Category: Society and people's livelihood
Problem description:
What is special about Mayan culture?
What kind of culture is it?
Analysis:
Introduction to Mayan culture:
In the Mayan concept, history is an endless cycle of millions of years, and life is as short as Morning dew. And their civilization also disappeared in the lush jungles of Central America after a moment of glory. The sudden development and sudden disappearance of the Mayan civilization is still a mystery that is difficult to crack, making it one of the most fascinating ancient civilizations.
The Mayan culture is one of the important ancient cultures in the world, and it is also a major classical culture in the Americas. The Mayans appeared on the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala in Central America 5,000 years ago. They began their production activities in the ancient Stone Age of America. Therefore, like other humans in the world, their ancient history has normally gone through gathering. , the development stage of transition from fishing and hunting to farming. The Maya civilization was conceived, emerged, and developed in the Yucatan Peninsula, Chiapas and Tapasco states of present-day Mexico, and some places in Central America, including today's Belize, most of Guatemala, and Honduras Western regions and some places in Salva. The total area of ??this region is 324,000 square kilometers.
1. The emergence and development of Maya culture
Around 2000 BC, the Maya people entered a period of fixed-point group living and entered a period of farming from gathering, fishing and hunting. Agriculture and fixed-point settlement gave birth to the Mayan civilization. The Mayan civilization began from this point on.
Many scholars in the world study Mayan culture. The more recognized historical stages of Mayan civilization are: from 1500 BC to 317 AD, which is the preclassic period of the development of Maya civilization, and from 317 AD to AD The year 889 is the classical period, and the period from 889 to 1697 is the postclassical period. Some people also call it the early stage, the middle stage and the late stage.
Preclassic civilizations emerged on Guatemala's Pacific coast and highlands. At this time, the main feature of the Mayan culture was the establishment of many large stone monuments in the city squares where they emerged. The stone monuments were engraved with the images of rulers of past dynasties. Because hieroglyphics appeared in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, there were words on the stone tablets describing the history of the rulers. In addition, large stone structures appeared in the city (such as the pyramids and the city's acropolis). The large stone-paved square and causeway reflect the certain scale and level of architecture at this time. The centers of civilization in the Preclassic period were Nakbe and El Mirador in Mesoamerica.
The centers of civilization development in the classical period were in places such as Tikal, Palenque, Bonampak and Copán in Guatemala. The cultural characteristics of this time are mainly reflected in architecture, sculpture and painting. Bonampak Mural is a world-famous art treasure house.
The Maya classical civilization center in Central America declined in the 9th century for unknown reasons. After that, the Mayan culture moved north to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, where it entered the postclassical civilization period. The postclassical civilization of the Maya had three major centers: Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan.
After the 10th century AD, the powerful Toltec descendants invaded the Yucatan Peninsula from Mexico and influenced Chichen Itza. The Mayan culture and the Toltec culture developed to a new height based on the integration, which made the declining Mayan culture prosperous again, and the Mayan history entered the second period of development. The cultural characteristics of post-classical civilization are that in addition to inheriting the cultural heritage of the southern Mayan civilization, they mainly built many larger and more majestic temples and large pyramids than before. Astronomy and calendars also made great progress.
2. The main contents of Mayan culture
Mayan culture is a great classical culture, which has made significant contributions to world civilization.
First, new food varieties that have made significant contributions to mankind have been cultivated in agricultural production, such as corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, cocoa, vanilla and tobacco. Among them, corn Cultivation makes the greatest contribution to mankind.
Corn is originally a wild plant in the Americas. After being cultivated by the Mayans, it was turned into a high-yielding food variety. Corn has many varieties, high nutritional value, and large yields. It is not only the material foundation of American Indian culture. After Europeans arrived in the Americas, corn spread throughout the world and became the main food in many parts of the world. It helped people in many parts of the world survive countless famines and made an indelible contribution 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 during festivals. In the European and American food culture, the achievements of the Mayans are recorded in history.
Second, the urban economy is ahead of history. There are many Mayan cities. According to statistics, in the eight centuries AD, various Mayan tribes successively established more than a hundred cities, among which the more famous ones include Palenque and Copan. This is the result of Mayan economic development. The reason for the economic development is that the Mayans had a high level of handicraft industry. They would use pottery to make various utensils, use flint or obsidian to make various tools and weapons, use cotton to weave cloth, and use gold, silver, copper and tin. and other elements are made into alloys and processed into various utensils and decorations. The market is very developed, and there are markets in general market towns and cities, where people from all walks of life can conduct transactions. The commodities include cotton cloth, honey, beeswax, flint weapons, salt, fish and various daily necessities and food. Commodities trading already had money, and their currency was cocoa beans. There are hotels next to the market for accommodation by merchants. Mutual markets generally have fixed dates, just like the market days in rural areas of our country. They may fall on odd days, even days, or every other day, or during New Years and holidays. Due to the development of the commodity economy, the Mayans not only had a developed internal economy but also had extensive external trade. Its economic activities reach as far away as Colombia in South America, and also affect Peru, Chile and other places.
