Universidade de Brasília – UnB Depto. de Línguas Estrangeiras – LET No. de Identificação da Disciplina: 146064

Instituto de Letras – IL Professor: Dr. João Sedycias Civilização Hispano-Americana

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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Pre-Columbian Civilizations

The New World Civilizations of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca

The outstanding cultural achievements of the pre-Columbian civilizations are often compared with those of Old World civilizations. The ancient Mayan calendar, which surpassed Europe's Julian calendar in accuracy, was, for example, a great accomplishment demonstrating the extraordinary degree of knowledge of astronomy and mathematics possessed by the Maya. Equally impressive are the sophistication of the Inca's calendar and their highway construction, the development of the Maya's complex writing system, and the magnificent temples of the Aztec. It is unfortunate that archaeological findings and written documents hardly shed sufficient light upon education among the Maya, Aztec, and Inca. But from available documents it is evident that these pre-Columbian civilizations developed formal education for training the nobility and priests. The major purposes of education were cultural conservation, vocational training, moral and character training, and control of cultural deviation.

The Maya

also called MAYAN, Meso-American Indians occupying a nearly continuous territory in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, the Maya possessed one of the greatest civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. They practiced agriculture, built great stone buildings and pyramid temples, worked gold and copper, and made use of a form of hieroglyphic writing that has now largely been deciphered.

As early as 1500 Bc the Maya had settled in villages and had developed an agriculture based on the cultivation of corn (maize), beans, and squash. They began to build ceremonial centres, and by Ad 200 these had developed into cities containing temples, pyramids, palaces, courts for playing ball, and plazas. They also developed a system of hieroglyphic writing and highly sophisticated calendrical and astronomical systems. The ancient Maya quarried immense quantities of building stone, which they cut using harder stones such as volcanic glass. They practiced mainly slash-and-burn agriculture, but they also used advanced techniques of irrigation and terracing. The Maya made paper from the inner bark of wild fig trees and wrote their hieroglyphs on books made from this paper; surviving books are called codices. They also developed an elaborate and beautiful tradition of sculpture and relief carving. Architectural works and stone inscriptions and reliefs are the chief sources of knowledge about the Maya. Early Mayan culture showed the influence of the earlier Olmec civilization.

The rise of the Maya began about 250 C.E., and what is known to archaeologists as the Classic period of Mayan culture lasted until about Ad 900. At its height Mayan civilization consisted of more than 40 cities, each with a population of from 5,000 to 50,000. Among the principal cities were Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, Bonampak, Palenque, and Río Bec. The peak Mayan population may have reached 2,000,000 people, most of whom were settled in the lowlands of what is now Guatemala. After Ad 900, however, the classical Mayan civilization declined precipitously, leaving the great cities and ceremonial centres vacant and overgrown with jungle vegetation. The causes of this decline are uncertain; some scholars have suggested that armed conflicts and the exhaustion of agricultural land were responsible. During the Post-Classic period (900-1519), cities such as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and Mayapán in the highlands of the Yucatán Peninsula continued to flourish for several centuries after the great lowland cities had become depopulated. By the time the Spaniards conquered the area in the early 16th century, most of the Maya were mere village-dwelling agriculturists who practiced the religious rites of their forebears.

The major extant Mayan cities and ceremonial centres feature a variety of pyramidal temples or palaces overlaid with limestone blocks and richly ornamented with narrative, ceremonial, and astronomical reliefs and inscriptions that have ensured the stature of Mayan art as premier among Indian cultures. But the true nature of Mayan society, the meaning of its hieroglyphics, and the chronicle of its history remained unknown to scholars for centuries after the Spaniards discovered the ancient Mayan building sites.

Systematic explorations of the Mayan sites were first undertaken in the 1830s, and a small portion of the writing system was deciphered in the early and mid-20th century. These discoveries shed some light on Mayan religion, which was based on a pantheon of nature gods, including those of the sun, the moon, rain, and corn. A priestly class was responsible for an elaborate cycle of rituals and ceremonies. Closely related to Mayan religion, indeed inextricable from it, was the impressive development of mathematics and astronomy. In mathematics, positional notation and the use of the zero represented a pinnacle of intellectual achievement. Mayan astronomy underlay a complex calendrical system involving an accurately determined solar year (18 months of 20 days, plus an unlucky 5-day period), a sacred year of 260 days (13 cycles of 20 named days), and a variety of longer cycles culminating in the Long Count, based on a zero date in 3114 BC. Mayan astronomers compiled precise tables of positions for the Moon and Venus and were able to predict solar eclipses.

Based on these discoveries, scholars in the mid-20th century mistakenly thought that Mayan society was composed of a priestly class of peaceful stargazers and calendar keepers supported by a devout peasantry. The Maya were thought to be utterly absorbed in their religious and cultural pursuits, in favourable contrast to the more warlike and sanguinary Indian empires of central Mexico. But the progressive decipherment of nearly all of the Mayan hieroglyphic writing has provided a truer if less elevating picture of Mayan society and culture. Many of the hieroglyphs depict the histories of the Mayan dynastic rulers, who waged war on rival Mayan cities and took their aristocrats captive. These captives were then tortured, mutilated, and sacrificed to the Mayan gods. Indeed, torture and human sacrifice were fundamental religious rituals of Mayan society; they were thought to guarantee fertility, demonstrate piety, and propitiate the gods, and if such practices were neglected, cosmic disorder and chaos were thought to result. The drawing of human blood was thought to nourish the gods and was thus necessary to achieve contact with them; hence the Mayan rulers, as the intermediaries between the Mayan people and the gods, had to undergo ritual bloodletting and self-torture.

The present-day Mayan peoples can be divided on linguistic and geographic grounds into the following groups: the Yucatec Maya, inhabiting the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula and extending into northern Belize and northeastern Guatemala; the Lacandones, very few in number, occupying a territory in southern Mexico between the Usumacinta River and the Guatemalan border, with small numbers in Guatemala and Belize; the Quichéan peoples of the eastern and central highlands of Guatemala (Kekchí, Picomohi, Pocomam, Uspantec, Quiché, Cakchiquel, Tzutujil, Sacapultec, and Sipacapa); the Mamean peoples of the western Guatemalan highlands (Mam, Teco, Aguacatec, and Ixil); the Kanjobalan peoples of Huehuetenango in the same region and adjacent parts of Mexico (Motozintlec, Tuzantec, Jacaltec, Acatec, Tojolabal, and Chuj); the Tzotzil and Tzeltal peoples of Chiapas in southern Mexico; the Cholan peoples, including the Chontal and Chol speakers in northern Chiapas and Tabasco and the linguistically related Chortí of the extreme eastern part of Guatemala; and the Huastec of northern Veracruz and adjoining San Luís Potosí in eastern-central Mexico. The chief division in Mayan cultural type is between highland and lowland cultures. Yucatec, Lacandón, and Chontal-Chol are lowland groups. The Huastec are a linguistically and geographically isolated group who never were Mayan culturally, and the other Mayan peoples live in highlands across Guatemala.

