: Rise and disappearance of the Mayan state

One of the many secrets is connected with the Maya. A whole people, consisting mainly of city dwellers, suddenly left their solid and strong homes, said goodbye to the streets, squares, temples and palaces and moved to the far wild north. None of these settlers ever returned to their old place. The cities were deserted, the jungle rushed into the streets, weeds ran rampant on stairs and stairs; in the grooves and grooves, where the wind brought the smallest pieces of earth, forest seeds were brought in, and they sprouted sprouts here, destroying the walls. Never again has a human foot set foot on stone-paved courtyards, climbed the steps of the pyramids.

But maybe some kind of catastrophe was to blame? And again we are forced to ask the same question: where are the traces of this catastrophe and what kind of catastrophe is it, which could force an entire people to leave their country and their cities and start life in a new place?

Perhaps some terrible epidemic broke out in the country? But we do not have any data that would testify that only the miserable, feeble remnants of the once numerous and strong people went on a long campaign. On the contrary, the people who built such cities as Chichen Itza were undoubtedly strong and in the prime of their lives.

Maybe, finally, the climate suddenly changed in the country, and therefore further life became impossible here? But from the center of the Old Kingdom to the center of the New Kingdom in a straight line no more than four hundred kilometers. Climate change, about which, by the way, there is also no data that could so dramatically affect the structure of an entire state, would hardly have affected the area where the Maya moved.

There are still many secrets of the ancient Mayan civilization, maybe in time many of them will be revealed, or maybe they will remain secrets.

About 10,000 years ago, when the last ice age ended, people from the north moved to explore the southern lands, now known as Latin America. They settled in the territory that later formed the Mayan region, with mountains and valleys, dense forests and waterless plains. The Maya region includes modern Guatemala, Belize, southern Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador. Over the next 6,000 years, the local population moved from a semi-nomadic existence of hunter-gatherers to a more sedentary agricultural lifestyle. They learned to grow corn and beans, grind grain with a variety of stone tools, and cook food. Gradually, settlements arose.

Around 1500 B.C. e. the widespread construction of rural-type settlements began, which served as a signal for the beginning of the so-called "preclassic period", from which the countdown of the centuries of the glorious Mayan civilization begins.

"PRE-CLASSICAL" PERIOD (1500 BC-250 AD)

People acquired some agricultural skills, learned how to increase the yield of fields. Throughout the Mayan region, densely populated rural-type settlements arose. Around 1000 B.C. e. the villagers of Cuello (on the territory of Belize) made pottery and buried the dead. Observing the prescribed ceremonial: pieces of green stone and other valuable items were placed in the grave. The Mayan art of this period shows the influence of the Olmec civilization, which arose in Mexico on the Gulf coast and established trade relations with all of Mesoamerica. Some scholars believe that the ancient Maya owe the creation of a hierarchical society and royal power to the Olmec presence in the southern regions of the Maya region from 900 to 400 BC. e.

The power of the Olmecs was over. The growth and prosperity of the southern trading cities of the Maya begins. From 300 B.C. e. to 250 AD e. there are such large centers as Nakbe, El Mirador and Tikal. The Maya achieved significant advances in scientific knowledge. Ritual, solar and lunar calendars are used. They are a complex system of interconnected calendars. This system allowed the Mayans to fix the most important historical dates, make astronomical forecasts and boldly look into such distant times, which even modern specialists in the field of cosmology cannot judge. Their calculations and records were based on a flexible system of counting, which included a symbol for zero, unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in the accuracy of astronomical calculations they surpassed other civilizations of their time.

Of all the ancient cultures that flourished in the Americas, only the Maya had a developed writing system. And it was at this time that Mayan hieroglyphic writing began to develop. Mayan hieroglyphs are like miniature drawings crammed into tiny squares. In reality, these are units of written speech - one of the five original writing systems created independently of one another. Some hieroglyphs are syllabic, but most of them are ideograms denoting phrases, words, or parts of words. Hieroglyphs were carved on steles, on lintels, on the vertical planes of stone stairs, on the walls of tombs, and also written on the pages of codes, on pottery. About 800 hieroglyphs have already been read, and scientists are deciphering new ones with unflagging interest, as well as giving new interpretations to already known symbols.

In the same period, temples were erected, which were decorated with sculptural images of the gods, and then the Mayan rulers. Rich offerings are found in the tombs of the Maya rulers of this period.

EARLY "CLASSICAL" PERIOD (AD 250-600)

By 250 AD Tikal and the neighboring city of Washaktun become the main cities in the central lowland zone of Maya territory. Tikal had everything: giant pyramid temples, a palace complex, ball courts, a market, and a steam bath.
Society was divided into the ruling elite and the working class of farmers, artisans, and merchants subordinate to it. Thanks to the excavations, we have learned that the social stratification in Tikal concerned, first of all, the dwelling. While ordinary community members lived in villages scattered here and there among the forests, the ruling elite received at their disposal a more or less clearly defined living space of the Central Acropolis, which by the end of the classical period turned into a real labyrinth of buildings built around six spacious courtyards. on an area of ​​about 2.5 square kilometers. The buildings consisted of one or two rows of long rooms, divided by transverse walls into a number of rooms, each room had its own exit. "Palaces" served as a home for important people, in addition, the city administration was probably located here.

Since the 3rd century, rulers, endowed with supreme power, have been erecting pyramid temples and steles with images and inscriptions designed to perpetuate their reign; the rite of passage consists of a ritual of bloodletting and human sacrifice. The earliest known stele (dated 292) was found in Tikal, it was erected in honor of one of the heirs of the ruler Yash-Mok-Shok, who founded a dynasty at the beginning of the century, which was destined to rule the city for 600 years. In 378, under the ninth ruler of this dynasty, Paw the Great Jaguar, Tikal conquered Vashaktun. By that time, Tikal was under the influence of a tribe of warriors and merchants from the Mexican center of Teotihuacan, having adopted some methods of warfare from foreigners.