Third, architecture and art have made huge contributions to mankind. The Mayans used stone to build many magnificent halls, temples, tombs and huge monuments. The buildings of the Mayans are not only majestic, but also magnificent. To this day, in the remaining Mayan ruins in the tropical jungles of Yucatan or Guatemala, we can still see the bright colors and beautiful patterns on those ruined walls. There are still some ancient war murals created around the 8th century AD in the Bonampak ruins. The characters in the paintings are various, lifelike and full of realistic expression. They are one of the world's famous treasures of mural art today.
The Mayans often erected pillars in cities to record events, with fixed intervals of years. Usually, some stone pillars were erected every 20 years to record important events. Historians can learn the story of the city based on the records on the stone pillars. According to existing materials, the age of the pillars is more than 1,200 years old. The earliest stone pillar was erected in 328, and the last one was erected in 1516. For example, the Mayan script that has been deciphered is the stone pillar of the Mayan Tikal Temple in Guatemala, which was erected on June 20, 468, which happened to be the 13th year of the Mayan calendar. The text on the stone pillar mainly describes some deeds of Kanac, the 12th generation ruler of Tikal City, and his family members. The text on the stone pillar also tells us that Si'an Cha'an Cavel became the ruler of Tikal on November 27, 411 AD. He died on February 19, 456, and died on August 9, 458. Buried on the same day. The city of Tikal was built by a Maya named Yax Mokshok, who was the ancestor of Canac. After more than a hundred years of rule, the Kanak family turned Tikal into the most glorious city of its time. The stone pillars erected by the Maya are precious historical materials for studying Mayan culture.
The Mayans were also highly skilled architects. The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza surpasses the pyramids at Tikal and other cities. The base of the Kukulkan Pyramid is square and 30 meters high. The tower has 9 floors, and each floor has 91 wide stone steps. The total number of steps around it is 364. If the temple on the top of the tower is counted as one level, it will be 365, which represents the number of days in a year. The temple is 6 meters high and square in shape. The bottom of the front of the pyramid is carved with the head of the feathered serpent, which is 1.43 meters high, 1.87 meters long and 1.07 meters wide. At three o'clock in the afternoon on the two days of the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun in the west casts the angular light and shadow of the side wall on the side wall of the north stone steps. The entire tower body, from top to bottom to the snake's head, looks undulating. It's like a giant snake crawling from the top of the tower to the earth. This pyramid was built with precise design and calculation to meet religious and agricultural needs.
Chichen Itza also built an astronomical observatory.
It is a circular building, 22.5 meters high, and the entire tower resembles a snail shell. There is a spiral staircase inside the tower leading to the observation deck at the top of the tower. There are 8 carefully designed windows on the wall of the tower, through which you can observe the celestial phenomena. Chichen Itza also has a large-scale ancient building complex. This building complex includes the "Governor's Palace", "Nun's Palace", "Warrior Temple", "Tiger Temple" and a huge pyramid. The exterior walls, door frames, and stone lintels of these buildings are all covered with exquisitely carved feathered serpent reliefs. The fineness of materials used, the beauty and symmetry of the images exceed those of the original southern Mayan culture buildings, and even today Architects were amazed.
Many public buildings of the Mayans had strong walls. There is still an ancient wall in Tulum that is 2,350 feet long, 20 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet high. .
The Mayans were also great road builders. Maya cities are connected by roads and extend in all directions.
Fourth, the Mayans were second to none in the world at that time in terms of astronomy, calendar and mathematical operations. They defined a year as 365 days and divided it into 18 months. There are 20 days in each month, and the remaining 5 days are taboo days. The accuracy of the calendar far predates the Gregorian calendar later used by Europeans. They also calculated the cycles of the moon, Venus and other planets, and the timing of solar eclipses. The Venus year calculated by the Mayans using the "lunar calculation method" was not less than one day for more than 1,000 years, which was more accurate than any calendar in the world at that time. The Mayans' mathematical achievement was the discovery of zero, which was an amazing achievement in mathematics. This achievement preceded Europe by 800 years. The Mayan calculation method is based on the sum of a person's fingers and toes, so it is a 20-digit system. The Mayans were able to calculate very precise astronomical calendars and all mathematical problems in daily life using only a combination of three numerical symbols. These three numbers are represented by a dot representing 1, a horizontal line representing 5, and a shell representing 0.
