Maya civilization is divided into three periods, 65438 BC+0500-300 AD is called pre-classical period or formation period, 300-900 AD is the classical period, and 900-16th century is the post-classical period.
It is said that the Mayans began to build religious buildings 3000 years ago. The earliest remains were composed of some simple earth graves, which later evolved into pyramids. The early Mayan civilization seems to have been influenced by the earlier Olmec civilization.
After spreading their culture to today's Yucatan Peninsula, the Omek civilization declined and perished.
The period from 200 BC to 900 AD was the most prosperous period of Mayan culture. Maya developed many cities in this area, among which Tikal is the largest. Scholars estimate that at its peak, the city had 654.38+200,000 residents. They developed into many city-states with intensive agriculture and concentrated cities. Among them, the most striking remains are the pyramids built in the religious center and the palaces accompanying them. Other important archaeological sites include inscribed stone tablets (Tetum in Mayan), which are written in hieroglyphics and mainly describe genealogy, war victory and other achievements. Palenque is the most beautiful Mayan city in classical times, so that people even call it "Athens of America".
The Mayans also participated in the long-distance trade in ancient Central America. The main commodities are cocoa, salt and obsidian.
Characteristics of civilization
* belonging to the stone civilization, the Mayans didn't invent the use of bronzes, let alone ironware.
* Mastered a high degree of construction technology, the Mayans could not use copper and iron, nor could they use unicycle. Although the concept of wheel appears in pottery and other cultural relics, it is not practical in real life. But it has created a high degree of urban civilization.
* Agriculture takes corn as its staple food, so it is also called "corn civilization". There are no cows, horses, pigs or sheep, and there are no traces of animal husbandry. Farmers adopt the very primitive Milpa farming method.
* Mathematics adopts decimal system, and has found and used "zero", and has a high understanding of mathematics and astronomical calendar.
* Use unique hieroglyphics: Mayan characters
Many people think that Maya art in the classical period (200 to 900 years ago) is the most mature and beautiful in ancient American civilization. Palenque's sculptures and reliefs, as well as Copan's statues, are considered to be the most perfect, showing the elegance and accurate observation of the classical Maya. Modern people can only learn about the advanced paintings of classical Maya from the pottery in the funeral; In addition, an ancient mural was accidentally preserved in a building in Bonan Park. From some Mayan documents, people find that Maya is one of the few civilizations, and artists will sign their works.
trait
Use unique hieroglyphics, Mayan characters. Mayan characters are a combination of hieroglyphics and sounds. Maya carved characters not only represent a whole concept, but also have their own unique pronunciation. This is similar to the relationship between Chinese characters and pseudonyms in Japanese. For example, the word "Bakaru" in Mayan language can be written as an ideographic character, and it can also be divided into three kinds of phonography: "ba", "ka" and "la". The development level of Mayan hieroglyphics is comparable to that of China, but the symbol combination is far more complicated than that of Chinese characters, and the block is approximately round or oval. Character lines change with the ups and downs of graphics, and they are round and smooth. The main part of a character in Mayan script is called the main character and the secondary part is called the connecting character. There are two kinds of fonts, namely "geometry" and "head body", and there is also a "whole body" composed of patterns of people, animals and gods, which is mainly used for calendars. Mayan characters are read in groups of two lines from top to bottom, and the order is "left → right → (next paragraph) left → right". Mayan characters are difficult to understand and obscure, and less than one-third of them can be deciphered so far.
Religion plays a very important role in Mayan civilization. The great achievements of Mayan astronomical calendar and architecture are largely attributed to the prosperity of its religious activities. Mayan civilization was established under the theocracy system, and the Mayan royal family and priests were in charge of religion. The highest god of Maya is called "Gechar", which consists of Gechar bird feathers and rattlesnakes. It is considered a great organizer. In addition, it is also in charge of agriculture, harvest and rainfall, which is of great natural significance in the arid Yucatan Peninsula. In the center of Issa, Chen Chi, there stands a pyramid temple covering an area of more than 3,000 square meters, named Kukulkun Temple, which is a temple dedicated to Quetzalcoatl.
The Mayan sacrificial activities were frequent and cruel. Sacrificial ceremonies are held in wars, festivals, prayers for harvest and many other activities. There are not only rich sacrificial treasures here, but the Mayans also sacrificed the hearts of the living to the sun god. Wars often occur between Mayan cities, and the defeated party usually executes a large number of prisoners as sacrifices. The Maya first learned to use rubber, which also originated from religious ceremonies. They use chewing gum to make things similar to today's football and hold cruel games in special stadiums. Both sides pass the ball with any part except their hands, and the ball can't land, so they try their best to throw it into the stone circle on the wall. Losers will be put to death as sacrifices. This kind of game usually takes days and nights to tell the winner.
Calendar system
The Mayan calendar is the most perfect calendar in the world, and their calendar system consists of three calendars, namely, the divine calendar, the solar calendar and the long calendar.
