one and three rooms and were dedicated to important deities. Such a deity might be one of the patron gods of the city or a deified ancestor. In general, freestanding pyramids were shrines honoring powerful ancestors.
Ballcourts
The ballcourt is a distinctive pan-Mesoamerican form of architecture. Although the majority of Maya ballcourts date to the Classic period, the earliest examples appeared around 1000 BC in northwestern Yucatán, during the Middle Preclassic. By the time of Spanish contact, ballcourts were only in use in the Guatemalan Highlands at cities such as Qʼumarkaj and Iximche. Throughout Maya history, ballcourts maintained a characteristic form consisting of an ɪ shape, with a central playing area terminating in two transverse end zones. The central playing area usually measures between 66 and 98 feet long and is flanked by two lateral structures that stood up to 9.8 or 13.1 feet high. The lateral platforms often supported structures that may have held privileged spectators. The Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza is the largest in Mesoamerica, measuring 272 feet long by 98 feet wide, with walls standing 27 feet high.
Chenes
The Chenes style is very similar to the Puuc style but predates the use of the mosaic façades of the Puuc region. It featured fully adorned façades on both the upper and lower sections of structures. Some doorways were surrounded by mosaic masks of monsters representing mountain or sky deities, identifying the doorways as entrances to the supernatural realm. Some buildings contained interior stairways that accessed different levels. The Chenes style is most commonly encountered in the southern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula, although individual buildings in the style can be found elsewhere in the peninsula. Examples of Chenes sites include Dzibilnocac, Hochob, Santa Rosa Xtampak and Tabasqueño.
Writing and literacy
The Maya writing system is one of the outstanding achievements of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. It was the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system of more than a dozen systems that developed in Mesoamerica. The earliest inscriptions in an identifiably Maya script date back to 300–200 BC, in the Petén Basin. However, this is preceded by several other Mesoamerican writing systems, such as the Epi-Olmec and Zapotec scripts. Early Maya script had appeared on the Pacific coast of Guatemala by the late first century AD, or early second century. Similarities between the Isthmian script and Early Maya script of the Pacific coast suggest that the two systems developed in tandem. By about AD 250, the Maya script had become a more formalized and consistent writing system.
The Catholic Church and colonial officials — notably Bishop Diego de Landa — destroyed Maya texts wherever they found them and with them the knowledge of Maya writing, but by chance three uncontested pre-Columbian books dated to the Postclassic period have been preserved. These are known as the Madrid Codex, the Dresden Codex and the Paris Codex. A few pages survive from a fourth — the Grolier Codex — whose authenticity is disputed. Archaeology conducted at Maya sites often reveals other fragments, rectangular lumps of plaster and paint chips which were codices; these tantalizing remains are, however, too severely damaged for any inscriptions to have survived, most of the organic material having decayed. In reference to the few extant Maya writings, Michael D. Coe stated:
[O]ur knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and 'Pilgrim's Progress').
— Michael D. Coe, The Maya, London: Thames and Hudson, 6th ed., 1999, pp. 199–200.
Most surviving pre-Columbian Maya writing dates to the Classic period and is contained in stone inscriptions from Maya sites, such as monuments or on ceramics vessels. Other media include the aforementioned codices, stucco façades, frescoes, wooden lintels, cave walls and portable artefacts crafted from a variety of materials, including bone, shell, obsidian and jade.
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