The Mayas

Since the beginning of the Christian era until the sixteenth century, and in an area that includes southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan, this enigmatic and imaginative people dedicated their lives to decipher the secrets of time.

To achieve the stars observed, invented calendars, created scripts pictographic and erected buildings with novel techniques. But art and science were not a profane, but the need to satisfy the wishes of the gods.

However, even so incomprehensible, cities and temples were abandoned.

Today only the stones. The heirs of that culture inhabiting the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala but the knowledge that made that possible form of art and science was lost forever.

During what is called period of training (200 BC to 300 AD) were established in the jungles of southern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan populations agricultural economy and the Maya language. These stocks gained some very advanced cultural characteristics, which were a prelude to the great Maya civilization.
It is in the Classic Period (300 to 900 AD) when it takes its final form and live swing the Mayan people. The cities in the lowlands are enriched with splendid buildings: Tikal, Palenque, Copan, Yaxichilán, etc..
Was settled in temples and steles with inscriptions calendars. These cities, but were certain similarities cultural, linguistic and even political institutions and customs were different. According to Thompson, due to form federations city, with a government and a priestly caste dominant.
From 750 AD Stopped lifted memorials (latest: a trail of Tikal dated in 869 AD and the other in San Lorenzo del 928 AD) and began a decline that ended with the abandonment of the cities. A number of cases are handled: depletion of the earth, epidemics, revolutions internal, external influences.

The period post (900 to 1697) coincides with the abandonment of the shaft Rio Usumacinta-jungle of Peten and the rebirth of cities in the Yucatan after penetration in the area of the Itzaes, heavily influenced by the Toltec from the center of Mexico.
Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Mayapán and other towns in the area that suffered this influence, along with the worship of other gods as Quetzalcoalt or Tloques, provided a more materialistic and warrior spirit.
The culture declined rapidly: religious architecture lost its splendor, they built roads and ball games, the temples were made of straw and mud and was generalized war between cities. In the highlands of Guatemala, Quiché, representing the Toltec influence in this region, dominated its neighbors Cakchiquel, zutuhiles and Mames until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1525.
Only in a remote place on the shores of Lake Peten Itza, remained a small redoubt where the latest Itzaes, fleeing Yucatan, remained independent until 1697.

The king of the Mayan city called halach huinic, with powers of civil and religious. The appointed from among the aristocracy of hereditary nature, the village headmen, the supreme leader of the war and advisers or ministers.

The priestly class, like the nobility, was hereditary. At the head was the ahuacán or Mr snake. Then came the soothsayers and those responsible for carrying out human sacrifices.  

The town, formed by artisans and farmers paid tribute both to the political class and the priest. The slaves, which could be born or have been made prisoners, representing the group that had a great sacrifices.

The Mayans in the plastic arts reached a level of development rarely matched by another American civilization. The architecture, both in the classical stage, as in the Puuc or the Toltec is an extraordinary variety.

Cities such as Palenque, Tikal, Copan, Quirigua, Yaxichilán, Uxmal and Chichen Itza are enriched with splendid monuments: temples staggered, ball games, palaces, courtyards and columns, towers, aqueducts, bridges, arches triumph.

The commemorative steles decorated with beautiful reliefs adorned squares and temples. But the great discovery of Mayan architecture was the use of false vault filled spaces with which elongate and narrow.

The indigenous Mayans living in the plains today Yucatan and the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala are the heirs to an ancient culture, yet, the result of almost five century of encounters and conflicts with the European colonizer.

With the advent of this, the Indian was forced to abandon its settlement pattern dispersed to congregate around the villages.

They were also forced to abandon their gods and switching to the religion of the conquerors. Neither one thing nor the other has been achieved totally, but the occupation of space as the vision of the world today are the product of the culture of syncretism between the colonizers and their ancestral values pre Hispanics.

People like Chichicastenango, Santiago Atitlan and San Juan Chamula are clear examples of how to live Mayan Indians of the late twentieth century and the beginning of the century.

The center of social life is the town square chaired by the church and buildings of the authorities. The population lives in the village and in villages scattered around.

On the outskirts are the lands of work: small plots to plant maize, beans, potatoes, pumpkin ... The world that surrounds the village has sacred connotations as the Indian sacred natural areas.

Some nearby mountains, rivers and caves are places of worship. The Indian lives by combining work in their small plot of land and working as a workman for local landowners.

On market day visit to the square to sell, buy and relate to theirs. These days, and the advantage of the holidays to get drunk and forget for a few hours of their hard daily reality.