The divine calendar, also known as the "Zall Golden Calendar", consists of 20 statues and figures from 1 to 13, and lasts for 260 days every year. Similar to heavenly stems and earthly branches, China, 260 combination icons are obtained through continuous combination, representing 260 days.
The solar calendar is based on astronomical calculations. A year is divided into 18 months, with 20 days in each month and 5 days as taboo days, so there are 365 days in the whole year. After long-term observation and careful calculation, the Maya, who are good at astrological observation, revised the length of a year to 365.4438+029 days, which is less than one thousandth of the absolute length of 365.438+098 days measured scientifically today.
Long calendars are very suitable for calculating long historical scales. Based on extremely developed mathematical thinking, Maya can accurately record every day in tens of millions of years by using this calendar. Archaeologists calculated that the first year of the Mayan calendar was 3 1 14 BC and 13 August BC according to the time when Spain invaded Maya in the 6th century and the counting units recorded in the inscriptions.
After 73 cycles over the years, God just returned to the same mark as the 52-cycle solar year, thus forming a 52-year cycle, and the Mayans defined 52 years as a century.
Not only that, the Mayans also worked out the lunar calendar, calculated the time for Mars and Venus to make one revolution, and found a method to correct the accumulated errors of the solar calendar and the lunar calendar.
Every nation generally has an era. But in Mayan legends, they have several eras, and each era begins with the end of the devastating destruction of the earth. The last era of Maya began in 3 1 13 BC, when they settled in Central America. The last era of Maya began in 1 1000 BC, which coincided with the end of the ice age on earth. Furthermore, they still have three eras, and the time of each era should be counted in hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
The Mayans had a mathematical system, which was called "the most brilliant product of human thinking". The Maya (or their Omek ancestors) independently developed the concept of zero, and its invention and use were earlier than India, which was the first to use zero in ancient African civilization, and about 800 years earlier than Europe. And uses a binary number system; Number with a dot (? ) stands for 1, and the bar (-) stands for 5. Inscriptions show that they sometimes use hundreds of millions. For example, in terms of timing, the Mayans had a unit called Alaudon, which was equivalent to 23040000000 days. It takes only such a huge unit to measure interstellar distance and time.
Maya created a high degree of urban civilization, and there were no large animals such as metal tools, carts, horses and cattle. From its huge and fully functional urban relics, we can see its superb architectural level and engineering technology level.
Because many buildings are used for religious ceremonies such as sacrifices, Mayan buildings are full of figures about the laws of celestial bodies. For example, the Ku Courquin Pyramid is about 30 meters high and surrounded by 9 1 steps, which adds up to 364 steps. Together with the Quetzalcoatl Temple at the top of the tower, there are 365 steps, symbolizing a solar year of 365 days. In addition to the number of steps, there are 52 four-corner reliefs on each side of the pyramid, representing 52 years of Maya. Tikal is the largest city-state of Maya in the classical period, covering an area of more than 65 square kilometers, with more than 3,000 pyramids, altars, stone tablets and other relics. The affected area is 500 square kilometers in Fiona Fang. In its central area alone, there are more than a dozen large pyramids and more than 50 small temples. The amazing design of the Tikal Pyramid with a slope of 70 is as steep as the Gothic church in Europe, so some people call it the "Jungle Cathedral". In that era when there were no advanced tools, it was a miracle how to cut and chisel out huge stones, carry them to the depths of the jungle, and then pile up more than ten tons of stones to a height of 70 meters.
agriculture
Maya is different from the other four civilizations. It did not come into being in river basins, but rose in barren volcanic highlands and dense tropical rainforests. Maya mainly ate corn and beans, with relatively little meat, and did not eat wheat. The main crops are cotton, tobacco, tomatoes, cocoa and so on. Although Mayan civilization is an urban civilization, it is based on corn agriculture. Since ancient times, Mayan farmers have adopted a very primitive "Milpa" farming method: they first cut down all the trees, dried them for a period of time, set them on fire before the rainy season, and covered the barren rainforest soil with plant ash as fertilizer. After burning one crop at a time, fallow 1-3 years, or even as long as 6 years in some places, and then burn and replant after the vegetation grows vigorously. Backward agricultural production capacity, once there is a long-term drought, civilization will become very fragile, which is one reason why scientists speculate that Mayan civilization suddenly disappeared.
The disappearance of civilization
Maya created amazing advanced civilization, but why Maya civilization suddenly disappeared is still inconclusive. Scientists and archaeologists have put forward many hypotheses about the mystery of the demise of Mayan civilization, such as foreign invasion, population explosion, disease, climate change, civil war and so on. The Maya's profound knowledge and culture are only in the hands of a few nobles and priests, while the lower-class workers, who account for the vast majority of the Mayan population, are completely illiterate. The aristocratic intellectuals who are pampered and pampered can hardly survive or even disappear soon after their prosperity is exhausted, and they also take away the splendid Mayan civilization.