The modern Maya are basically agricultural, raising crops of corn, beans, and squash. They live in communities organized around central villages, which may be permanently occupied but more commonly are community centres with public buildings and houses that generally stand vacant; the people of the community live on farm homesteads except during fiestas and markets. Cultivation is with the hoe and, where the soil is tough, the digging stick. The Yucatec usually keep pigs and chickens and, rarely, oxen that are used for farming. Industries are few, and crafts are oriented toward domestic needs. Usually some cash crop or item of local manufacture is produced for sale outside the region in order to provide cash for items not otherwise obtainable.

Dress is largely traditional, particularly for women; men are more likely to wear modern ready-made clothing. Domestic spinning and weaving, once common, is becoming rare, and most clothing is made of factory-woven cloth.

Almost all Maya are nominal Roman Catholics, but their Christianity is generally overlaid upon the native pagan religion. Its cosmology is typically Mayan, and Christian figures are commonly identified with Mayan deities. Public religion is basically Christian, with masses and saint's-day celebrations; but the native pre-Columbian religion is observed in domestic rites.

Emergence of the Maya

After 500 BC an advanced Mayan civilization emerged in the highlands of Guatemala and El Salvador. A large population developed at the city of Kaminaljuyú, on the outskirts of present-day Guatemala City, and other Mayan cities arose from Chiapas southeastward to Nicaragua. Early in the 1st millennium AD, Classic Maya civilization arose in the Petén region of northern Guatemala, as well as in Belize and Honduras; this probably was the result of migration from the highlands, although Pre-Classic Mayan cultures had also developed in this lowland region contemporaneously with such highland centres as Kaminaljuyú. Large new cities arose at Uaxactún, Tikal, Quiriguá, Copán, and elsewhere, characterized by great stone temples, pyramids, and markets. Although the highlands remained heavily populated, these lowland cities became the centres for a higher civilization. Overcrowding, famine, climatic change, or major geologic catastrophes may have contributed to migration, but contact between the highland and lowland peoples continued as merchants carried cultural, economic, and social traits from one place to another. Tazumal, for example, in western El Salvador, was influenced by Copán, the Maya scientific centre in northwestern Honduras. Influence from as far away as Teotihuacán in the present-day Valley of Mexico and El Tajín in Veracruz also continued.

The lowland Mayan cities were located in an area that the Europeans thought of as uninhabitable because of the hot, humid climate and the accompanying insects and diseases. But the Maya developed the highest culture of pre-Columbian America, which reached its height between 600 and 900 C.E. Maya priests made discoveries in astronomy and mathematics comparable to similar advancements in ancient Egypt. They developed an advanced system of writing, and their hieroglyphs on stone monuments (stelae), erected throughout the Maya lands, recorded their history. Brilliant Mayan artistic and scientific achievements in ceramics, sculpture, weaving, and painting, some of which were more advanced than European accomplishments of the same era, all showed remarkable artistic sensitivity. They developed an accurate calendar and complex systems of agricultural and water management. The Maya could not match their European counterparts in technology, however. Their architectural works were also less impressive than those of ancient and medieval European civilizations. The Maya were unable to develop energy-saving machines, the wheel being employed on children's toys but not adapted to any practical application. Animals were not domesticated, and all work was done by human hand labour directed by an elite group.

Major Mayan Sites

While there are some important differences between the architecture of the Central and Northern subregions during the Late Classic, there are many features shared between them. A major Maya site generally includes several types of masonry buildings, usually constructed by facing a cement-and-rubble core with blocks or thin slabs of limestone. Temple pyramids are the most impressive, rising in a series of great platforms to the temple superstructure above the forests. The rooms, coated with white stucco, are often little more than narrow slots because of the confining nature of the corbeled vaults, but this was probably intentional, to keep esoteric ceremonies from the public.

The so-called palaces of Maya sites differ only from the temple pyramids in that they are lower and contain a great many rooms. Their purpose still eludes discovery; many scholars doubt that they really served as palaces, for the rooms are damp and uncomfortable, and there is little or no evidence of permanent occupation. The temples and palaces are generally arranged around courts, often with inscribed stelae and altars arranged in rows before them. Leading from the central plazas are great stone causeways, the function of which was probably largely ceremonial. Other features of lowland sites (but not universal) are sweathouses, ball courts, and probably marketplaces.

There are more than 50 known sites that deserve to be called major. Most are in the Central Subregion, with probably the greatest concentration in northern Petén, where Maya civilization had its deepest roots. Tikal is the largest and best-known Classic site of the Central Subregion. It is dominated by six lofty temple pyramids, one of which is some 230 feet high, the tallest structure ever raised by the Meso-American Indians. Lintels of sapodilla wood still span the doorways of the temple superstructures and are carved with reliefs of Maya lords enthroned amid scenes of great splendour. Some extraordinary Late Classic tombs have been discovered at Tikal, the most important of which produced a collection of bone tubes and strips delicately incised with scenes of gods and men. Ten large reservoirs, partly or entirely artificial, supplied the scarce drinking water for the residents of Tikal.

Other important sites of northern Petén include Uaxactún, Naranjo, Nakum, and Holmul, of which only the first has been adequately excavated. To the southeast of Petén are two Maya centres – Copán and Quiriguá – that show notable differences with the Petén sites. Copán is located above a tributary of the Motagua River in western Honduras in a region now rich in tobacco. Its architects and sculptors had a ready supply of a greenish volcanic tuff far superior to the Petén limestone. Thus, Copán architecture is embellished with gloriously baroque figures of gods, and its stelae and other monuments are carved with an extraordinary virtuosity. Copán also has one of the most perfectly preserved ball courts in Meso-America. Quiriguá is a much smaller site 30 miles north of Copán. While its architectural remains are on a minor scale, it is noted for its gigantic stelae and altars carved from sandstone.

The principal watercourse on the western side of the Central Subregion is the Usumacinta River, originating in the Guatemalan highlands and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. For much of its course the Usumacinta is lined with such great Maya ceremonial centres as Piedras Negras and Yaxchilán. Even more renowned is Bonampak, a satellite of Yaxchilán located on a tributary of the Usumacinta. The discovery in 1946 of the magnificent murals embellishing the rooms of an otherwise modest structure astounded the archaeological world. From floors to vault capstones, its stuccoed walls were covered with highly realistic polychrome scenes of a jungle battle, the arraignment of prisoners, and victory ceremonies. These shed an entirely new light on the nature of Maya society, which up until then had been considered peaceful.

