Mayan – one of the greatest civilization in history

Hello dear friends, today I will write something about Mayan people.

They are one of the native people in America who were conquered in 16 century by Spanish invaders. Today there are about 2 milions of Mayans. They had a specific language which we call Mayan language and today they speak a similiar language that has been modernized.

• Also, Mayan people are divided into several tribes:
• Maya,
• Mopan,
• Lacandon,
• Itza,
• Cruzob,
• Icaiche

Maya people were most populated on the Yucatan peninsula but there are still others who live in Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize.


Mayans teritory

History

The first larger settlements were founded around 500 B.C. and all of the settlements were on Yucatan. They have never created a uniquely huge empire, their empire consisted of cities that were autonomus.

The biggest city was Tikal in which about 100 thousand people lived and total population was about 2 milions of people, approximately like today. Other big cities were: Palenque, Copan, Calakmul, Quirigua, Altun – Ha…


City of Tikal

It should be pointed out that Mayan people often fought each other. After this early history, in 10 century Mayans tribes came under influence of the tribe Toltec. Some historians consider that the Mayan tribe called Itza worked closely with Toltec's and that was why Toltec's had a great influence on Mayans tribes.

After that, the Spanish sailors came on Mayans teritory and begin to conquer their cities. The entire peninsula of Yucatan was conquered in 1546 but in some parts of peninsula Mayan people still provide
resistance.

In 1697 the last town in which the tribe Itza ruled fell. Centuries later there were some minor clashes in which the Mayans tried to return their land but it was mostly ending with bloodshed.



Interesting facts about Mayans

Why Mayans are one of the most developed civilizations in the world?
• They have made great succes in building, math and astronomy,
• They also developed their own script,
• They have developed their own numerical system in which numbers were denoted by dots and they also used zero with which many civilization cannot boast,
• They also used coconut granules in math to make some mathematical operations easier,
• They also created their own solar calendar,

The Mayans calendar


This is the Mayans calendar

They knew a lot of about Sun, Moon and planet Venus. Through them they could found out when the eclipse would be (the eclipse announced the arrival of their new patron god). Their month was 20 days and they had four main gods: Kan, Muluc, Ix, Cauac.

Except for the days in the months, they had five more days that did not fall in a single month and in those days they shouldn't do anything because they believed that an accident will happen to them. For them both days and nights were gods.

Script of the Mayans


There are some interesting Mayans words

The Mayans script are hieroglyphics which is not yet decrypted because the Spanish priests burned most of their records. It is absurd they burned it all because Mayans did not want to turn to Christianity.

About 800 hundred characters are deciphered mostly representing some animals, gods and stuff like that. The wrtitings are mostly written on the flakes of the fig leaf and on that are mostly written dates or documents about marriages.

Buildings and art

The most famous construction of Majans are their pyramids. The most famous pyramid is El Tajin. Pyramids are mostly made for religious reasons.


El Tajin pyramid

In pyramids we can see great pictorial splendor. Mayans mostly painted on a stones or on the woods. The most common color they painted was red. Birds, shells, arrows, corn and heart are most commonly seen in the pictures and they represent some religious things.


Some of the Mayans art

Religion

Mayans had many gods and they though that gods destroyed world few times before their civilization. Because of that they were great believers and they offered many sacrifices to the gods. The great gods were Sun and Moon. Besides them, the god of mauve was extremly worshiped and his name was Hun Hunahpu. They also believed that Jaguars are not animals, they thought that the Jaguar had supernatural power.


Mayan sculpture of Jaguar

Human sacrifices to gods were offered when a new ruler was elected. Victims were either beheaded or they got their heart removed. That way, it was considered that the victim gave his blood to the gods.


Human sacrifice

This is a short story about Mayans, in my opinion they are one of the most developed civilization in the whole world. If you want to watch movie about this tribe I recommend you to watch movie Apocalypto which is directed by Mel Gibson and it is about some small tribe which is trapped by Majans tribe.



Thank you for reading.