LATE "CLASSIC" PERIOD (AD 600-900)

The classical Mayan culture, which is characterized by the rapid construction of palaces and temples, reached a new level of development in the 7th-8th centuries. Tikal is regaining its former glory, but other equally influential centers are emerging. Palenque thrives in the west of the Maya region. Which is ruled by Pacal, who came to power in 615 and was buried with the highest honors in 683. The rulers of Palenque were distinguished by great construction zeal and created a large number of temples, palace complexes, the royal tomb and other buildings. But most importantly, the sculptural images and hieroglyphic inscriptions that abound in these structures give us an idea of ​​what the rulers and the people obedient to them considered the main thing. After studying all the monuments, one gets the impression that during this period there were some changes in the role that was assigned to the ruler, and these changes indirectly indicate the cause of the collapse of such a seemingly prosperous civilization as the Maya civilization was in the "classic period".

In addition, at four different sites in Palenque, Pacal and his heir erected the so-called royal registers, steles with records of the members of the ruling dynasty, tracing its roots back to 431 CE. e. Apparently, these two were very concerned about proving their rightful right to rule, and the reason for this was two cases in the history of the city when the ruler received the right of succession to the throne through the maternal line. This is what happened to Pacal. Since the Mayan right to the throne was usually passed down through the paternal line, Pacal and his son were forced to make some adjustments to this rule.

In the 7th century, the southeastern city of Copan also gained fame. Many inscriptions and steles of Copan show that the city for 4 centuries, from the 5th century AD. e., ruled by one dynasty. Thanks to this stability, the city gained weight and influence. The founder of the dynasty, the ruler Yash-Kuk-Mo (Blue-Ketual-Parrot), came to power in 426 AD. e. And it can be assumed that his authority was very great, and all subsequent rulers of Kopan considered it necessary to count their royal line from him. Of his 15 royal descendants, the energetic Smoke-Jaguar, who ascended the throne in 628 and ruled for 67 years, lived the longest. Known as the Great Instigator, Jaguar Smoke led Copan to unprecedented prosperity, greatly expanding its dominions, possibly through territorial wars. The noble people who served under him probably became the rulers of the conquered cities. During the reign of Jaguar Smoke, the urban population reached approximately 10,000 people.

At that time, wars between cities were common. Despite the fact that the rulers of the cities were related to each other due to inter-dynastic marriages, and in culture - art and religion - these cities had much in common.

Art continues to develop, artisans supply the nobility with various exquisite handicrafts. The construction of ceremonial buildings and numerous stelae extolling the personal merits of the rulers continues. However, starting from the 8th century, and especially in the 9th century, the cities of the central lowlands declined. In 822, a political crisis shook Copan; the last dated inscription in Tikal is from 869.

"POST-CLASSICAL" PERIOD (AD 900-1500)

The depletion of natural resources, the decline of agriculture, overcrowding of cities, epidemics, invasions from outside, social upheavals and ongoing wars - all of this, both together and separately, could cause the decline of the Mayan civilization in the southern lowlands. By 900 A.D. e. Construction on this territory stops, the once crowded cities, abandoned by the inhabitants, turn into ruins. But the Maya culture still lives in the northern Yucatan. Such beautiful cities as Uxmal, Kabakh, Sayil, Labna in the hilly region of Puuk exist until the year 1000.

Historical chronicles on the eve of the conquest and archeological data clearly indicate that in the 10th century AD. The Yucatan was invaded by warlike central Mexican tribes - the Toltecs. But, despite all this, in the central region of the peninsula, the population survived and quickly adapted to the new living conditions. And after a short time, a kind of syncretic culture appeared, combining Mayan and Toltec features. In the history of Yucatan, a new period began, which received the name "Mexican" in the scientific literature. Chronologically, its framework falls on the X - XIII centuries AD.

The city of Chichen Itza becomes the center of this new culture. It was at this time that the time of prosperity began for the city, lasting 200 years. Already by 1200, a huge building area (28 square kilometers), majestic architecture and magnificent sculpture suggests that this city was the main cultural center of the Maya of the last period. New sculptural motifs and architectural details reflect the increased influence of Mexican cultures, predominantly Toltec, which developed in Central Mexico before the Aztec. After the sudden and mysterious fall of Chichen Itza, Mayapan becomes the main city in the Yucatan. The Yucatán Maya seem to have waged more violent wars among themselves than those waged by their brethren to the south. Although detailed descriptions of specific battles are not available, it is known that warriors from Chichen Itza fought against warriors from Uxmal and Coba, and later Mayapan people attacked and sacked Chichen Itza.

According to scientists, the influence of other peoples who invaded the territory of the Maya affected the behavior of the northerners. It is possible that the invasion took place peacefully, although this is unlikely. For example, Bishop de Lande had information about some people who came from the west, whom the Maya called "Itza". These people, as the remaining descendants of the Maya told Bishop de Lande, attacked Chichen Itza and captured it. After the sudden and mysterious fall of Chichen Itza, Mayapan becomes the main city in the Yucatan.

If the development of Chichen Itza and Uxmal repeats other Mayan cities, then Mayapan in this case was quite different from the general scheme. Mayapan, walled, was a chaotic city. In addition, there were no huge temples here. The main Mayapan pyramid was not a very good copy of the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza. The population in the city reached 12 thousand people. Scientists suggest that Mayapan had a fairly high level of economy, and that Maya society gradually switched to business relations, paying less and less attention to the ancient gods.