In the hills just above the floodplain of the Usumacinta lies Palenque, the most beautiful of Maya sites. The architects of Palenque designed graceful temple pyramids and "palaces" with mansard-type roofs, embellished with delicate stucco reliefs of rulers, gods, and ceremonies. The principal structure is the Palace, a veritable labyrinth of galleries with interior courts; over it looms a four-story square tower that may have served as both lookout and observatory. A small stream flowing through the site was carried underneath the Palace by a long, corbel-vaulted tunnel. The temples of the Cross, Foliated Cross, and Sun were all built on the same plan, the back room of each temple having a kind of sanctuary designed like the temple of which it was a part. It can be supposed that all three temples served the same cult. The most extraordinary feature of Palenque, however, was the great funerary crypt discovered in 1952 deep within the Temple of the Inscriptions. Within a sarcophagus in the crypt were the remains of an unusually tall ruler, accompanied by the richest offering of jade ever seen in a Maya tomb. Over his face had been fitted a mask of jade mosaic, while a treasure trove of jade adorned his body.

Northward from the Central Subregion, in the drier and flatter environment of the Yucatán Peninsula, the character of lowland Maya civilization changes. Just north of Petén is the Río Bec zone, as yet little explored but noted for temple pyramids and palaces with flanking false towers fronted by unclimbable "stairways" reaching dummy "rooms" with blank entrances. Río Bec structures are carved with fantastic serpents in deep relief, a feature that becomes even more pronounced in the Chenes country to the northwest, in the modern state of Campeche. At Chenes sites, Maya architects constructed frontal portals surrounded by the jaws of sky serpents and faced entire buildings with a riot of baroquely carved grotesques and spirals.

This elaborate ornamentation of buildings is far more restrained and orderly in the style called Puuc, so named from a string of low hills extending up from western Campeche into the state of Yucatán. The Puuc sites were for the Northern Subregion what the Petén sites were for the Central, for they are very numerous and clearly were the focal point for Maya artistic and intellectual culture. Uxmal is the most important Puuc ceremonial centre and an architectural masterpiece. It has all of the characteristics of the Puuc style: facings of thin squares of limestone veneer over a cement-and-rubble core; bootshaped vault stones; decorated cornices around columns in doorways; engaged or half-columns repeated in long rows; and lavish use of stone mosaics in upper facades, emphasizing sky-serpent faces with long, hook-shaped noses, as well as frets and latticelike designs of crisscrossed elements.

The nearby centre of Kabah, connected to Uxmal by a ceremonial causeway, has an extraordinary palace completely faced with masks of the Sky Serpent. Other major Puuc sites are Sayil, with a multistoried palace, and Labná. The Puuc style reaches east across the Yucatán Peninsula, for at Chichén Itzá, a great site that was to occupy centre stage during the Toltec occupation of the Northern Subregion, there are several buildings strongly Puuc in character.

Puuc sites may be said to represent a lowland Maya "New Empire" in the sense that their apogee occurred in the 9th and 10th centuries, a time during which the great Petén, or Central Subregion, centres were in decline or had collapsed. Just how late Puuc sites remained active, with major constructions being dedicated, remains something of a question. In about 1000 a major change took place in northern Yucatán. It was marked by the construction of a number of Toltec-style temples and palaces at Chichén Itzá, a site that also has many Puuc-style edifices. It is not known if Toltec Chichén Itzá existed contemporaneously with such Puuc sites as Uxmal and Labná, and if so, for how long. Eventually, Chichén Itzá appears to have dominated northern Yucatán, lasting well into the Postclassic Period (about 1250). Questions also surround the bringers of Toltec-style architecture to Chichén Itzá. They may have been either central Mexican Toltecs or Gulf coast peoples who probably were Maya-speakers and who had adopted central-Mexican ways. In this connection, it should be noted that Puuc sites were under several influences from Gulf-coast Mexico, particularly from central Veracruz.

The Maya in the Middle Formative Period

In the Maya highlands, the key archaeological region has always been the broad, fertile Valley of Guatemala around present-day Guatemala City. The earliest occupation is known as the Arevalo phase, a village culture of the Early to Middle Formative. It was followed by Las Charcas, a Middle Formative culture known largely from the contents of bottle-shaped pits found dug into the subsoil on the western edge of the modern city. Extremely fine ceramics have been excavated from them, including red-on-white bowls with animal figures, effigy vessels, three-footed cups, and peculiar three-pronged incense burners. Solid female figurines are also present.

The earliest Middle Formative cultures of the Maya lowlands are called, collectively, the Xe horizon. They apparently developed from antecedent Early Formative cultures of the Maya lowlands that have been discussed above. The problem of the origin of the Mayan-speaking people has not been solved. It may be that they were Olmec people who had been forced out of their homeland to the west by the collapse of San Lorenzo. There were already peoples in the Maya lowlands in Early Formative times, however, and if the early Maya were Olmec, they brought little of their Olmec culture with them. Another hypothesis is that the earliest Maya descended to their lowland homelands from the Guatemalan highlands.

In the Maya lowlands the Mamom cultures developed out of those of Xe times. Mamom shares many similarities with the highland Maya at Las Charcas: pottery is almost entirely monochrome – red, orange, black, and white – and figurines are female with the usual punched and appliquéd embellishments. Toward the end of the Middle Formative, or after about 600 BC, Mamom peoples began building small ceremonial centres and modest-sized pyramidal platforms.

The Maya in the Late Formative Period

The Earliest Maya Civilization of the Lowlands

By the Late Formative, the lowland Maya had begun to shape a civilization that was to become the greatest in the New World. The Petén-Yucatán Peninsula lacks many raw materials and has a relatively low agricultural potential. But what it does have in limitless quantities is readily quarried limestone for building purposes and flint for stonework. Cement and plaster could easily be produced by burning limestone or shells.

The heart of the Maya civilization was always northern Petén, in Guatemala, where the oldest dated Maya stelae are found, although this presents something of a problem in cultural-historical interpretation, since the earliest prototypes for these stelae – as mentioned above – have been found in Pacific-littoral and highland Guatemala. The Late Formative culture of Petén is called Chicanel, evidence of which has been found at many Maya centres. Chicanel pottery includes dishes with wide-everted and grooved rims, bowls with composite silhouette, and vessels resembling ice buckets. Figurines are curiously absent.

