Page 37 - 201311 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2012

Top 10 Fascinating Mayan Facts Top 10 Fascinating Facts lowland region reached their peak during the About The Mayans Classic Period of Maya civilization (A.D. 250 to 900), and built the great stone cities and Continued from Page 35 monuments that have fascinated explorers and scholars of the region. 3. The Last Maya State Early Maya, 1800 B.C. to A.D. 250 The Fact: The last Maya state existed until The earliest Maya settlements date to around 1697 1800 B.C., or the beginning of what is called the Preclassic or Formative Period. The earliest The island city of Tayasal was the last Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as independent Mayan kingdom and some Spanish corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava priests peacefully visited and preached to the (manioc). During the Middle Preclassic Period, last Itza king, Canek, as late as 1696. The Itza which lasted until about 300 B.C., Maya kingdom finally submitted to Spanish rule on farmers began to expand their presence both in March 13, 1697, to a force led by Martín de the highland and lowland regions. The Middle Ursua, governor of Yucatán. The famous Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first archeological site and home to the beautiful major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. monuments we are all familiar with was in Like other Mesamerican peoples, such as the Chichen Itza, located in this last independent Zapotec, Totonac, Teotihuacán and Aztec, the region. Interestingly, much of the land under the Maya derived a number of religious and cultural monuments is privately owned by one family, traits--as well as their number system and their whilst the government owns and administers the famous calendar--from the Olmec. monuments themselves. megafauna. Some scholars have recently In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic 2. Life Goes On theorized that an intense 200 year drought led to Maya also displayed more advanced cultural the collapse of Maya civilization. traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments. The Fact: The Mayan Calendar does not The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in predict the end of the world in 2012 The Rise and Fall of the the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities Maya Empire ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Its First of all, the Mayans don’t have a calender size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, they have calendars which often interlocked. and its existence proves that the Maya The calender that has given rise to the myth of History.com flourished centuries before the Classic Period. the end of the world is the Mayan long count calendar. According to Mayan Mythology, we The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical Cities of Stone: The Classic Maya, A.D. 250- are living in the fourth world or “creation” so to lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached 900 speak. The last creation ended on the peak of its power and influence around the 12.19.19.17.19 of the long count calendar. That sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at The Classic Period, which began around A.D. sequence will occur again on December 20, agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, 250, was the golden age of the Maya Empire. 2012. According to the Mayans this is a time of calendar-making and mathematics, and left Classic Maya civilization grew to some 40 great celebration for having reached the end of behind an astonishing amount of impressive cities, including Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, a creation cycle. It does not mean the end of the architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the Bonampak, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Palenque and world but the beginning of a new “age”. Does great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned Río Bec; each city held a population of between the world end every December 31st? No – we by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th 5,000 and 50,000 people. At its peak, the Maya go on to a new year. This is the same as the century scholars have debated what might have population may have reached 2,000,000. Mayan creation periods. In fact, the Mayans caused this dramatic decline. Excavations of Maya sites have make many references to dates that fall beyond unearthed plazas, palaces, temples and 2012. The idea of 2012 being the end of the Locating the Maya pyramids, as well as courts for playing the ball world was actually first suggested by New Age games that were ritually and politically religionist José Argüelles in his 1987 book The The Maya civilization was one of the most significant to Maya culture. Maya cities were Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology. dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica surrounded and supported by a large population (a term used to describe Mexico and Central of farmers. Though the Maya practiced a 1. Ancient Mystery America before the 16th century Spanish primitive type of "slash-and-burn" agriculture, conquest). Unlike other scattered indigenous they also displayed evidence of more advanced The Fact: No one really knows what caused the populations of Mesoamerica, the Maya were farming methods, such as irrigation and collapse of the Mayan culture centered in one geographical block covering all terracing. of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day The Maya were deeply religious, and For reasons that are still debated, the Maya Guatemala; Belize and parts of the Mexican worshiped various gods related to nature, centers of the southern lowlands went into states of Tabasco and Chiapas; and the western including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and part of Honduras and El Salvador. This and corn. At the top of Maya society were the were abandoned shortly thereafter. This decline concentration showed that the Maya remained kings, or "kuhul ajaw" (holy lords), who was coupled with a cessation of monumental relatively secure from invasion by other claimed to be related to gods and followed a inscriptions and large-scale architectural Mesoamerican peoples. hereditary succession. They were thought to construction. Non-ecological theories of Maya Within that expanse, the Maya lived in serve as mediators between the gods and people decline are divided into several subcategories, three separate sub-areas with distinct on earth, and performed the elaborate religious such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, environmental and cultural differences: the ceremonies and rituals so important to the Maya peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade northern Maya lowlands on the Yucatan culture. (Continued on Page 40) routes. Ecological hypotheses include Peninsula; the southern lowlands in the Peten %2/ C)D *87/ #+.38 %'B$28? environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and district of northern Guatemala and adjacent with climate change. There is evidence that the Maya portions of Mexico, Belize and western Rob McConnell population exceeded carrying capacity of the Honduras; and the southern Maya highlands, in Live 26 Hour Broadcast environment including exhaustion of the mountainous region of southern Guatemala. 2012.12.20 23:00 hrs to 2012.12.22 01:00 hrs agricultural potential and over-hunting of Most famously, the Maya of the southern www.xzone2012.com