Ancient Maya: why the world did not end

What do we remember about ancient Maya from school? It was a mighty empire at its prime when European conquistadors came along and killed them all, together with Mayas vanished their language so until now we do not know much about them. Some even believe that the extraterrestrials came over and picked them up or even that Mayan civilization was so advanced that they built a spaceship and moved to another planet. Well, most of this is - to say softly - incorrect. Yes, Mayan culture was very advanced but there never was an empire, rather a constellation of cities constantly fighting with each other. But by the time Europeans came many of these cities had already been in decline for centuries - and it is still a matter of debate why. And for sure Mayas are not on another planet simply because... they are still alive, and there are between 5 and 7 million of them living in southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. Their language is not gone either - even though the written tradition was lost and deciphered only a few decades ago - there are still many villages where people speak only Mayan. Nowadays most Maya are bilingual speaking both their tongue and Spanish but hold ancient Maya last names: Ak, Dzul, Hoil, Hau. Chuc. Ehuan etc.

Maya women on the streets of Antigua de Guatemala

So how will you recognize a Maya if you happen to see one? Unlike the actors in Mexican telenovellas Maya are short, have dark coarse hair, but only little facial hair and no hair on the chest, flat face with high cheekbones.

The Maya people are also known by their hand-woven garments - capes, skirts, dresses, blouses... Each village has its own distinctive pattern making it possible to recognize people's home town from a distance.

And most importantly - all Maya babies have wah. Wah is a dark purple spot on the end of the spinal cord that every newborn - even half-blood called mestiso -  has. It fades with age but nevertheless is the most reliable - and the most difficult to see - distinctive feature of Mayas.

They most probably still have their wah

But if you happened to see an ancient Maya the picture would be quite different: ancient Maya had very peculiar - by modern understanding - beauty standards. The way a person looked was a direct reflection of this person's social status and occupation. For example, ruling families practiced scull deformation: starting from baby age the kids' heads were tightly wrapped in order to elongate the scull and make it look like corncob. Maya called themselves 'people of corn' and believed that the civilizations before theirs were made of clay and wood. When you saw someone with a corncob head you could tell right away you were dealing with a royalty. When this person smiled at you there would be no doubt about it: ruling families also filed teeth and inserted jade - stone that had big spiritual value to Maya. Another trait of beauty was being cross-eyed. To achieve this the parents had to hang something between baby's eyes. The warriors had to be recognized as well. In addition their mere outlook was supposed to frighten the enemy. They cut their skin open and rubbed in pigment - sort of tattoo - on their face, arms and back of the shoulders. They also opened the skin on their face with stingray bone, after it started healing they did it again and again to look fierce. Next to it pierced noses and ears look kind of innocent.

There are over 70 Indian groups (by the way, in Mexico Indian is not considered a derogatory term, unlike in the US). Along with Aztecs Maya represent the two biggest Indian groups of so called Mesoamerica - a cultural area in Central America where tribes shared several distinct features:


- domestication and cultivation of maize (corn) - we already know that Maya called themselves 'people of corn

- elevated structures - what we refer to as pyramids.

However to a trained eye they are not the same: there are also ceremonial platforms, palaces, temples, observatories... In addition to that they differ depending on the area and the time of construction.

Pyramid in Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Limestone used for construction was cut into blocks and polished using obsidian tools - Maya did not know metal.

The blocks were then mortared using 'Maya cement' - mixture of burnt and crushed limestone with water and crushed seashells traded from coastal communities. The same mixture was used as stucco and then painted 'al fresco'.

By the way, the architectural problem of building an arch - one of the most  important achievements of Ancient Rome - was solved by Maya in their own way giving birth to so-called Maya 'false arch'. The Maya arch is quite different from Roman that uses a curvilinear shape with a key stone, instead it utilizes a linear inverted "V" shape.

Maya 'false arch' in San Gervasio, Cozumel, Mexico 

Elongated Maya arch formed Maya vault thus creating clear span interior space. The vaults could be adjacent to each or placed vertically forming multi-level structures.

Maya vault in Kohunlich, Mexico

- theocratic society: the main priest Jalach winik was also territorial and military ruler. The power was inherited and - probably to ensure the line does not break - multiple wives were permitted. However only Maya had female rulers.

Jalach winik from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

- great interest in ulama (another name Pok-Ta-Pok) - ball game that was athletic and ceremonial event at the same time. Ball courts of different shapes and sizes are found in most Mesoamerican cities: early courts were simple and had marks on the walls that the players had to touch with ball. Later on the walls grew higher and the rings appeared. Unlike in basketball, the rings were positioned not horizontally but vertically and the ball weighed 6 to 11 pounds.

Ball court in Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico

It was not just game, it had a great religious importance: the sacral meaning of the game was to achieve balance between the worlds of live and dead. Before the match players had to purify themselves by fasting, praying and taking steam bath with herbs. During the game they were dressed as animals.
The captain of the winning team was honored to be... sacrificed, best blood had to go to gods! What was the bonus to win - one might ask? Well, according to Mayan mythology all humans were tested by underworld gods before they are granted access to heaven while human sacrifice goes straight to Mayan paradise along with babies and women who dies at childbirth. And this brings us to the next feature:

- human sacrifice. All Mesoamerican cultures were extremely fond of it and came up with several elaborate ways: decapitation, opening chest and offering heart to gods, throwing down from the pyramid...

Imagine how it would feel being thrown down these stairs...

