What
was the Mayan Empire?
When we visit the abandoned Mayan
pyramids and review the amazing achievements of these mysterious people, we may
wonder about the origin of the Mayans. How did they assemble their great
empire by connecting together many cities, and what happened to cause these
people to abruptly abandon their magnificent cities, and where did they go
afterward. Our understanding of these
people is far from complete, research into the history and life of the Maya is
still in its infancy. That’s why
archeologists like us are still studying it.
We have recognized the Mayan
achievements in architecture, art, city planning, government organization, agricultural
science, mathematics (they understood the concept of zero, the ancient Greeks
did not), and astronomy, to name a few.
They developed a calendar that was the most accurate in the world, and
still has not been surpassed. This brief summary I give you today is not an
attempt to provide a detailed description of all known facts, it is merely an
introduction to help you understand what you are seeing when you visit the
Mayan ruins in Belize.
The Mayan Empire suddenly appeared
in the jungle lowlands of Guatemala and Belize about 380 BC, stretched from
what is now Honduras, south of Belize, to the northern tip of the Yucatan in
Mexico and lasted until after the year 1000 AD.
Then the cities were abandoned, one after another, until only a few
remained in Mexico when the Spanish arrived.
Like most empires, the Mayan empire seems to have been created by
conquest, one kingdom after another was conquered and brought under the central
control.
Let’s begin our search for the
origin of the empire by looking at several theories for how these native people
arrived in Central America.
A large religious group centered in
the western United States holds the belief that native Americans (called
Indians) descended from an ancient group of Hebrews who became disenchanted
with the leadership of their faith.
According to sacred documents of this religious group, these ancient
Hebrew people believed their leaders had deviated from the true beliefs and
practices of their faith, so they set off in search of a new land where they
could practice their religion in its true form and they found that land in
America. According to that religious
group, these ancient Hebrews were the original Americans, the Mayans and
American Indians were their descendants.
Like many religious beliefs, this
theory has been proven false by science, especially by DNA testing that
indicates most native Americans migrated from Asia, with the exception of a few
that trace back to Europe. In physical
appearance, Mayans look much like people from southeast Asia.
The generally accepted theory of
how they migrated from Asia takes us back to the Ice Age, when the arctic ice
cap expanded southward and formed a bridge over the Bering Sea between Asia and
North America. According to that theory,
the Asians walked across to Alaska, then spread all the way to South America.
A variation of that theory involves
the way they traveled, they may not have walked. Some Asians were fishermen, and they would
have traveled by boat, they would have sailed along the edge of the land and
the ice and gone ashore occasionally to hunt and to exercise their legs. Traveling by boat would have enabled them to
move long distances much more quickly and carry their tools and possessions to
their new homeland. When they reached a
climate similar to the one they had left, they would settle. They would find that suitable climate in
Central America. From their settlements
along the Pacific coast, they would spread eastward to the land that became the
site of the Mayan empire.
You choose the theory you prefer.
The theory of traveling by boat
along the edge of the ice also accounts for some native American DNA tracing
back to Europeans (as it does), because the ice sheet covered the North
Atlantic as well as the Bering Sea between Asia and Alaska. People from France,
for example, could have sailed along the edge of the ice to eastern Canada.
Origin
of Mayan cities.
The ancient people would find a
desirable place, such as beside a stream, and several families would build
their homes close together in a village so they could help each other. They would choose a leader, perhaps the man
who was the best hunter or they thought was the wisest, but often they chose a
shaman, someone who claimed that he knew how to communicate with the spirit
gods, the unseen deities who controlled the unseen forces they feared, such as
sickness and famine. As the village grew
into a city, this shaman became their king and their spiritual leader as well.
This king needed assistants to help
him lead and govern the people, so he appointed helpers and gave them authority
over his subjects. They became the
aristocrats, his overseers for the work that needed to be done. They collected taxes for him and they helped
him lead the religious services. The
king directed that the people build a palace for him, fine homes for the
aristocrats and a pyramid as a place to worship their spirit gods.
Now they had cities, each with a
king and a government and an official religion, and the cities did trade with
each other, but they did not yet have an empire. This apparently peaceful and laid back era of
Mayan history is known as the Pre-Classic period. Achievements came slowly. The empire was formed later, during the
creative Classic period, and researchers are still attempting to determine if
some event or some person initiated the change, because it was drastic and
seemed to occur suddenly.
Origin
of Mayan empire.
During the Pre-Classic period,
Mayan cities seemed to enjoy a peaceful coexistence, with change coming
slowly. Pyramids constructed during that
era were adorned by pleasant art. For
example, a huge sculpture of a peaceful head (called a mask) is found at the
Mask Temple in the old city of Lamanai.
The Classic period, when it arrived, brought much war, and the
achievements came more quickly (achievements come quickly during time of war,
such as rockets into space during the Cold War between the USA and USSR). Also, the art became very violent. For example, we know that the Mask temple in
Lamanai was enlarged, and its peaceful art was covered with a layer of
steps. The purpose of art in the Classic
period seemed to have become propaganda, intended to emphasize the power of the
king and to intimidate any who may question his authority. During this period, the religion became quite
brutal and ritual human sacrifice became a part of their ceremonies. This change of attitude was depicted in the
art, and peaceful themes were replaced by violent.
When this Classic period ended, The
Mayans mysteriously began to abandon their cities in Belize and the jungle
overcame the magnificent palaces and the pyramids. When the Spanish arrived, a few Mayan cities
remained in the Yucatan area, the northern part of the Empire.
Early researchers believed that the
ancient Mayans left no written records, but that is not true. When the Spanish conquered the Mayan cities
that had not yet been abandoned, they were disgusted by the brutal religious
rituals. Spanish priests saw that the
Mayan documents written on paper and animal skins were filled with killing and
bloody sacrifices, and they assumed that these were mostly religious
documents. They believed these documents
were works of the devil and burned them.
A few survived and are now entrusted to museums in Europe.
The Spanish priests, however, did
not destroy all Mayan historical records.
The ancient Mayans recorded important events on stone columns called
stela that they erected in their cities, and these carvings did not show the
brutal rituals so the priests did not destroy them. When the Mayan language was decoded, these
stela gave researchers an accurate description of major historic events and
important people in a city. Since the
stela were authorized by the ruler, they treated him kindly, sometimes included
a sculpture depicting him.
The Maya invented a very accurate
calendar and this was used by all their cities, so the records carved on stela
often contained the exact date an important event occurred. By comparing the stela of different cities,
researchers could determine if some event involved more than one city and could
even trace the movement of an important person from one city to another.
These stela are proving to be very
useful to researchers attempting to determine the cause of the drastic change
that ended the peaceful Pre-Classic period and brought in the more violent,
creative Classic period.
Before the Maya, a peaceful people
named the Olmec occupied Central America. These Olmec seemed to be much like
the Maya, except their art showed a more peaceful existence and their
achievements came slowly. Did the Mayans
conquer the Olmec and occupy their cities, or did these Olmec suddenly change
and become the violent Maya?
A stela found among the ruins of an
ancient city in Guatamala may answer that question, and also reveal the events
that ended the Pre-Classic period and abruptly ushered in the Classic period.
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