Architecture was already quite advanced and had taken a form peculiar to the Maya. Temple platforms were built by facing a cemented-rubble core with thick layers of plaster. At the site of Uaxactún, Structure E-VII-sub affords a good idea of a Chicanel temple-platform. It is a four-sided, stucco-covered, stepped pyramid with pairs of stylized god masks flanking stairways on each side. On its summit was a thatched-roof temple. At Tikal, the giant among Maya ceremonial centres, the so-called Acropolis was begun in Chicanel times, and there was a great use of white-stuccoed platforms and stairways, with flanking polychromed masks as at Uaxactún. Most importantly, there is evidence from Tikal that the Maya architects were already building masonry superstructures with the corbel vault principle; i.e., with archlike structures the sides of which extend progressively inward until they meet at the top. The large sizes of Chicanel populations and the degree of political centralization that existed by this time are further attested to by the discovery in the 20th century of the huge site of El Mirador, in the extreme northern part of Petén. The mass of El Mirador construction dwarfs even that of Tikal, although El Mirador was only substantially occupied through the Chicanel phase.

Chicanel-like civilization is also known in Yucatán, where some temple pyramids of enormous size are datable to the Late Formative. An outstanding site is the cave of Loltún in Yucatán, where a relief figure of a standing leader in pure Izapan style is accompanied by a number of unreadable hieroglyphs as well as a notation in the 260-day count. This inscription raises the question of writing and the calendar among the lowland Maya in the Late Formative. On the whole, the evidence is negative and suggests that several important intellectual innovations considered to be typically Mayan were developed beyond the Maya area proper and appeared there only at the close of the Formative. Izapan civilization appears to have played the crucial role in this evolutionary process.

Definition of the Mayan Classic Period (100-600 C.E.)

In the study of the Classic stage, there has been a strong bias in favour of the Maya; this is not surprising in view of the fact that the Maya have been studied far longer than any other people in Meso-America. But the concept of a "Classic" period is a case of the Maya tail wagging the Meso-American dog, since the usual span given to that stage – 250-900 C.E. – is the period during which the Maya were erecting dated stone monuments. This brackets the Maya apogee, but for most areas of non-Maya Meso-America only the first half of the period may be accurately called a "golden age." While the famous and yet mysterious Maya collapse took place at about 900 C.E., in many other regions this downfall occurred almost three centuries earlier.

Qualitatively, there is little to differentiate the Classic from the Late Formative that preceded it. Various tendencies that were crystallizing in the last centuries before the Christian era reached fulfillment in the Classic. Two cultures stand out beyond all others. One is that of Teotihuacán, which during the Early Classic played a role in Meso-America similar to that which Olmec had performed in the Early Formative. The second is the lowland Maya civilization, which during its six centuries of almost unbroken evolution in the humid forests reached cultural heights never achieved before or since by New World natives. The contrast between the two – one urban and expansionist, the other less urban and non-expansionist – exemplifies well the cultural results of the ecological possibilities offered by highland and lowland Meso-America.

Classic Civilization in the Maya Lowlands: Tzakol Phase

Archaeologists have divided the entire area occupied by speakers of Mayan languages into three subregions: (1) the Southern Subregion, essentially the highlands and Pacific Coast of Guatemala, (2) the Central Subregion, which includes the department of Petén in northern Guatemala and the immediately adjacent lowlands to the east and west, and (3) the Northern Subregion, consisting of the Yucatán Peninsula north of Petén proper. Between 250 and 900 the most brilliant civilization ever seen in the New World flourished in the forested lowlands of the Central and Northern subregions.

Lowland Maya civilization falls into two chronological phases or cultures: Tzakol culture, which is Early Classic and began shortly before 250 C.E., and the Late Classic Tepeu culture, which saw the full florescence of Maya achievements. Tepeu culture began about 600 and ended with the final downfall and abandonment of the Central Subregion about 900. (These dates, based on the correlation of the Long Count system of the Maya calendar with the Gregorian calendar, are the most generally accepted; but there is a slight chance that a rival correlation espoused by the American archaeologist Herbert J. Spinden may be correct, which would make these dates 260 years earlier.)

One of the earliest objects inscribed with the fully developed Maya calendar is the Leiden Plate, a jade plaque, now housed in the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, Neth., depicting a richly arrayed Maya lord trampling a captive underfoot. On its reverse side is a Long Count date corresponding to 320. Although it was found in a very late site on the Caribbean coast, stylistic evidence suggests that the Leiden Plate was made at Tikal, in the heart of northern Petén. In the mid-20th century the University of Pennsylvania's ambitious field program at the Tikal site produced Stela 29, erected 28 years before, in 292. Both objects and, in fact, almost all early Tzakol monuments draw heavily upon a heritage from the older Izapan civilization of the Late Formative, with its highly baroque, narrative stylistic content.

Because of the Maya penchant for covering older structures with later ones, Tzakol remains in the Central Subregion have to be laboriously dug out from their towering Late Classic overburdens. Nevertheless, it is clear that at sites like Tikal, Uaxactún, and Holmul, Maya civilization had reached something close to its final form. Enormous ceremonial centres were crowded with masonry temples and "palaces" facing onto spacious plazas covered with white stucco. The use of the corbel vault for spanning rooms – a trait unique to the lowland Maya – was by this time universal. Stelae and altars (a legacy from Izapa) are carved with dates and embellished with the figures of men and perhaps gods. Polychrome pottery, the finest examples of which were sealed in the tombs of honoured personages, emphasizes stylized designs of cranes, flying parrots, gods, and men. These often occur on bowls with a kind of apron or basal flange encircling the lower vessel. Along with these purely Maya ceramics are vessels that show the imprint of distant Teotihuacán: the cylindrical vase supported by three slab legs, the "cream pitcher," and the florero ("flower vase").

Wall painting had already reached a high degree of perfection in the Central Subregion, as attested by an extremely fine mural at Uaxactún depicting a palace scene in which two important lords confer with each other. This mural art is quite different from that of Teotihuacán, being very naturalistic instead of formal and including a definite interest in portraiture. Nonetheless, excavations in Petén sites have shown that Teotihuacán influence was quite pervasive. From Tikal, for example, comes Stela 31, depicting a richly garbed Maya lord, festooned with jade ornaments, standing between two warriors from Teotihuacán. These foreigners carry shields that bear the visage of the Teotihuacán rain god, Tlaloc. It is certain that there was a three-way trading relationship between Tikal, Kaminaljuyú, and Teotihuacán in Early Classic times.

