classification: social livelihood

problem description:

what's so special about Mayan culture?

what kind of culture is it?

Analysis:

Introduction to Mayan culture:

In the Maya's concept, history is an endless cycle deduced in millions of years, and life is short as morning dew. And their civilization was lost in the lush jungle of Central America after a moment of glory. The sudden development and sudden disappearance of Mayan civilization is still a difficult puzzle, which makes her one of the most fascinating ancient civilizations.

Maya culture is one of the important ancient cultures in the world, and it is also a major classical culture in America. Maya appeared on the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala in Central America 5, years ago, and began their production activities in the ancient Stone Age of America. So, like other human beings in the world, their ancient history normally went through the transitional development stage from gathering, fishing and hunting to farming. Maya civilization was conceived, developed and developed in Yucatan Peninsula, Chiapas and Tapasco in Mexico and some places in Central America, including Belize, most parts of Guatemala, western Honduras and some places in Salva. The total area of this area is 324, square kilometers.

First, the emergence and development of Mayan culture

Around 2 BC, the Mayans entered a fixed-point social period and entered a farming period from gathering, fishing and hunting. Agriculture and fixed-point social living gave birth to Mayan civilization. Maya civilization began from then on.

Many scholars in the world study Mayan culture, and the historical stages of Mayan civilization are recognized as: from 15 BC to 317 AD, the pre-classical period of Mayan civilization development, from 317 AD to 889 AD, and from 889 AD to 1697 AD. Some people call it early stage, middle stage and late stage.

Pre-classical civilization appeared in the Pacific coast and plateau of Guatemala. At this time, the main feature of Mayan culture is the establishment of many large stone tablets in the city square, which are engraved with the images of rulers of past dynasties. Because hieroglyphics appeared in the 1st-2nd century A.D., there were words describing the history of rulers on stone tablets. In addition, large stone buildings (such as pyramids and the Acropolis) have appeared in the city. The large shipu square and causeway reflect that the buildings at this time have reached a certain scale and level. The centers of pre-classical civilization were Nakbe and ElMirador in Central America.

The centers of civilization development in the classical period were Tikal, Palenque, Bonampak and Copan in Guatemala. At this time, the cultural characteristics are mainly reflected in architecture, sculpture and painting. The frescoes in Bonanpak are world-famous art treasures.

The center of Mayan classical civilization in Central America declined in the 9th century for some unknown reason. Since then, Mayan culture has moved northward to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where it entered the post-classical civilization period. Mayan post-classical civilization has three centers: ChichenItza, Uxmal and Mayapan.

after the 1th century, the powerful Toltec descendants invaded Yucatan Peninsula from Mexico and influenced Chichin Itza. Maya culture and Tortek culture developed to a new height on the basis of integration, which made the declining Mayan culture flourish again and the Mayan history entered the second development period. The cultural feature of post-classical civilization is that besides inheriting the cultural heritage of southern Mayan civilization, many temples and large pyramids which are bigger and more magnificent than before have been established. Astronomy and calendars have also made great progress.

second, the main content of Mayan culture

Mayan culture is a great classical culture, which has made great contributions to world civilization.

first, new varieties of grain have been cultivated in agricultural production, such as corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, cocoa, vanilla and tobacco, among which the cultivation of corn has made the greatest contribution to human beings. Corn was originally a wild plant in America, which was cultivated by Mayans and turned into a high-yield food variety. Corn has many varieties, high nutritional value and high yield, which is not only the material basis of American Indian culture. When Europeans arrived in America, they spread corn all over the world, becoming the main food in many parts of the world, helping people in many parts of the world to survive countless famines and making indelible contributions to the continuation and development of mankind. The Mayans were also turkey breeders. Turkey is now a must-have delicacy for European and American families, and the achievements of Maya in European and American food culture are recorded in the history books.

second, the urban economy ahead of history. There are many Mayan cities. According to statistics, in the eight centuries after A.D., more than 1 cities were established by different Mayan tribes, among which palenque and Copan are famous. This is the result of Mayan economic development. The reason for the economic development is that the Maya have a high level of handicraft industry. They will make all kinds of utensils from clay, tools and weapons from flint or obsidian, cloth from cotton, alloys from gold, silver, copper and tin, and process them into all kinds of utensils and decorations. The market is very developed. There are markets in general towns and cities, and people from all walks of life can trade in the market. Commodities include cotton cloth, honey, bee wax, flint weapons, salt, fish and various daily necessities and foods. Commodity trading already has currency, and their currency is cocoa beans. There are hotels next to the market for customers to stay. Generally speaking, there is a fixed date for the mutual market, just like the day of the market in rural areas of China, which is either one-on-one or two-on-one, or three-six-nine, or different on holidays. Due to the development of commodity economy, Maya not only developed internal economy but also had extensive external trade. Its economic activities are as far away as Colombia in South America, and also affect Peru, Chile and other places.