For 250 years, the Kokom dynasty ruled in Mayapan. They maintained their power by holding their potential enemies hostage behind the city's high walls. The Kocomas further strengthened their position when they took into their service an entire army of mercenaries from Ah Kanul (Mexican state of Tabasco), whose loyalty was bought by promises of spoils of war. The daily life of the dynasty was mostly occupied with amusements, dances, feasts and hunting.

Mayapan fell in 1441 as a result of a bloody uprising raised by the leaders of neighboring cities, the city was sacked and burned.

The fall of Mayapan sounded the death knell over the entire Maya civilization, which had risen from the jungles of Central America to an unprecedented height and sunk into the abyss of oblivion. Mayapan was the last city in the Yucatan that managed to subjugate other cities. After its fall, the confederation broke up into 16 competing mini-states, each of which fought for territorial advantages with the help of its own army. In the constantly flaring wars, the cities were raided: mostly young men were captured to replenish the army or sacrifice them, the fields were set on fire to force the farmers to submit. In continuous wars, architecture and art were abandoned as unnecessary.

Shortly after the fall of Mayapan, just a few decades later, the Spaniards landed on the peninsula, and the fate of the Maya was sealed. Once upon a time, a prophet, whose words are quoted in the Books of Chilam-Balam, predicted the appearance of strangers and its consequences. This is how the prophecy sounded: "Receive your guests, bearded people who come from the east ... This is the beginning of destruction." But the same books also warn that not only external circumstances, but the Maya themselves, will be to blame for what happens. "And there were no more happy days," says the prophecy, "sense has left us." One might think that long before this last conquest, the Maya knew that their glory would fade and the ancient wisdom would be forgotten. And yet, as if anticipating future attempts by scientists to call their world out of oblivion, they expressed the hope that someday voices from the past would be heard: “At the end of our blindness and our shame, everything will open again.”

Knowledge in science and medicine.

Medicine. The Maya's medical knowledge was at a very high level: they knew anatomy very well, and they trepanned skulls very well. However, their ideas were also quite contradictory - they could consider a bad year according to the calendar, or sins, or wrong sacrifices to be the causes of diseases, but at the same time they recognized a certain way of life of a person as the primary source of diseases. The Maya knew about contagious diseases, in the Mayan vocabulary there were many words with which they characterized various painful human conditions. Moreover, many nervous diseases and the mental state of a person have been described separately. To stimulate and anesthetize childbirth, various medicinal and narcotic herbs were used, which were grown in separate pharmacy gardens.
Mathematics. The Maya used a vigesimal number system, as well as a positional system for writing numbers, when the numbers are one after the other from the first order to the next. This system of notation is also used by us, and is called the Arabic Numerical System. But unlike the Europeans, the Mayans themselves thought of this thousands of years earlier. Only the record of Mayan numbers is not built horizontally, but vertically (in a column).
Another striking fact about Mayan mathematical knowledge is the use of zero. This means the greatest progress in the field of abstract thinking.
The amazing knowledge of the Mayan civilization is reflected in the Mayan calendar. He is known throughout the world for his amazing accuracy and competes in perfection with modern computer calculations.

Mayan mysteries

Maya artists created their countless treasures. The ritual objects were meant to please the gods. Stone, carved, clay, polished or painted in bright colors - they all had a symbolic meaning. So, a hole in a painted dish shows that the dish is “killed” and that its liberated soul can accompany the deceased in the afterlife.

The Maya knew neither metal tools nor the potter's wheel, but their earthenware is graceful and beautiful. Grinding powders and stone tools were used to work with jade, flint, and shells. Artisans - the Maya knew the difference between materials. Favored by the ancient Maya for its beauty, rarity, and supposed magical powers, jade was especially prized by ancient craftsmen, although it required patience and ingenuity to work it. Grooves, curls, holes, etc. were made with wooden saws or bone drills. Polishing was carried out using hard plant fibers extracted from bamboo or gourd shoots, the cells of which contain microscopic particles of solid mineral substances. A huge number of figurines made of jade, depicting people and animals, have the shape of a wedge: the ancient stone cutters used such a shape of the product so that they could, on occasion, be used as a tool. After a little refinement, these beautiful stone crafts could turn into amulets or figurines of people and gods. The found elegant green necklace, dating back to the preclassical era, tells us that it is not a simple person, but endowed with power and standing on the top rung of the social ladder.

In Mayan art, the image often conveys action or emotion. Masters have developed an informational style, putting a charge of humor and tenderness or, on the contrary, cruelty into their works. Items made by the hands of nameless craftsmen still amaze people with their beauty, helping our contemporaries to understand the long-vanished world of an ancient civilization.

Of the many cities that rose among the hills of Puuk in the “late classical period” (700-1000 AD), three cities are especially distinguished by the splendor of planning and architecture - Uxmal, Sayil and Labna: massive quadrangles of buildings are lined with limestone on the facade, round columns with square capitals stand at the door jambs, the upper part of the facade is decorated with an elegant stone mosaic made of flint.

The strict organization of space, the splendor and complexity of the architecture, the very panorama of cities - all this delights connoisseurs. High pyramids, palaces with reliefs and mosaic facades made of pieces of crushed stone tightly fitted to each other, underground reservoirs where drinking water was once stored, wall hieroglyphs - all this splendor was combined with terrible cruelty. “The chief priest held in his hand a large, wide and sharp knife made of flint. Another priest held a wooden collar in the form of a snake. The doomed, completely naked, were taken in turn up the stairs. ”There, laying a man on a stone, they put a collar on him, and four priests took the victim by the arms and legs. Then the chief priest, with amazing agility, cut open the chest of the victim, pulled out the heart and held it out to the sun, offering him both the heart and the steam emanating from it. Then he turned to the idol, threw his heart in his face, after which he pushed the body down the stairs, and it rolled down, ”Stephens wrote about this sacred action with horror.