Thus, the Teotihuacán involvement with Tikal and the Central Subregion may have taken, as at Kaminaljuyú, the form of pochteca trading colonies that exerted some control over the lowland Maya. The lord on Stela 31 may have been a puppet ruler manipulated by tough merchant-warriors. Teotihuacán as a city and capital of an empire began to weaken toward the close of the 6th century. It could therefore be expected that the disruptions that effectively ended the life of the great Mexican capital would be reflected in the Maya area. This is exactly the case. In the Guatemalan highlands, Kaminaljuyú declined rapidly after 600 C.E., and the entire Southern Subregion was to play little part in Maya culture until the Late Postclassic. The lowland Maya suffered some temporary reverses; few stelae were erected between 534 and 692, and there is evidence that existing monuments were mutilated.

Mayan Society and Political Life

There is a vast gap between the lavishly stocked tombs of the Maya elite who ran the ceremonial centres and the simple graves of the peasantry. Careful measurements of the skeletons found in tombs and graves have also revealed that persons of the Maya ruling class were much taller than the tillers of the soil who provided them tribute. It is likely that this gulf was unspannable, for throughout Meso-America the rulers and nobility were believed to have been created separately from commoners.

The most revealing testimony to this royal cult is the temple pyramid itself, for almost every one explored has a great tomb hidden in its base. On death, each ruler might have been the object of ancestor worship by members of his lineage, the departed leader having become one with the god from whom he claimed descent. Ancestor worship, in fact, seems to be at the heart of ancient and modern society and religion among the Maya.

The ordinary folk may have participated in the ceremonies of even the greatest Maya centres. The modern highland Maya have a complex ceremonial life in which a man advances through a series of cargos, or "burdens," each one of which brings him greater prestige, costs him a great deal of money, and requires that he reside in the otherwise nearly empty centre for a year at a time carrying out his religious duties. The same may have prevailed in Classic times, though all activities were then under the direction of a hereditary and divine elite class, long since destroyed by the Spaniards.

Warfare apparently was a continuing preoccupation of the Maya lords. Translations of hieroglyphic inscriptions show that in some cases such warfare led to territorial aggrandizement and the domination of one centre or polity by another; however, the principal purpose of war appears to have been to gain captives for slavery and sacrifice.

It has often been said that the Maya realm was a theocracy, with all power in the hands of the priests. That this is a misconception is apparent from the monuments themselves, which show kings, queens, heirs, and war prisoners, but no figures surely identifiable as priests. In 16th-century Yucatán, the priesthood was hereditary, and it is reported that younger sons of lords often took on that vocation. Quite probably such a class was also to be found among the LateClassic Maya, but neither for the Maya nor for any other Classic civilization of Meso-America can the term theocracy be justified.

Late Classic Non-Maya Meso-America (600-900 C.E.)

The cultural situation in Late Classic Meso-America is the reverse of that prevailing in the Early Classic: Central Mexico now played only a minor role, while the lowland Maya reached their intellectual and artistic heights. In contrast to the old Teotihuacanos, however, the Maya were not expansionistic. It is true that Maya cultural influence has been detected along the Gulf coast and in the states of Morelos and Tlaxcala – as in the painted murals of Cacaxtla in the latter state – but it is unlikely that this was the result of a military takeover. The outcome of this state of affairs, with no one people powerful enough or sufficiently interested in dominating others, was a political and cultural fragmentation of Meso-America after 600. It was not until the great Toltec invasions of the Early Postclassic that anything approaching an empire was to be seen again.

The decline in fortunes of the Valley of Mexico, and especially of Teotihuacán, cannot now be explained. Climatic deterioration, resulting in drier conditions and thus a diminished subsistence potential, may have been a factor.

Nevertheless, Teotihuacán was never completely abandoned, even though its great palaces had been burned to the ground and its major temples abandoned. People continued to live in some sections, but their houses were mere hovels compared to the dwellings of the Early Classic. In general, the Valley of Mexico was a cultural and political vacuum in Late Classic times.

One of the very few centres of the Late Classic in central Mexico that amounted to much was Xochicalco, in Morelos. Strategically located on top of a hill that was completely reworked with artificial terraces and ramparts, Xochicalco was obviously highly defensible, an indication of the unsettled times then prevailing in central Mexico. The site shows a bewildering variety of cultural influences, particularly Maya. The principal structure of Xochicalco is a temple substructure of masonry that is completely carved in relief with undulating Feathered Serpents, indicating that it was dedicated to the cult of Quetzalcóatl. All indications are that Xochicalco was a cosmopolitan and very powerful centre, perhaps the most influential west of Veracruz and northwest of the Maya area. It was literate and civilized at a time when most other parts of central Mexico were in cultural eclipse.

The Late Classic occupation of Oaxaca, especially of the Valley of Oaxaca, is designated as Monte Albán III-B (450-700). The Mixtec invasions of the valley probably began in earnest around 900. The Mixtec occupied the hilly, northern part of Oaxaca; their records, which extend to the 7th century, show them to have been organized into a series of petty states headed by aggressive, warlike kings. By the Postclassic, they had become the dominant force throughout Oaxaca and in part of Puebla.

The tendencies in central Veracruz art and architecture that began in the Late Formative culminated in the Late Classic at the great centre of El Tajín, placed among jungle-covered hills in a region occupied by the Totonac Indians, whose capital this may well have been. Its most imposing structure is the Pyramid of the Niches, named for the approximately 365 recesses on its four sides. In this and other buildings at El Tajín, the dominant architectural motif is the step-and-fret. There are a number of other temple pyramids at the site, as well as palacelike buildings with flat, concrete roofs, a tour de force of Meso-American engineering knowledge. El Tajín's three major ball courts are remarkably important for the reliefs carved on their vertical playing surfaces, for these give valuable information on the religious connotations of the sacred game. Like Xochicalco, El Tajín was in some way linked to the destiny of the lowland Maya, and the collapse of Maya civilization around 900 may have been reflected in the demise of the Veracruz centre.

Further down the Gulf coast plain, the Remojadas tradition of hollow pottery figurines continued to be active in the Late Classic, with a particularly large production of the mysterious smiling figures of dancing boys and girls, which were intended as funerary offerings. But in addition, there was a great deal of pottery and figurines that were fashioned under very strong Maya influence. In fact, much of southern Veracruz at this time was a cultural extension of the lowland Maya. There is no indication, however, that these peoples had any acquaintance with Maya literacy or with Maya building techniques.