Fifth, hieroglyphics were created to express everything in the world and human emotions. This kind of hieroglyphics is mainly engraved on buildings, pottery, or written on bark and silk. The original hieroglyphs of the Maya can be seen everywhere on stone pillars, altars, pyramids and pottery. The Mayan language has a very rich vocabulary, with approximately more than 30,000 words. Mayan writing is amazing. It has both pictograms, meanings, and pictographic sounds. It is a text that has both image and phonetic functions. The Mayans already used paper, often made from tree bark or tanned deer hide. They used these papers to compile various books, the main contents of which were history, science and rituals. Some books also recorded various situations of Mayan society at that time. When the Spanish entered the Maya area, they wreaked havoc on the Mayan culture, burned Mayan books crazily, and killed Mayan priests. As a result, the precious wealth of the Mayan civilization became a pile of waste. No one knew the Mayan writing, and the history could not be verified. There are some surviving Mayan documents scattered around the world. The known ones include the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex, the Grolier Codex, the Berlin Codex, the New York Codex, etc. The content of these ancient manuscripts involves history, religion, legends, calendars, etc. Through the study of these ancient manuscripts, scholars have concluded that there is a close cultural relationship between the southern Maya and the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Sixth, there are already philosophical and idealized thoughts. The Mayans, like other early humans, originally believed in shamanism and worshiped nature gods, especially the sun god, whom they called Itaamna. But Mayan religion was constantly developing, and primitive philosophy and idealized thoughts were later injected into the religion.
The Mayans’ idealistic thought is that there is a perfect world in heaven. The god who dominates the world is called Ixtab. He is a very kind, just, selfless and loving god. Under his auspices, heaven is full of joy, without disease, sorrow, or pain, and there is plenty of delicious food. Food, spacious houses, fine clothes. Heaven is as beautiful as you think it is. If a person enters heaven, he will enter a realm where everything is beautiful and blissful. And underground there is a terrible hell. The Mayans' philosophy on life is: if a person does good deeds while alive, he can go to heaven when he dies, otherwise he will go to hell, and the God of Death will pay for the sins he has done in the world. They called hell Mitnal. Hell is ruled by Hunhau, the god of death.
He tortured sinners in very cruel ways, including hunger, severe cold, endless hard labor, and mental abuse. Whether a person goes to heaven or hell depends entirely on what he does while on earth.
Seventh, the Mayans have rich historical and literary documents. The Mayans used hieroglyphics to create thousands of books and countless stone carvings. Most of the books were burned by the Spaniards, leaving only the "Annals of Kachikel", "Chilan Balan", "Popol U" and "The Warriors of Rabinal".
"Annals of Kachiker" is a chronicle. The Kachikels and Quiche were both powerful tribes in Guatemala at that time. The "Annals of Kachikel" records the history of the relationship between the two tribes at times of war and peace.
"Chilan Balan" means "The Prophecy of the Jaguar" and is a historical document of the Mayans. Chilan Balaam was the priest responsible for recording history. There are still three historical records recorded by the priests that have been preserved to this day, the most complete of which is "Chilam Balan of Chumayel". Estimated to have been completed in the 16th century, the book records the history of the Maya before the conquest. The other two were completed later and the content is incomplete.
"Pobol U" is a classical poem of the Mayans, which expresses the Mayans' optimistic attitude towards nature and the destiny of mankind. It is also a masterpiece about the myths, legends and history of the Quiché people. It includes myths and legends about the creation of the world and the origin of human beings, heroic stories about the rise of the Quiche tribe, and the genealogy of the past Quiche rulers, all the way to the era of the author's life.
"The Warriors of Rabinal" is a historical drama that depicts a war between the Quiche tribe and the Rabinal tribe. The story takes place around the 12th century, a conflict between the Gumarga tribe and the Rabinal tribe of the Quiche people for control of the Samaneh tribe. It ends with the victory of the warriors of Rabinal and the sacrifice of the warriors of Quiché.
The rise and fall of Mayan culture:
I learned that the Mayan exhibition hall of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico has recently reopened to the public after being closed for nearly three years. 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. Its 23 exhibition halls comprehensively and vividly introduce the origin and development of ancient Mexican culture, as well as the culture, art, life, religion, etc. of Mexico's 56 Indian nations. Chairman *** visited here when he visited Mexico in 1997 and left an inscription: "A wonder of human civilization. The pride of the Mexican people."