The main archaeological research was carried out in Chichen Itza, the last capital of the Maya. The ruins have been liberated from the jungle, the remains of buildings are visible from all sides, and the one: where at one time it was necessary to cut a road with a machete, a bus with tourists runs; they see the "Temple of the Warriors" with its columns and stairs leading to the pyramids; they see the so-called "Observatory" - a round structure, the windows of which are cut in such a way that a certain star is visible from each; they inspected the large squares for the ancient ball game, of which the largest one is one hundred and sixty meters long and forty wide, - on these grounds the "golden youth" of the Maya played a game similar to basketball. They finally stop in front of El Castila, the largest of the Chichen Itza pyramids. It has nine ledges, and on its upper peak there is a temple of the god Kukulkan - the “Feathered Serpent”.

The sight of all these images of snake heads, gods, processions of jaguars is intimidating. Wishing to penetrate the secrets of ornaments and hieroglyphs, you can find out that there is literally not a single sign, not a single drawing, not a single sculpture that would not be associated with astronomical calculations. Two crosses on the brow ridges; snake heads, a jaguar claw in the ear of the god Ku-kulkan, the shape of the gate, the number of “dew beads” and the shape of repeated staircase motifs - all this expresses time and numbers. Nowhere were numbers and times expressed in such a bizarre way. But if you want to discover at least some traces of life here, you will see that in the magnificent kingdom of Mayan drawings, in the ornamentation of this people, who lived among lush and diverse vegetation, images of plants are very rarely found - only a few of the huge number flowers and none of the eight hundred species of cacti. Recently, in one ornament, a flower of Bombax aquaticum was seen - a tree growing halfway in the water. Even if this is not really a mistake, the general situation still does not change: there are no plant motifs in Mayan art. Even obelisks, columns, steles, which in almost all countries are a symbolic image of a tree stretching upwards, among the Maya depict the bodies of snakes, wriggling reptiles.

Two such serpentine columns stand in front of the Temple of Warriors. Heads with horn-shaped processes are pressed to the ground, mouths are wide open, bodies are raised up along with tails, once these tails supported the roof of the temple.

The Dutchman Guillermo Dupe, who served for many years in the Spanish army in Mexico, was an educated man who was fond of antiquity and was commissioned by the Spanish king Charles G. to explore the cultural monuments of Mexico in the pre-Hispanic period.

Having hardly reached Palenque, Dupe was indescribably delighted with architecture, exterior decoration of buildings: colorful patterns depicting birds, flowers, bas-reliefs full of drama. “The poses are very dynamic and at the same time majestic. Clothes, though luxurious, never cover the body. The head is usually decorated with helmets, crests and fluttering feathers.

Dupe noticed that all the people depicted in the bas-reliefs had a strange, flattened head, from which he concluded that the local Indians, with a normal head, could in no way be descendants of the builders of Palenque.

Most likely, according to Dupe, people of an unknown race that disappeared from the face of the earth once lived here, leaving behind majestic and beautiful creations of their own hands.

The Vatican Library has an interesting evidence of the flood "Code Rios". Ironically, the Catholic clergy, who destroyed the original Mayan manuscripts, kept rare copies of them.

The Rios Code tells about the creation of the world and the death of the first people. There were children who were fed by a wonderful tree. A new race of people has formed. But after 40 years, the gods brought down a flood on the earth. One pair survived, hiding in a tree.

After the flood, another race was reborn. But after 2010 years, an unusual hurricane destroyed people; the survivors turned into monkeys, which were gnawed by the jaguar.

And again only one couple escaped: they hid among the stones. After 4801 years, people were destroyed by a great fire. Only one couple escaped by sailing out to sea in a boat.

This legend speaks of periodic (repeated every 2-4-8 thousand years) catastrophes, one of which is the flood.

If we carefully look at the map, we will see that the Old Kingdom occupied a kind of triangle, the corners of which were formed by Washaktun, Palenque and Copan. It will not escape our attention that the cities of Tikal, Naranjo and Piedras Negras were located on the sides of the corners or directly inside the triangle. We can now conclude that, with one exception (Benque Viejo), all the last cities of the Old Kingdom, in particular Ceibal, Ishkun, Flores, were within this triangle.

When the Spaniards arrived in Yucatan, the Maya had thousands of handwritten books made from natural material, but some of them were burned, some settled in private collections. Inscriptions were also found on the walls of temples and steles. In the 19th century scientists knew about 3 books - codes named after the city in which each text was discovered (Dresden, Paris and Madrid codes; later the 4th code was found - the Grolier Code). Ernst Forstemann, Chief Royal Librarian in Dresden, studied the codex for 14 years and understood the principle of the Mayan calendar. And the studies of Yuri Knorozov, Heinrich Berlin and Tatyana Proskuryakova opened a new stage in modern Mayan studies. More than 80 percent of all hieroglyphs have been deciphered, and archaeologists have made many amazing discoveries.

So, Yuri Knorozov came to the conclusion that the writing system of the Maya Indians is mixed. Some signs should convey morphemes, and some - sounds and syllables. This writing system is called hieroglyphic.

It was not difficult for scientists to decipher Maya digital signs. The reason for this is the amazing simplicity and the logic of their counting system brought to perfection.