The most common way on  Yucatán peninsula was 'humans in sinkholes'. There is no fresh water in Southern  Yucatán, the only river - Rio Hondo - starts in the mountains of Guatemala and serves as border with Belize. All fresh water Maya used was rainwater they collected in underground cisterns but in nature it was absorbed by the ground creating underwater caverns and rivers. When the ceiling of such cavern collapsed it created a sinkhole - what Maya believed to be a gateway to the world of dead.

Until recently it was believed that only virgins were thrown in sinkholes but recent archaeological findings discovered bones of men, women and even children. It is now believed that those used as human sacrifice were captives from multiple wars between cities as well as children depending on their birth date. When these children were born the parents were informed that their kids were specially chosen by gods to be sacrificed and they grew knowing about their future destiny. This seems horrifying nowadays but the parents were happy and felt honored.
Of course if a kid from a noble family and a peasant's kid were born on the same day the 'honor' was passed to a kid from simple family...
But nobles also had their ways of sacrifice. Ruler, priests and priestesses practiced bloodletting: female priestesses would pierce their tongues and press it with a rock to collect blood, men pierced their penises. The blood was then dried and offered to gods. As painful as it was - at least they did not die, but even nobles had to do it at some point of their lives.

Most probably humans were sacrificed right here

The spectators gathered on the bleachers (Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico)

- another feature that unities all Mesoamerican cultures is interest for keeping of time. There were 18 different calendars - supplementary ones observed lunation, Venus cycle, moon age etc but the two main calendars were Tzolk'in and Haab'. Both had circular shape.

Haab' is solar calendar consisting of 365 days: 18 months, 20 days in each plus 5 days at the end of the year known as Wayeb'. It was considered a dangerous time of the year, time when the borders between our world and underworld dissolved and all evil could come it. Maya had an elaborate set of rituals designed to protect them from bad spirits during Wayeb', for example, people avoided leaving their houses and washing or combing their hair.  Haab' ran counter-clockwise.


Tzolk'in is Maya Sacred Round or 260-day calendar. It consisted of 20 groups of 13 days and ran clockwise. Until now the researches debate why it was decided to have 260 days: some believe it is the multiplication of numbers 20 and 13 that were important in Mayan culture, some link it with the period of human pregnancy, some - with agricultural time between planting and harvest while other have an astronomic explanation as the time between zenithal passages is 260 days.

So where did the all the buzz about the end of the world come from? 

Both calendars ran simultaneously so each days had names from both. The two cycles coincided only every 52 days.  As this cycle repeated roughly once each lifetime, a different method of dating was needed to record historical events. To specify dates over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans used the Long Count calendar.

Stelae like these were a perfect spot to display Long Count calendars

Now read and memorize: one day is k'in, twenty k'ins are winal, eighteen winals make one tun, twenty tuns are known as a k'atun, twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun. December 21, 2012 was simply the day that the calendar went to the next b'ak'tun.
But on the stelae at two Mayan sites - in Koba (Quintana Roo state, Mexico) and in El Tortugera (Tabasco state, Mexico) - the calendar ended after this b'ak'tun. Why did they both end on this day? Who knows, maybe stela was not big enough? Anyway, if someone were to check our calendars - does anyone plan anything for the year 3044? Does anyone know which city will host Olympic games in 4046? So why do you expect Maya to think so many millenniums ahead?

And if the Maya still followed their calendar December 21st would most probably be the day of joy and celebration - remember all the fireworks and pop concerts on the year 2000 celebration? - not a doomsday.
And for those who like to predict the end of the world - here is the new threshold: the date on which the calendar will go to the next piktun (a complete series of 20 b'ak'tuns) will be on October 13, 4772. Any plans? Start booking hotels in Mexico!

Of all the Mezoamerican groups Maya are considered to be the most advanced in  mathematic, astronomy, medicine, arts and engineering, they are the only known pre-Columbian civilization with fully developed written language, meaning they were the only civilizaton that could write everything they could say.
But even though Maya languages are still alive today the decipherment of Maya writing was a long and tedious process. It started at the end of XIX century and involved archaeologists, art historians linguists...

Fragment of stella with Mayan script from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

The breakthrough happened in the mid-XX century when it was suggested that Maya symbols were syllabic, not alphabetic. By now most symbols have been deciphered.

Mayan script from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

So what made Maya so smart? Travel! In order to built a temple the materials were traded from different parts of Central America: seashells for 'Maya cement' - from coastal communities, obsidian to polish stones came from Guatemala and Mexican state of Chiapas, red dye came from cochineal insect traded from Central Mexico. Maya built a network of roads, some 2 meters high. Visiting different tribes they absorbed their best ideas and put them to use.

Mayan roads survived until today

So why did they collapse?
There are a lot of theories: some believe the growing population depleted scarce resources, some suggest it fell as a result of a foreign invasion or peasant revolt. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change.
But we believe that the fall of this mighty civilization was a direct result and logical continuation of what made them strong. Their religion made Maya build beautiful temples, travel long distances to obtain necessary materials but it also made them lead unceasing wars with their neighbors in need of captives for human sacrifices, it made them kill the strongest and most able men, women and kids - the future of every nation. So eventually when something out of ordinary happened the weakened nation was not able to defend itself. All the knowledge - including the written language - was not shared with simple people. So when fell the nobles who had been inbreeding for centuries simple peasants were an easy prey for European conquistadors.
So there is something we can learn from the ancient Maya: travel makes people smarter, education makes nation stronger. 

<<<<Previous post              Next post >>>>