Mayan Art of the Late Classic Period

Maya art, at the height of its development, was fundamentally unlike any other in Meso-America, for it was highly narrative, baroque, and often extremely cluttered, unlike the more austere styles found elsewhere. It is essentially a painterly rather than sculptural tradition, and it is quite likely that even stone reliefs were first designed by painters. Much of this art has disappeared for all time because of the ravages of the wet, tropical environment on such perishable materials as wood, painted gourds, feathers, bark, and other substances. There must have been thousands of bark-paper codices, not one of which has survived from Classic times.

Following the downfall of Teotihuacán, Maya artists were free to go their own way. Magnificently carved stelae and accompanying altars are found at most major sites, the greatest achievement in this line being found at Copán, where something approaching three-dimensional carving was the rule. Palenque and Yaxchilán specialized in graceful bas-reliefs placed as tablets or lintels in temple pyramids and palaces. In the Northern Subregion, however, the sculptor's art was definitely inferior in scope and quality and shows strong influence from alien, non-Maya cultures.

A few wooden objects have somehow survived. Particularly noteworthy are the massive wooden lintels of Tikal, with scenes of lords and their guardian deities, accompanied by lengthy hieroglyphic texts. In ancient times, wood carvings must have been vastly more common than sculptures. The wet climate has also destroyed innumerable examples of mural art.

Maya pottery can be divided into two groups: (1) the pots and pans of everyday life, usually undecorated but sometimes with geometric designs, and (2) grave offerings. Vessels meant to accompany the honoured dead were usually painted or carved with naturalistic and often macabre scenes. To achieve polychrome effects of great brilliance, the Maya potters painted in semitranslucent slips over a light background, then fired the vessels at a very low temperature. Relief carving was carried out when the vessels were leather-hard, just before firing.

The most precious substance of all to the Maya was jade, to which their craftsmen devoted great artistry. Jade was mainly fashioned into thin plaques, carved in relief, or into beads. In the absence of metal tools, jade was worked by applying abrasives and water with cane or perhaps other pieces of jade.

The Mayan Calendar and Writing System

It is their intellectual life that established the cultural superiority of the Maya over all other American Indians. Much of this was based upon a calendrical system that was partly shared with other Meso-American groups but that they perfected into a tool capable of recording important historical and astronomical information. Most Maya inscriptions that have been interpreted are calendrical inscriptions. Since the late 1950s, it has been learned that the content of Classic Maya inscriptions was far more secular than had been supposed. For many years specialists believed that the inscriptions recorded little more than the passage of time and that, in fact, the Maya were time worshipers; but it has been shown that certain inscriptions recorded the birth, accession, marriage, and military victories of ruling dynasties. One very significant advance in following dynastic histories and plotting political territoriality was the discovery in 1958 of "emblem glyphs," symbols standing for royal lineages and their domains.

Yet it would be misleading to contend that the hurly-burly of Maya court affairs and conquests was all that mattered, for some texts must have been sacred and god-oriented. At Palenque, in the similar temples of the Cross, Foliated Cross, and Sun, the dates inscribed on the tablets in the sanctuaries fall into three groups. The very latest seem to refer to events in the lives of reigning monarchs. An earlier group must deal with distant but real ancestors of those kings, while the very earliest fall in the 4th millennium BC and apparently describe the birth of important gods to whom the respective temples were dedicated and who may have been regarded as the progenitors of Palenque's royal house.

The meaning of many non-calendrical signs and even of complete clauses is not known, but there is a difference between this and assigning an actual Maya word to an ancient glyph or a sentence to a glyphic clause. While it is certain that the language of the Classic inscriptions was Mayan, it is also certain that it was more archaic than any of the Mayan languages spoken at the time of the conquest, six centuries after the Classic downfall. The three extant Maya codices, none dating earlier than 1100, contain a strong phonetic component, in fact a kind of syllabary, which can be successfully read as Yucatec-Maya, but the Classic peoples of the Central Subregion more likely spoke an ancestor of the Cholan branch of Maya. Furthermore, Maya hieroglyphic writing covers the entire span from about 250 C.E. to the conquest, during which time both the language or languages and the writing system itself must have undergone extensive evolution.

In writing systems in general, there is usually a development from pictographic signs, in which a picture stands for a word or concept, through logographic systems, in which words are still the basic unit but phoneticism is employed to reduce ambiguities (as in Chinese), to phonetic syllabaries, and finally to alphabets. Probably most Classic Maya hieroglyphs are logograms with a mainly ideographic orientation, and it seems that there was a considerable degree of flexibility in how the words and sentences could be written. By the Postclassic, this had been codified into a much more rigid system closely resembling that of Japanese, in which a well-defined syllabary can supplement or even replace logograms. There are approximately 300 to 500 logograms in Classic Maya (the number varies according to how one separates affixes from so-called main signs), but it will probably be many years before the majority of these are satisfactorily deciphered. Great progress, however, may be expected in unraveling their meaning in specific contexts.

Maya mathematics included two outstanding developments: positional numeration and a zero. These may rightly be deemed among the most brilliant achievements of the human mind. The same may also be said of ancient Maya astronomy. The duration of the solar year had been calculated with amazing accuracy, as well as the synodical revolution of Venus. The Dresden Codex contains very precise Venusian and lunar tables and a method of predicting solar eclipses.

Maya chronology consisted of three main elements: a 260-day sacred year (tzolkin) formed by the combination of 13 numbers (1 to 13) and 20 day names; a solar year (haab), divided into 18 months of 20 days numbered from 0 to 19, followed by a five-day unlucky period (Uayeb); and a series of cycles – uinal (20 kins, or days), tun (360 days), katun (7,200 days), baktun (144,000 days), with the highest cycle being the alautun of 23,040,000,000 days. All Middle American civilizations used the two first counts, which permitted officials accurately to determine a date within a period defined as the least common multiple of 260 and 365: 18,980 days, or 52 years.

The Classic Maya Long Count inscriptions enumerate the cycles that have elapsed since a zero date in 3114 BC. Thus, "9.6.0.0.0," a katun-ending date, means that nine baktuns and six katuns have elapsed from the zero date to the day 2 Ahau 13 Tzec (May 9, 751 C.E.). To those Initial Series were added the Supplementary Series (information about the lunar month) and the Secondary Series, a calendar-correction formula that brought the conventional date in harmony with the true position of the day in the solar year.

Both Classic and recent Maya held the tzolkin as the most sacred means of divination, enabling the priests to detect the favourable or evil influences attached to every day according to the esoteric significance of the numbers and the day-signs.

Mayan and Mexican Chronology

The lowland Maya had a 365-day year formed of 18 "months." Each month consisted of 20 days, plus five "nameless" days, which the Maya considered an extremely dangerous and unlucky period and during which activities were kept to a minimum. Leap days were not intercalated.