The ancient Maya used a vigesimal number system, or account. They wrote down their digital signs in the form of dots and dashes, and the dot always meant units of a given order, and the dash meant fives.

Meeting of the New and Old Worlds

The first contact between the two cultures took place with the participation of Christopher Columbus himself: during his fourth voyage to the alleged India (and he believed that the land he discovered was India), his ship passed by the shores of the northern part of modern Honduras and met a canoe near the island of Guanaia, -lannoe from a whole tree trunk, 1.5 m wide. It was a trading boat, and Europeans were offered copper plates, stone axes, ceramics, cocoa beans, cotton clothes.

In 1517, three Spanish ships on their way to capture slaves landed on an unknown island. Having repelled the attack of the Maya warriors, the Spanish soldiers, when dividing the booty, found jewelry made of gold, and the gold should have belonged to the Spanish crown. Hernan Cortes, having conquered the great Aztec empire in the central part of Mexico, sent one of his captains to the south to conquer new territories (the modern states of Guatemala and El Salvador). By 1547, the Mayan conquest was complete, although some tribes took refuge in the dense forests of the central part of the Yucatan Peninsula, where they and their descendants managed to remain unconquered for another 150 years.

Epidemics of smallpox, measles and influenza, to which the indigenous population had no immunity, claimed the lives of millions of Maya. The Spaniards brutally eradicated their religion: they destroyed temples, smashed shrines, robbed, and those who were seen in idolatry, the missionary monks stretched on the rack, scalded with boiling water, and punished with whips.

At the head of the monks, the Franciscan monk Diego de Landa, an extraordinary and complex personality, arrived in Yucatan. He studied the life, customs of the local population, tried to find the key to the mystery of the Maya writing, found a cache in which about 30 hieroglyphic books were kept. They were real works of art: black and red characters were written out in calligraphy on light paper, made from the bottom layer of a fig tree or mulberry; paper was smooth from the gypsum composition applied to its surface; the books themselves were folded like an accordion, and the cover was made from the skin of a jaguar.

This monk decided that the Mayan books contained esoteric knowledge that confuses the soul with devilish temptations, and ordered these books to be burned all at once, which “plunged the Maya into deep sorrow and severe suffering.”

During the three-month Inquisition under his leadership in 1562, about 5,000 Indians were tortured, of which 158 people died. De Landa was requested back to Spain on charges of abuse of power, but was acquitted and returned to the Yucatan as a bishop.

Indian culture was destroyed in every possible way. And just a hundred years after the arrival of the Europeans, there were no memories left of the glorious past of the Maya.

Interesting facts about the Maya.

1. Numerous representatives of the Maya culture still live in their former regions. In fact, there are 7 million Maya, many of whom have been able to preserve important evidence of their ancient cultural heritage.
2. The Maya had strange ideas about beauty. At an early age, a board was applied to the forehead of babies so that it was flat. They also liked cross-eyedness: they put a large bead on the bridge of the nose of children so that they would constantly look askance at it. Another interesting fact is that Mayan children were often named after the day they were born.
3. They loved saunas. An important cleansing element for the ancient Maya was a diaphoretic bath: hot stones were poured with water to create steam. Everyone, from women who have recently given birth to kings, used such baths.
4. They also liked to drive the ball. The Mesoamerican ball game was equated with a ritual and existed for 3,000 years. The modern version of the game, ulama, is still popular with the local indigenous population.
5. The last Mayan country existed until 1697 (the island city of Thaya). Now the lands under the buildings are mostly owned by one family, and the monuments themselves belong to the government.
6. The Maya did not know how to process metal - their weapons were equipped with stone tips, or tips made from sharp shells. But! Maya warriors used hornet nests (“hornet bombs”) as throwing weapons to create panic in the ranks of the enemy - resourceful.
7. And yet, they say, the Mayans were very fond of guinea pigs. Well, how they loved ... They got very tasty meat and magnificent fluff from the poor.

By the way, the Maya also had a kind of horoscope. The fact is that according to the Tzolkin calendar (aka Tzolkin, which was reported above), each day of the year is assigned its own kin - a kind of frequency of cosmic energy (God, what am I bringing?) and, depending on which kin is yours (which corresponds to your birthday) - you can judge your character, life goals and blablabla. And depending on which kin is assigned to today, you can judge your luck, well-being and other crap, which is usually written in horoscopes.
By the way, it's pretty interesting stuff. And the Mayan astrological characteristics of kin personalities are quite true, although I usually prefer not to believe in astrology.

Despite all its power, approximately in the VIII-IX century AD. Maya left their cities and went in an unknown direction. What actually caused the death of a powerful civilization?

Mystical disappearance According to one version, the cause of the "ethnic cataclysm" was an imperfect system of agriculture: they say, the slash-and-burn method of cultivating the land became ineffective, led to soil impoverishment and hunger. But this conjecture is refuted by the fact that the population of the Yucatan Peninsula still cultivates the land in this way.

And nothing - they are alive, and some even thrive. Another reason for this misfortune could be that the Mayan peoples were subjected to cruel extermination by a powerful enemy (such as the Mongolo-Tatars of the Central American type, only more cruel). But, alas, no evidence of an attack by a powerful neighbor has been preserved. Some researchers offer a completely fantastic version of “leaving”: the Mayans gained access to the teachings of levitation, teleportation and other mysticism, after which they moved to a “parallel world”.

For those who have read Castaneda or are at least a little familiar with the teachings of Indian magicians, this option will not seem entirely unbelievable. In our opinion, the most preferable version is that the Mayans did not die as a result of fatal, economic miscalculations or strikes from outside: inside this people, there was initially a “cancer tumor”, which for centuries undermined the health of the nation and, ultimately, sucked out of it material and spiritual forces, forced to dissolve in historical non-existence. It's about religion.

