It started to decline around A. When the northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by A. Maya history can be characterized as cycles of rise and fall: city-states rose in prominence and fell into decline, only to be replaced by others. It could also be described as one of continuity and change, guided by a religion that remains the foundation of their culture. For those who follow the ancient Maya traditions, the belief in the influence of the cosmos on human lives and the necessity of paying homage to the gods through rituals continues to find expression in a modern hybrid Christian-Maya faith.
During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about B. The Middle Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic Maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments. The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Its size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, and its existence proves that the Maya flourished centuries before the Classic Period. The Classic Period, which began around A. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,, or as many as 10,, Excavations of Maya sites have unearthed plazas, palaces, temples and pyramids , as well as courts for playing the famous Maya ball game ulama , all ritually and politically significant to Maya culture.
Maya cities were surrounded and supported by a large population of farmers. The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn.
They were thought to serve as mediators between the gods and people on earth, and performed the elaborate religious ceremonies and rituals so important to the Maya culture. The Classic Maya built many of their temples and palaces in a stepped pyramid shape, decorating them with elaborate reliefs and inscriptions.
These structures have earned the Maya their reputation as the great artists of Mesoamerica. Guided by their religious ritual, the Maya also made significant advances in mathematics and astronomy , including the use of the zero and the development of complex calendar systems like the Calendar Round, based on days, and later, the Long Count Calendar, designed to last over 5, years. Serious exploration of Classic Maya sites began in the s. By the early to midth century, a small portion of their system of hieroglyph writing had been deciphered, and more about their history and culture became known.
Most of what historians know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments. The Maya also made paper from tree bark and wrote in books made from this paper, known as codices; four of these codices are known to have survived. They are also credited with some of the earliest uses of chocolate and of rubber. One of the many intriguing things about the Maya was their ability to build a great civilization in a tropical rainforest climate.
Traditionally, ancient peoples had flourished in drier climates, where the centralized management of water resources through irrigation and other techniques formed the basis of society. This was the case for the Teotihuacan of highland Mexico, contemporaries of the Classic Maya. In the southern Maya lowlands, however, there were few navigable rivers for trade and transport, as well as no obvious need for an irrigation system.
By the late 20th century, researchers had concluded that the climate of the lowlands was in fact quite environmentally diverse. The environment also held other treasures for the Maya, including jade, quetzal feathers used to decorate the elaborate costumes of Maya nobility and marine shells, which were used as trumpets in ceremonies and warfare.
From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A. Instead, the ancient Maya civilization consisted of numerous small states, each centered around a city.
While these city states shared similarities in culture and religion, they each had their own local leaders, some more powerful than others. There was no single collapse for these polities; rather, a number of Maya cities rose and fell at different times, some within that to time period, and some afterward, according to scholars. Maya states continued to exist even after the region was ravaged by war and disease brought about by the European conquests in Central America.
A mix of political and environmental problems is usually blamed for the decline of Maya cities. Analysis of speleothems , or rock structures in caves such as stalactites and stalagmites, shows that "several severe — multi-year — droughts struck between [A.
Related: Why does rain give off that fresh, earthy smell?
0コメント