thirdly, architecture and art have made great contributions to mankind. Maya built many magnificent halls, temples, tombs and huge stone tablets with stones. Mayan buildings are not only magnificent, but also magnificent. Up to now, in the Mayan ruins left in Yucatan or Guatemala's tropical jungle, we can still see bright colors and beautiful patterns on those ruins. There are still some ancient war murals created around the 8th century A.D. in the Bonanpak site. The figures in the paintings are various, vivid and realistic, and they are one of the treasures of the world-famous mural art today.

Mayans often set up pillars to record things in cities, and the time interval is fixed. Usually, they set up some pillars every 2 years to record some important things. Historians can know the ins and outs of the city according to the records on the stone pillars. According to the available materials, the age of the column is as long as more than 12 years, with the earliest stone pillar standing in 328 and the last one in 1516. For example, the pillar of the Mayan Tikal Temple in Guatemala, which has been deciphered, was erected on June 2, 468, which happened to be the 13th year of the Mayan calendar. The words on the stone pillars mainly narrate the deeds of the 12th ruler of Tikal, Kanak, and his family. The words on the stone pillars also tell us that Sian Chaan Cavel became the ruler of Tikal on November 27th, 411. He died on February 19th, 456 and was buried on August 9th, 458. Tikal City was built by a Maya named Jacks Mokeshaoke, who was the ancestor of Kanak. After more than 1 years of rule, the Kanak family turned Tikal into the most brilliant city at that time. The stone pillars erected by Maya people are precious historical materials for studying Mayan culture.

Maya are also high-level architects. Chichen Itza's Ku Courquin Pyramid surpassed the pyramids of Tikal and other cities. The base of Ku Courquin Pyramid is square, with a height of 3 meters. The tower is divided into 9 floors, each with 91 wide stone steps. The total number of steps around is 364, and if the temple at the top of the tower is counted as level 1, it is ***365, representing the number of days in a year. The temple is 6 meters high and square. The bottom of the front of the pyramid is carved with a feather snake head, which is 1.43 meters high, 1.87 meters long and 1.7 meters wide. At three o'clock in the afternoon of the vernal equinox and the autumnal equinox, the sun in the west projects the angular light and shadow of the side wall on the side wall of the north stone steps. The whole tower, from top to bottom until the snake head, looks ups and downs, like a giant snake crawling from the top of the tower to the earth. This pyramid was built by precise design and calculation to meet the needs of religion and agriculture.

Chichen Itza also built an astronomical observatory. It is a circular building with a height of 22.5 meters. The whole tower is like a snail's shell. There are spiral stairs in the tower leading to the observatory at the top of the tower. There are eight carefully designed windows on the tower wall to observe the astronomical phenomena. There are also huge ancient buildings in the city of Chichen Itza. This complex includes the "Governor's Mansion", "Nun Palace", "Warriors Temple", "Tiger Temple" and huge pyramids. The outer walls, doorframes and lintels of these buildings are all covered with finely carved feather snake reliefs, and their fine materials, gorgeous images and symmetry exceed the original buildings of southern Maya culture, and even today's architects are amazed.

Many Mayan buildings were built with solid walls, and an ancient wall 235 feet long, 2 feet wide and 1 to 15 feet high still exists in Tulum.

Maya were also great road builders. Maya cities are connected by roads and roads, extending in all directions.

Fourth, the Mayans were second to none in the world at that time in astronomical calendars and mathematical operations. They set a year as 365 days and divided it into 18 months. 2 days a month, and the remaining 5 days are taboo days. The accuracy of the calendar was much earlier than the Gregorian calendar used by Europeans later. They will also calculate the cycle of the moon, Venus and other planets and the time of solar eclipse. The year of Venus calculated by the Mayans using the lunar calculation method is not less than one day, which is more accurate than any calendar in the world at that time. The Maya's achievement in mathematics is the discovery of zero, which is a great achievement in mathematics. This achievement was 8 years earlier than that in Europe. Maya's calculation method is based on the combination of human fingers and toes, so it is a 2-bit system. Maya can calculate a very accurate astronomical calendar and all the mathematical problems in daily life with only three combinations of digital symbols. These three numbers are dots for 1, a horizontal line for 5 and a shell for .