More precisely, about religious cults - cruel to the point of inhumanity, which, under the guise of concern for the spiritual health of the nation, led it to historical death. On the altar of religion All religious power in the Mayan state belonged to the high priests, who had a huge apparatus of assistants. Before reaching this rank, the priests received knowledge in astronomy, hieroglyphic writing and astrology. The priests even had original courses for improving their skills, where special lectures were given to them. The religious rites of the Maya were based on sacrifices, and the main "product" that the gods "pleased" were human sacrifices.

Hence the inhumanity of many rites stemmed - the victim was thrown onto the altar, then the priest dissected the human chest and pulled out the heart, sprinkling the stone idol with blood, after which the skin was torn off the corpse, in which the priest was dressed. The number of victims reached tens of thousands on the days of great holidays and celebrations. The entire population of the cities howled with delight at such ritual actions. Often, as a result of these bacchanalia, people lost their human appearance. Immorality and orgies became more and more widespread.

Similar activities have been going on for centuries. It is not surprising that the most worthy were chosen as victims - smart, beautiful, strong. It was a real blow to the gene pool, the reproduction of which was also hampered by military operations, epidemics and poor nutrition. In addition, some of the religious rites of the Maya were deliberately invented in order to weaken their endurance and make them an easy target for the souls of epidemics and diseases.

For example, the Maya fasted for a long time (sometimes up to three years), did not eat meat, salt, or pepper. Sexual abstinence was also encouraged. Most of these restrictions applied to the priests, but the rest, under their great influence, sought to follow the same methods of appeasing the gods. Apparently, the Maya trusted their priests too much. And they brought them under the monastery. Or, to be more precise, under the temple. The Resurrected Emperor True, not all representatives of this people were so meek as to perform all sorts of unreasonable rituals.

The chronicles describe one such event, which took place around 1200 BC. and was associated with the coming to power of the famous ruler Hunak Keel. As a young man, Hunak Keel participated in the human sacrifice process at the Sacred Well. This well is located in a karst fault and strikes the imagination with its size - its diameter reaches almost 60 meters. There were similar wells in many major Mayan cities. They were intended to make human sacrifices.

In particular, young virgins were thrown into the Sacred Well of Chichen Itza, which has survived to this day. Victims, as a rule, died, only a few were selected from it. And then, if the priest "allowed". But after this incredible “resurrection”, the life of the survivor became unbearable - after all, the gods rejected him! What can we say about people? At that time, the Triple Alliance was established between the cities of Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan, which lasted from 987 to 1194 AD. It was an alliance that contributed to the establishment of stability.

However, the rulers of the cities often violated the terms of the agreement, and the cunning Hunak Keel decided to use the ritual of sacrifice for political purposes. When the procession with the victims stood at the edge of the well, he broke through the human corridor, pushed everyone aside and jumped down. Eyewitnesses were amazed by his act - one might say, they witnessed how the gods called on their fellow tribesman! But they were even more amazed when a minute later the young man surfaced and declared: “I have seen the gods. They ordered me to take the royal throne!

And what do you think - the people supported the brave young man! Shortly thereafter, Hunak Keel took the throne and founded a dynasty known as Kokom. The young ruler united power in one person and for a long time ruled the cities alone. But these were isolated cases. For the most part, young men and women meekly accepted their fate. When, in the middle of the last century, American archaeologists explored the famous well located in the north of Yucatan, they found hundreds of skulls of boys and girls there. And only one of them belonged to the old man.

Since a special ritual knife was also found nearby (with such knives the priests killed the victim), archaeologists suggested that this skull belongs to the priest. Apparently, one of the girls, doomed to be slaughtered, resisted or "took" the priest with her when he was still alive, or killed him while still on the surface. Be that as it may, the regular destruction of virgins, coupled with the mass sacrifice of youths and young men, gradually led to the fact that the strength of the nation dried up.

At the turn of the VIII-IX centuries AD. the Mayan peoples, tormented by unreasonable cults and an inefficient system of government that could not withstand national extermination, preferred to go into the forests and die of hunger or in the mouth of animals than to die on temple altars or in wells clogged with corpses. And when Spanish caravels appeared off the coast of Yucatan in the 16th century, the Aztecs - relatives of the once powerful Maya - accepted the conquerors with open arms. They no longer had the strength or the spirit to fight for their freedom.

The Maya civilization originated in an impressive area, from Central America to Mexico. Mayan tribes settled in the territories of modern El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Mexico. 7th-8th centuries - the time of the highest flowering of the classical Mayan civilization, its "golden age". The rulers of numerous city-states fought successfully on the western and southern borders. Nothing seemed to threaten the well-being of this great country.

Nevertheless, by the end of the IX century. in most of the territory of the lowland forest regions of the Maya, life died out or stopped altogether. Maya seemed to have heard some secret call from the depths of eternity and left, inaudibly closing the door behind them.

One of the most mysterious civilizations that existed on the planet is the Mayan civilization. The high level of development of medicine, science, architecture strikes the minds of our contemporaries. One and a half thousand years before the discovery of the American continent by Columbus, the Mayan people already used their hieroglyphic writing, invented the calendar system, were the first to use the concept of zero in mathematics, and the counting system in many respects surpassed that used by their contemporaries in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

Secrets of the Mayan Civilization

The ancient Indians possessed amazing information about space for that era. Scientists still cannot understand how the Mayan tribes received such accurate knowledge in astronomy long before the invention of the telescope. The artifacts discovered by scientists raise new questions, the answers to which have not yet been found. Consider the most amazing of the finds related to this great civilization:

The most amazing feature of this architectural monument is the visual effect that is created 2 times a year, exactly on the days of the autumn and spring equinoxes. As a result of the play of sunlight and shadow, an image of a huge snake appears, the body of which ends with a stone sculpture of a snake's head at the base of a 25-meter pyramid. Such a visual effect could only be achieved by carefully calculating the location of the building and having accurate knowledge of astronomy and topography.