Reckoning was not by those years but by tuns (360 days) and their multiples of 20: katuns (20 tuns), baktuns (400 tuns), pictuns (8,000 tuns), calabtuns (160,000 tuns), and kinchiltuns (3,200,000). In practice, the last three were seldom used. The tun comprised 18 uinals, each of 20 kins (days), but these did not coincide with the equivalent divisions of the 365-day year. The Maya normally carved or wrote these in descending order; students transcribe them in Arabic numerals – e.g., 9.10.6.5.9 represents nine baktuns, ten katuns, six tuns, five uinals, nine kins.

With this system, current dates were related to the start of the Maya era, which, because of the Maya system of re-entering cycles, marked both the end of 13 baktuns (written 13.0.0.0.0) and the start of another cycle of baktuns and perhaps commemorated a re-creation of the world, the baktun about to enter being numbered 1, not 14. Because of the construction of the calendar, this start of the era happened to be day 4 Ahau falling on the eighth day of the month Cumku.

Such reckonings are called Initial Series, or Long Counts, the former because they usually stand at the start of an inscription. For example, the combination day 8 Muluc, falling on second of Zip (third month), recurs every 52 years, but the Initial Series (here 9.10.6.5.9 8 Muluc 2 Zip) pinpoints its position. The next occurrence, 52 years later, would be 9.12.19.0.9 8 Muluc 2 Zip. Each unit had its own glyph (or symbolic character), with appropriate number (normally a dot for 1 and bar for 5) attached.

A shorter dating system was by "Period Endings" – that is, by recording the ending of the current baktun, katun, or tun. Thus, day 13 Ahau and month position 13 Muan with 13 tuns added is an abbreviation of 9.17.13.0.0 13 Ahau 13 Muan, a combination that will not repeat for over 900 years (949 tuns). A still shorter but less precise method was to give the day and its number ending the current katun.

Several Maya dates were commonly linked to Initial Series or Period Endings by series of additions or subtractions – a glyph signifying count indicated forward or backward by secondary attachments.

Dates were normally reckoned from the 4 Ahau 8 Cumku base, nearly 4,000 years before most inscriptions, but some calculations ranged far into the past and a few into the distant future. One reaches backward nearly 1,250,000 years, but the deepest probings of eternity are embodied in texts that seemingly record positions respectively 90,000,000 and 400,000,000 years ago. Although the interpretation of these last computations is disputable, the Maya certainly thought in millions of years a millennium before Europe discarded the view that the world was only some 6,000 years old.

The Maya conceived of time as a journey through eternity in which each deified number – all time periods and their numbers were gods – carried his period on his back supported by a tump line. Each evening the procession rested. Next morning, carriers whose period was completed were replaced. For instance, if the uinal and kin numbers were 15 and 19 respectively, the new carriers would be the deified 16 and 0 (the latter because kin numbers go no higher than 19). Other period numbers would journey on until it came time to change the tun carrier. Much ritual and imagery grew out of this concept of the march of time; sculpture illustrates bearers lowering their burdens at journey's end.

Correlation of the Maya calendar with ours depends on several factors. First, the 260-day almanac still functions in some Maya villages in the Guatemalan highlands. As there is excellent evidence it has neither gained nor lost a day since the Spanish conquest, despite strong Spanish efforts to suppress it, one may reasonably assume no break under the more favourable pre-Columbian conditions. Lunar and other data support such a view. Second, month positions in Yucatán and southern Petén at the Spanish conquest also are reliably correlated to the day with the present Western calendar. Third, the combined day and month parts of the Maya calendar are in day-for-day agreement with the present Western calendar within a 52-year span (after that given day and month positions repeat). The katun (specifically, 13 Ahau) current at the Spanish conquest is, however, known, thereby fixing any day and month position in a longer range of 260 years because a named katun repeats only after 260 tuns. Those conditions produce a correlation of the two calendars that is either correct to the day or is 260 or even 520 years wrong, since historical evidence does not specify which particular katun 13 Ahau coincided with the Spaniards' arrival. Fourth, such factors as astronomy (Maya records of heliacal risings of Venus and of many dates with moon age stated), pottery sequences, architectural changes (less reliable), and data from neighbouring areas govern choice of the applicable katun 13 Ahau. Weight of evidence led to wide acceptance of the Goodman-Martínez-Thompson correlation that equates 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, start of the Maya era, with August 10, 3114 BC, and the Classic period with 300 C.E. to 900. Fifth, when the carbon-14 dating technique was first applied to the problem, various difficulties attendant on the use of new techniques and failure to take into account that a tree dies year by year from its centre outward (so that a sample from the core might give a date well over a century before felling) distorted readings, producing results favourable to the correlation making Maya dates 260 years earlier. Now, with better technique and averaging of many "runs" of samples of latest growth from beams at Tikal with secure Maya dates, carbon-14 readings overwhelmingly support the Goodman-Martínez-Thompson correlation.

The only other Middle American calendar with a known era is that of the Cakchiquel of highland Guatemala. The system was vigesimal: kih, day; uinak, 20 days; a, 400 days; and may, 8,000 days. The 400-day "year" ran concurrently with the 260-day almanac, which, in turn, synchronized with all other Maya almanacs. Like the 360-day tun of the lowlands, the 400-day a was the counting unit, for reckoning was always in multiples of the a, never by days, as in our Julian calendar. May signifies twenty, and is so named because it comprised 20a. At the arrival of the Spaniards, reckoning was from a revolt in 1493 C.E. Earlier eras may be postulated, but inscribed calendrical texts are lacking in Cakchiquel territory.

Classic Mayan Religion

It has been denied that there was any such thing as a pantheon of deities in Classic times, the idea being that the worship of images was introduced by the Toltec or Itzá invaders, or both, in the Postclassic. Several gods who played significant roles in the Postclassic codices, however, can be identified on earlier Maya monuments. The most important of these is Itzamná, the supreme Maya deity, who functioned as the original creator god, as well as lord of the fire and therefore of the hearth. In his serpent form he appears on the ceremonial bar held in the arms of Maya rulers on Classic stelae. Another ophidian deity recognizable in Classic reliefs is the Feathered Serpent, known to the Maya as Kukulcán (and to the Toltecs and Aztecs as Quetzalcóatl). Probably the most ubiquitous of all is the being known as Bolon Tzacab (first called God K by archaeologists), a deity with a baroquely branching nose who is thought to have functioned as a god of royal descent; he is often held as a kind of sceptre in rulers' hands.