The Mayan Exhibition Hall is one of the two key exhibition halls of the Anthropology Museum. , located on the first floor of the museum. The exhibition hall with an exhibition area of ??1,500 square meters comprehensively reflects the glorious achievements of the ancient Mayan civilization with rich content. After this reopening, the number of cultural relics on display has increased from more than 400 to more than 700, of which more than 100 have never been exhibited before.
The Mayan culture is one of the world's famous ancient civilizations and one of the three ancient Indian civilizations in Latin America. It was the cradle of American Indian culture and had a profound influence on later Toltec and Aztec cultures.
Mayan culture has a long history of development, which lasted from approximately 1800 BC to 1524 AD. It can be divided into the Preclassic period (1800 BC to 300 AD) and the Classical period ( There are three stages: 300 to 900 AD) and the Postclassic period (900 to 1524 AD). Its heyday was about AD 400 to 900.
The Mayan exhibition hall displays a large number of unearthed cultural relics and replicas, as well as pictures and videos, showing the results of excavations at more than 50 archaeological sites, allowing us to increase our understanding of the history and living customs of the ancient Maya people. . The most shocking thing is the high level achieved by the ancient Maya in painted pottery, murals, sculptures, architecture, writing, astronomy, calendar, medicine and mathematics. The pottery, jade, etc. made by the Mayans are of very fine craftsmanship. Their sculptures and murals are distinctive and lifelike. Many of the construction projects they built were grand in scale, rigorous in layout, and superb in technology. Europeans could not match the achievements of the ancient Mayans in mathematics, astronomy and other fields. They used the concept of "zero" 800 years before the Europeans. They mastered the solar eclipse cycle and the movement patterns of the sun, moon and some stars very early, and based on this, they created a highly accurate calendar.
After visiting the Mayan exhibition hall, I couldn't help but be impressed by the splendid culture created by the ancient Mayans. The treasure house of Mayan culture not only has distinctive national characteristics, but also is a precious wealth for all mankind. This is what people often say: "The more national, the more global." The National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico has so perfectly preserved priceless cultural treasures for its country and nation, and at the same time preserved an extremely precious heritage for all mankind.
However, an eternal mystery that has not yet been clearly explained is that the Mayan culture, which once had such a glorious past, suddenly and mysteriously declined in the early 10th century AD. It was not until the 11th century that the Toltecs who came south from the Mexican plateau, together with the remaining Maya, partially revived in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. But compared with the heyday of Mayan culture, it is no longer the same. Later, after the Spanish colonists invaded, it became even more depressed.
I remember that a long time ago, I heard the saying that "the Mayan culture mysteriously disappeared". At that time, it was mistakenly believed that the Mayan culture and Maya people were like dinosaurs and had nowhere to be found. It was only after I came to Mexico that I realized this was not the case. The Mayans were not dinosaurs. They are still one of the 56 Indian ethnic groups in Mexico, living in the Yucatan Peninsula and other places. Although there are not many of them, and there are even fewer pure Mayans, most of them have been more or less mixed with other ethnic groups, but they still maintain their own language, ancient lifestyles and production methods, and their customs, folk art, etc. They still maintain their own national traditions.
However, the Mayan culture as a culture has declined after all. Although our ancestors left behind priceless treasures, they did not achieve any new achievements, no new inventions, new progress and developments. The so-called decline of Mayan culture is actually mainly reflected here. This is probably also the reason for the decline. No matter how developed a culture has been in the past, if there are no new creations and achievements, progress and development, it will stagnate and decline. There have been various speculations about the reasons for the decline of the Mayan culture. Some said it was due to environmental changes, while others said it was due to war, but there is no conclusive evidence. And I think that one of the main reasons may be that the descendants of future generations are stuck in their ways and fail to carry forward the spirit of innovation and enterprising spirit and achieve new achievements, new progress and development.
In addition, some people have also suggested that the Mayan culture's lack of external exchanges and its closed state was also a reason for its decline. There seems to be some truth to this statement. The mutual exchange and integration of the excellent and advanced cultures of various ethnic groups is indeed an important condition for promoting the development and renewal of national culture. Without this kind of communication, it will become complacent, stagnant, and gradually decline. Therefore, innovation and communication are necessary conditions for a culture to thrive. Today's Mexican culture was created and developed due to the mutual exchange and continuous integration of various cultures