Another interesting and mysterious feature of the pyramids is that they are a huge sound resonator. Such effects are known as: the sounds of the steps of people going to the top are heard at the base of the pyramid, like the sounds of rain; people who are at a distance of 150 meters from each other at different sites can clearly hear each other, while not hearing the sounds made next to them. To create such an acoustic effect, the ancient architects had to make the most accurate calculations of the thickness of the walls.

Mayan culture

Unfortunately, one can learn about the culture, history, religion of the Indian tribes only from the preserved architectural and cultural material values. Due to the barbaric attitude of the Spanish conquerors, who destroyed most of the cultural heritage of the ancient Indians, there are very few sources for descendants to gain knowledge about the origin, development and reasons for the decline of this majestic civilization!

Possessing a developed written language, during their heyday, the Maya left a huge amount of information about themselves. However, most of the historical heritage was destroyed by the Spanish priests, who planted the Christian religion among the Indians of Central America during its colonization.

Only inscriptions on stone slabs have survived. But the key to deciphering the writing remained unsolved. Only a third of the signs are accessible to the understanding of modern scientists.

• Architecture: Maya erected stone cities, striking in their majesty. Temples and palaces were built in the center of cities. The pyramids are amazing. Without metal tools, the ancient Indians somehow amazingly created pyramids that were not inferior in their majesty to the famous Egyptian ones. The pyramids had to be built every 52 years. This is due to religious canons. A distinctive feature of these pyramids is that around the existing one, the construction of a new one began.
• Art: on the walls of stone structures, traces of painting and stone sculptures, mostly of a religious nature, have survived to this day.
• Life: the ancient Indians were engaged in gathering, hunting, farming, growing beans, maize, cocoa, cotton. The irrigation system was widely used. Some tribes mined salt, then exchanging it for other goods, which served as the development of trade, which was in the nature of barter. Stretchers or boats were used to move goods, cargo, and to move along rivers.
• Religion: Maya were pagans. The priests had knowledge in the field of mathematics and astronomy, predicting lunar and solar eclipses. Religious rites contained rituals of suicide.
• The science: The Indians had developed writing, had knowledge in the field of mathematics and, as noted above, had amazing knowledge in the field of astronomy.

Why did the Maya disappear?

The beginning of the Maya civilization dates back to the second millennium BC. The heyday of culture occurred at the end of the first millennium - 200-900 years. BC. The most important achievements are:

• Fully designed calendar that accurately reflects the changing seasons;
• Hieroglyphic writing, which scientists have not yet fully deciphered;
• The use of the concept of zero in mathematics, which was absent in other advanced civilizations of the ancient world;
• Use of the number system;
• Discoveries in the field of astronomy and mathematics - Mayan scientists were hundreds of years ahead of their contemporaries. Their discoveries surpassed all the achievements of the Europeans who lived at that time.

The civilization of the New World reached its peak without such important technical achievements as the invention of the potter's wheel, the wheel, the smelting of iron and steel, the use of domestic animals in agriculture and other achievements that gave impetus to the development of other peoples.

After the 10th century, the Maya civilization fades away.

Modern scientists still cannot name the reason for the decline of one of the greatest peoples of antiquity.

Exists several versions of the reasons for the disappearance of a great civilization. Consider the most likely of them:

The nationality was a group of disparate city-states, often at war with each other. The reason for the enmity was the gradual depletion of the soil and the decline of agriculture. The rulers, in order to maintain power, pursued a policy of capture and destruction. The surviving images from the end of the eighth century tell that the number of internecine wars increased. In most cities, an economic crisis developed. The scale of ruin was so great that it led to the decline and further disappearance of the greatest civilization.

Where did the Mayan peoples live?

The Maya inhabited most of the territory of Central America, modern Mexico. The vast territory occupied by the tribes was distinguished by an abundance of flora and fauna, a variety of natural zones - mountains and rivers, deserts and coastal zones. This was of no small importance in the development of this civilization. The Maya lived in city-states such as Tikal, Kamaknul, Uxmal, and others. The population of each of these cities was more than 20,000 people. Merging into one administrative entity did not occur. Having a common culture, a similar system of government, the customs of these mini-states formed a civilization.

Modern Maya - who are they and where do they live?

The modern Maya are Indian tribes inhabiting the territory of South America. Their number is over three million. Modern descendants have the same distinctive anthropological features as their distant ancestors: short stature, low wide skull.

Until now, the tribes live apart, only partially accepting the achievements of modern civilization.

The ancient Mayan people were far ahead of their contemporaries in the development of science and culture.

They had excellent knowledge in astronomy - they had an idea about the movement pattern of the sun, moon and other planets and stars. Written language and exact sciences were very developed. Unlike their distant ancestors, modern Indians do not have any achievements in the development of the culture of their people.

Video about the Mayan civilization

This documentary will tell about the mysterious Mayan peoples, what mysteries they left behind, which of their prophecies came true, what they died from:

The disappearance of the mysterious Mayan civilization is still considered a mystery to scientists. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century to conquer the Maya, the once-advanced civilization was already in serious decline. Many limestone cities were already overgrown with jungle by the arrival of the conquistadors, and the economic and political strength of the people had disappeared. What happened to the mysterious culture that built the famous pyramids and made many scientific discoveries? /website/

The Maya began to leave their cities around 850 CE. e. Only limited settlements remained from the former civilization. Researchers are considering different options for the death of civilization. An international group of scientists from the USA and Great Britain put forward a new version of the collapse of the mysterious people.