The Classic Maya lavished great attention on their royal dead, who almost surely were thought of as descended from the gods and partaking of their divine essence. Many reliefs and all of the pictorial pottery found in tombs deal with the underworld and the dangerous voyage of the soul through that land. Classic Maya funerary ceramics show that this dark land was ruled by a number of gods, including several sinister old men often embellished with jaguar emblems, the jaguar being associated with the night and the nether regions.

The Classic, as well as the Postclassic, Maya practiced human sacrifice, although not on the scale of the Aztecs. The victims were probably captives, including defeated rulers and nobles. Self-sacrifice or self-mutilation was also common; blood drawn by jabbing spines through the ear or penis, or by drawing a thorn-studded cord through the tongue, was spattered on paper or otherwise collected as an offering to the gods.

The four main categories of documents that provide knowledge of the Maya civilization and its religion are: archaeological remains; native books in hieroglyphic writing; books in native languages written in Latin script by learned Indians; and early accounts written in Spanish by conquerors or priests.

From surviving temples, tombs, sculpture, wall paintings, pottery, and carved jades, shells, and bone, a significant amount of valuable information can be gained; e.g., representations of godheads and ritual scenes. Perhaps the most important archaeological source, however, is the hieroglyphic texts carved on stone monuments or stone or bone artifacts and painted on pottery. These, insofar as they can be translated, provide descriptions of ceremonies and beliefs.

Three native hieroglyphic books of pre-Columbian date survived the Spanish conquest: the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices, named for the cities in which they are now housed. Written on bark paper, they deal with astronomical calculations, divination, and ritual. They appear to be Postclassic copies of earlier Classic originals.

After the Spanish conquest, books were written by learned Indians who transcribed or summarized hieroglyphic records. Such is the case of the Books of Chilam Balam, in Yucatec Maya, and of the Popol Vuh, in Quiché, a highland Maya language. The former consist of historical chronicles mixed with myth, divination, and prophecy, and the latter (which shows definite central Mexican influences) embodies the mythology and cosmology of the Postclassic Guatemalan Maya. The Ritual of the Bacabs covers religious symbolism, medical incantations, and similar matters.

The most important of the early accounts written by the Spanish themselves is Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán ("On the Things of Yucatán"), which dates to about 1566. It describes Postclassic rather than Classic religion, but given the deeply conservative nature of Maya religion, it is highly probable that much of this description is pertinent for the earlier period. Landa's account is also an excellent description of other aspects of Maya life in 16th-century Yucatán.

To these archaeological, ethnohistorical, and historical sources may be added the observations of modern ethnologists about the present-day Maya. Thus, in the Guatemalan highlands, the 260-day calendar still survives, as do ancient prayers to and information about Maya gods.

It is likely that a simpler religion of nature worship prevailed in Early Formative times. This probably began to undergo modification during the Middle Formative, as astronomical knowledge became more precise. Certainly by the Late Formative (300 BC, if not earlier), with the appearance of major centres and pyramid and temple constructions, an elaborate worldview had evolved. Deified heavenly bodies and time periods were added to the earlier-conceived corn and rain gods. Concepts derived from priestly speculation were imposed upon the simpler religious beginnings. Religion became increasingly esoteric, with a complex mythology interpreted by a closely organized priesthood.

Education in Mayan Society

Being a highly religious culture, the Maya regarded the priesthood as one of the most influential factors in the development of their society. The priest enjoyed high prestige by virtue of his extensive knowledge, literate skills, and religious and moral leadership, and high priests served as major advisers of the rulers and the nobility. To obtain a priesthood, which was usually inherited from his father or another close relative, the trainee had to receive rigorous education in the school, where priests taught history, writing, methods of divining, medicine, and the calendar system.

Character training was one of the salient features of Mayan education. The inculcation of self-restraint, cooperative work, and moderation was highly emphasized in various stages of socialization as well as on various occasions of religious festivals. In order to develop self-discipline, the future priest endured a long period of continence and abstinence, and, to develop a sense of loyalty to community, he engaged in group labour.

Decline of the Maya

Maya civilization began to decay after 900 C.E., perhaps owing to stresses in the social structure, overpopulation, and deforestation. A number of important cities emerged in the late Classic period, mostly on the periphery of the classic Mayan region, in present-day Chiapas or Yucatán. The peoples of these cities, much influenced by invaders from central Mexico, built striking stone architectural monuments, but their scientific and artistic achievements were less remarkable than the earlier advances of the Classic period. Their economies remained underdeveloped, however. In the meantime, internal civil war and intervention from central Mexico sapped Maya strength and vitality. By the time of the Spanish conquest, Maya civilization was thoroughly in decline, yet they resisted subjugation longer than either the Aztec of Mexico or the Inca of Peru. Returning to northern Guatemala, where they established the city of Tayasal as a place of refuge, some Maya maintained their autonomy until 1697. Not far away, the Lacandón Maya defied pacification throughout the Hispanic period, resisting from remote jungle and mountain refuges along the Usumacinta River. Disease and the social disruption brought with the Spanish conquest annihilated a large part of the native population during the 16th century. Although estimates of the pre-Columbian population of Central America vary widely, it is generally agreed that the region's population did not again reach its pre-Columbian level until the 20th century.

The Collapse of Classic Mayan Civilization

In the last century of the Classic period, Maya civilization went into a decline from which it never recovered. Beginning about 790 in the western edge of the Central Subregion, such ceremonial activity as the erection of stelae virtually came to a standstill. During the next 40 years this cultural paralysis spread gradually eastward, by which time the great Classic civilization of the Maya had all but atrophied. A date in the Maya calendar corresponding to 889 is inscribed on the last dated monuments in the Central Subregion; soon after the close of the 9th century it is clear that almost all of this region was abandoned.

For this event, which must have been one of the greatest human tragedies of all time, there are few convincing explanations. It now seems that the Classic Maya civilization in the region of its greatest development went out "not with a bang but a whimper." Massive foreign invasions can be discounted as a factor, but non-Maya elements did appear in the west at the same time as ceremonial activity terminated. These became the inheritors of whatever was left of the old civilization of the Central Subregion after 900 C.E., having established trading colonies and even a few minor ceremonial centres on its peripheries.

Whatever incursions did take place from the west were piecemeal and probably the result of the general decline, rather than its cause. Similarly, there is little reason to believe that there were peasant revolts on a general scale. The only real fact is that most of the inhabitants of the Central Subregion went elsewhere. Probably some were absorbed by such still flourishing ceremonial centres of the Northern Subregion as Uxmal and Kabah, while others might have migrated up into the congenial highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala. Although a population explosion and severe ecological abuse of the land must have played their role in the tragedy, the full story of the decline and fall of this brilliant aboriginal civilization remains to be told.

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