Fifthly, hieroglyphics are created to express everything on earth and people's feelings. This hieroglyph is mainly carved on buildings and pottery, or written on bark and silk cloth. Primitive hieroglyphics of Maya can be seen everywhere on stone pillars, altars, pyramids and pottery. The vocabulary of Mayan language is very rich, about 3 thousand. Mayan writing is very wonderful. It has both pictographs, comprehensions and tangible sounds. It is a kind of writing with both intentional form and semantic sound functions. The Mayans have used paper, which is usually made of bark or tanned deerskin. They used these papers to compile various books, the main contents of which were history, science and ceremonies, and some books also recorded various situations of Mayan society at that time. When the Spaniards entered the Maya area, they wantonly destroyed Mayan culture, frantically burned Mayan books, and killed Mayan priests, resulting in the precious wealth of Mayan civilization becoming a pile of waste products, and the Mayan characters were unknown and the history could not be verified. There are some Mayan documents scattered around the world. There are known ancient manuscripts of Dresden, Madrid, Paris, Grolier, Berlin and new york. The contents of these ancient manuscripts involve history, religion, legends, calendars and so on. Through the study of these ancient manuscripts, scholars judge that there is a close cultural relationship between the Maya in the south and the Maya in Yucatan Peninsula.

Sixth, there are already philosophical and idealized ideas. Maya, like other early humans, originally believed in Shamanism, worshiped natural gods, especially the sun god, and called it Itaamna. However, the Mayan religion was developing continuously, and then primitive philosophy and idealized ideas were injected into the religion.

Maya's idealized thought is that there is a happy world in the sky. The god who rules the world is called Hista. He is a very kind, impartial and caring god. Under his auspices, heaven is full of joy, no disease, no sorrow and no pain, and plenty of delicious food, spacious houses and gorgeous clothes. Heaven is as beautiful as you think. If people enter heaven, they will enter the realm of all-round beauty and all-round happiness. And there is a terrible hell underground. Maya's philosophy of life is: when a person is alive, he can do good deeds, and when he dies, he can go to heaven, otherwise he will go to hell, and the evil you have done in the world will be liquidated by death. They call hell Mitnal. Hell is ruled by the god of death, Hunhau. He tortured sinners in very cruel ways, such as hunger, cold, endless slavery and mental abuse. Whether a person goes to heaven or hell depends entirely on what he did when he was alive.

Seventh, the Mayans have rich historical and literary documents. The Mayans created thousands of books and countless stone carvings in hieroglyphics. Most of the books were burned by the Spanish, leaving only the Yearbook of Kaczyl, Kieran Balaam, popol vuh and the Warrior of Rabinar.

Kaczyl Yearbook is a chronicle. Kaczyl and Quiche were both powerful tribes in Guatemala. Kaczyker Yearbook describes the history of the relationship between the two tribes in wartime and wartime.

Chiran Balaam, which means "the prophecy of the jaguar", is a historical document of the Mayans. Kieran Balaam is a priest in charge of recording history. There are still three books on the history recorded by priests, the most complete of which is Chiran Balaam of Chumayer. The book is estimated to have been completed in the 16th century, and it records the history of the Maya before they were conquered. The other two were completed late and the contents were incomplete.

popol vuh is a classical poem of the Mayans, which shows their optimism about nature and human destiny. It is also a masterpiece about the myths, legends and history of the Quiche people. These include the myths and legends about the creation of the world and the origin of mankind, the heroic stories of the rise of the Kitche tribe, the genealogy of the rulers of Kitche in past dynasties, and the age when the author lived.

The Samurai of Rabinar is a historical drama, which describes a war between the Kiche tribe and the Rabinar tribe. The story happened around the 12th century, and there was a conflict between the Goumard Ga tribe and the Rabinar tribe among the Kiche people for the control of the Samane He tribe. It ends with the victory of Rabinar's samurai and the sacrifice of Kitcher's samurai.

The rise and fall of Mayan culture:

I learned that the Maya exhibition hall of the National Anthropology Museum of Mexico has been reopened recently after nearly three years of closing, so I went to visit it.

The National Museum of Anthropology is a famous museum with a world-class reputation in Mexico, with a large scale and rich collections. It's 23