The researchers studied all the data obtained in the former territory of the Maya during the entire history of excavations. This helped them describe the political situation of the ancient civilization and compare it with the climatic changes that took place during that period.

Maya killed by drought?

Previously, one of the versions of the decline of the Maya was considered a drought that came in the 9th century. However, the inscriptions on stones and pottery showed that even during the period of drought, people in the northern territories of the country remained creatively and socially active. Northern cities such as Chichen Itza and other centers flourished well into the 10th century. This suggests that the southern territories, located on the site of modern Guatemala and Belize, suffered more from the drought. This aggravated an already unstable political situation.

Scientists believe that the southern regions affected by the drought began to fight with the northern ones for food resources, and this led to a serious fragmentation of the ancient state. Climatic data show that in the 11th century there was an even more severe drought, after which the northern Maya began to decline. Thus, two severe droughts against the backdrop of political instability did their job, putting an end to the Mayan empire.

Conflict, drought and technology

New research by scientists confirms previous hypotheses about the death of the Maya. In particular, one of the versions of the collapse of civilization was deforestation to clear land, which exacerbated the effect of drought. Fertile lands became less and less, and people began to leave the places of their ancestors in search of water sources. Thus, the Maya moved to the Caribbean coast, losing their culture.

In the 16th century, the Spaniards tried to conquer the remnant of the Mayan civilization. Along the way, they bring diseases that were not previously known to the Maya. This exacerbates the already deplorable state of the people. In 1697, the last independent Mayan city of Tayasal was completely subordinated to Spain. Today, about 6.1 million Maya live on the Yucatan Peninsula. They continue to live in the homeland of their famous ancestors - in Guatemala and Mexico, preserving their language, customs and way of life.

The ancient Maya civilization arose in the first millennium BC and reached its peak around 600 AD. The ruins of thousands of settlements have been found throughout South America. But why did civilization decline? Scientists agree that some kind of large-scale catastrophe, possibly related to the climate, became the reason for this.

Sweet Mayan Pyramid

The rise and fall of the Maya

Numerous archaeological finds indicate that they owned various crafts, including architectural craftsmanship. They were also familiar with mathematics and astronomy, which they used in the construction of temples and pyramids. In addition, they had writing in the form of hieroglyphs.

However, around 850, the Maya began to leave their cities. In less than two centuries, only a few isolated settlements remained, which were discovered in 1517 by the Spanish. It was not difficult for the colonists to destroy the remnants of the ancient culture to the root.

"Dry" Curse

What happened to the Maya, because the decline occurred in the pre-Columbian era? Many versions were put forward, among them - a civil war, the invasion of hostile tribes, the loss of trade routes ... Only in the early 90s of the last century, after studying the chronicles, it was suggested that the cause was ... a banal drought!

It turned out that from about 250 to 800 Mayan cities prospered, their inhabitants gathered a rich harvest due to abundant rains ... But somewhere from 820, droughts hit the region, lasting for decades. This period just coincided with the beginning of the collapse of the Maya.

True, not all cities were immediately abandoned. In the 9th century, people left mainly from the settlements located in the southern part of the country, on the territory of modern Guatemala and Belize. But the population of the Yucatan Peninsula, on the contrary, was flourishing. The famous Chichen Itza and some other northern Maya centers continued to flourish well into the 10th century.

Unfortunately, scientists have long been forced to fight over this riddle. Most of the manuscripts were destroyed by the Spanish colonialists on the orders of the Catholic Inquisition. Information could only be obtained from calendar records on monuments, analysis of ceramics, and radiocarbon dating of organic materials.

Last December, archaeologists from Britain and the United States were finally able to bring together all the available data and analyze the situation. It turned out that the northern territories also suffered from droughts, but not immediately. So, at first the construction of wood was reduced. In the 10th century, rainfall increased briefly and there was a brief flowering again. However, droughts then resumed, and between 1000 and 1075 there was another sharp decline in production - in particular, in construction and stone carving.

The 11th century brought even more severe droughts. Researchers believe that this was the driest period in the 2000 years that have passed since the birth of Christ, and even dubbed it "mega-drought". Precipitation fell steadily from 1020 to 1100. If the north, unlike the south, somehow managed to survive the first wave of droughts, then the Mayans did not recover from the second wave.

True, several settlements still continued to exist - for example, Mayapan in the north flourished as early as the 13th-15th centuries. But the classic "megacities" of the Maya turned into ruins.

Ecological catastrophy

Obviously, the aridity of the climate led to a drop in yields. But the Mayan economy was directly dependent on agriculture. Economic problems led, in turn, to social cataclysms. Food stocks decreased, the struggle for resources began, which fragmented the state.

"We know that Maya territory was subject to increasing military and sociopolitical instability due to the droughts of the ninth century," says Julie Hoggart of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

One way or another, after 1050, the Maya left the lands of their ancestors and headed for the Caribbean coast and other places where there could be sources of water and fertile land.

By the way, some experts believe that the Maya themselves unwittingly became the perpetrators of disastrous droughts. They actively intervened in the natural environment, in particular, they built a giant system of canals hundreds of kilometers wide, which allowed them to drain wetlands and turn them into arable land. In addition, they cut down huge tracts of forest in order to build cities and cultivate arable land. This could lead to local droughts, which, together with natural climate changes, turned into a real disaster ...