More Important Topics of Maya Civilization I: Arts and Religion Cylinder

There are also cave sites that are important to the Maya. These cave sites include Jolja Cave, the cave site at Naj Tunich, the Candelaria Caves, and the Cave of the Witch. There are also Origin Cave myths among the Maya. Some cave sites are still used by the modern Maya in the Chiapas highlands.

It has been suggested that, in conjunction to the Maya Long Count Calendar, every fifty-two years, or cycle, temples and pyramids were remodeled and rebuilt. It appears now that the rebuilding process was often instigated by a new ruler or for political matters, as opposed to matching the calendar cycle.

Through observation of the numerous consistent elements and stylistic distinctions, remnants of Maya architecture have become an important key to understanding the evolution of their ancient civilization.

Urban design

As Maya cities spread throughout the varied geography of Mesoamerica, the extent of site planning appears to have been minimal; their cities having been built somewhat haphazardly as dictated by the topography of each independent location, Maya architecture tends to integrate a great degree of natural features.

For instance, some cities existing on the flat limestone plains of the northern Yucatan grew into great sprawling municipalities, while others built in the hills of Usumacinta utilized the natural loft of the topography to raise their towers and temples to impressive heights. However, some semblance of order, as required by any large city, still prevailed.

At the onset of large-scale construction, a predetermined axis was typically established in congruence with the cardinal directions. Depending upon the location and availability of natural resources such as fresh-water wells, or cenotes, the city grew by connecting great plazas with the numerous platforms that created the sub-structure for nearly all Maya buildings, by means of sacbeob causeways.

As more structures were added and existing structures re-built or remodeled, the great Maya cities seemed to take on an almost random identity that contrasts sharply with other great Mesoamerican cities such as Teotihuacan and its rigid grid-like construction.

At the heart of the Maya city existed the large plazas surrounded by their most valued governmental and religious buildings such as the royal acropolis, great pyramid temples and occasionally ball-courts.

Though city layouts evolved as nature dictated, careful attention was placed on the directional orientation of temples and observatories so that they were

constructed in accordance with Maya interpretation of the orbits of the stars. Immediately outside of this ritual center were the structures of lesser nobles, smaller temples, and individual shrines: the less sacred and less important structures had a greater degree of privacy.

Outside of the constantly evolving urban core were the less permanent and more modest homes of the common people.

Classic Era Maya urban design could easily be described as the division of space by great monuments and causeways. In this case, the open public plazas were the gathering places for the people and the focus of the urban design, while interior space was entirely secondary.

Only in the Late Post-Classic era did the great Maya cities develop into more fortress-like defensive structures that lacked, for the most part, the large and numerous plazas of the Classic.

Building materials

A surprising aspect of the great Maya structures is their lack of many advanced technologies that would seem to be necessary for such constructions.

Lacking metal tools, pulleys and maybe even the wheel, Maya architecture required one thing in abundance: manpower. Yet, beyond this enormous requirement, the remaining materials seem to have been readily available.

All stone for Maya structures appears to have been taken from local quarries. They most often utilized limestone, which remained pliable enough to be worked with stone tools while being quarried, and only hardened once removed from its bed.

In addition to the structural use of limestone, much of their mortar consisted of crushed, burnt, and mixed limestone that mimicked the properties of cement and was used just as widely for stucco finishing as it was for mortar.

However, later improvements in quarrying techniques reduced the necessity for this limestone-stucco as their stones began to fit quite perfectly, yet it remained a crucial element in some post and lintel roofs.

In the case of the common homes, wooden poles, adobe, and thatch were the primary materials; however, instances of what appear to be common houses of limestone have been discovered as well.

Ceremonial platforms

These were commonly limestone platforms of typically less than four meters in height where public ceremonies and religious rites were performed. Constructed in the fashion of a typical foundation platform, these were often accented by carved figures, altars and perhaps tzompantli, a stake used to display the heads of victims or defeated Mesoamerican ballgame opponents.

Palaces

Large and often highly decorated, the palaces usually sat close to the center of a city and housed the population's elite. Any exceedingly large royal palace, or one consisting of many chambers on different levels might be referred to as an acropolis.

However, often these were one-story and consisted of many small chambers and typically at least one interior courtyard; these structures appear to take into account the needed functionality required of a residence, as well as the decoration required for their inhabitants stature.

E-groups

"E-group" is a classification given by Mayanists to certain structure complexes attested in quite a few Maya sites of the central and southern lowlands - Petén region.

Complexes of this type consist of a stepped pyramid main structure, which appears without fail on the western side of a quadrilateral plaza or platform.

It has been theorized that these E-groups are observatories due to the precise positioning of the sun through the small temples when viewed from the pyramid during the solstices and equinoxes. Other ideas seem to stem from the possible creation story told by the relief and artwork that adorns these structures.

While recent discoveries point toward the extensive use of pyramids as tombs, the temples themselves seem to rarely, if ever, contain burials. Residing atop the pyramids, some of over two-hundred feet, such as that at El Mirador, the temples were impressive and decorated structures themselves.

Commonly topped with a roof comb, or superficial grandiose wall, these temples might have served as a type of propaganda. As occasionally the only structure to exceed the height of the jungle, the roof combs atop the temples were often carved with representations of rulers that could be seen from vast distances.

Lack of draft animals (like old world domesticated horse, cow, ox, donkey, etc) in ancient Americas may explain lack

of use of wheel and therefore need in paved roads. Obsidian (volcanic glass) was a major material for various cutting tools and weapons (it is atomically sharp on freshly cleaved edge).

Rubber was difficult to produce yet the Maya used it as an important resource for many things. In its native Central America and South America, rubber has been collected for a long time. The Mesoamerican civilizations used rubber mostly from Castilla elastica.

The Ancient Mesoamericans had a ball game using rubber balls (see: Mesoamerican ballgame), and a few Pre-Columbian rubber balls have been found (always in sites that were flooded under fresh water), the earliest dating to about 1600 BC.

According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Spanish Conquistadores were so astounded by the vigorous bouncing of the rubber balls of the Aztecs that they wondered if the balls were enchanted by evil spirits. The Maya also made a type of temporary rubber shoe by dipping their feet into a latex mixture.

Rubber was used in various other contexts, such as strips to hold stone and metal tools to wooden handles, and padding for the tool handles. While the ancient Mesoamericans did not have vulcanization, they developed organic methods of processing the rubber with similar results, mixing the raw latex with various saps and juices of other vines, particularly Ipomoea alba, a species of Morning glory.

The Temple of the Warriors complex consists of a large stepped pyramid fronted and flanked by rows of carved columns depicting warriors. This complex is analogous to Temple B at the Toltec capital of Tula, and indicates some form of cultural contact between the two regions. The one

at Chichen Itza, however, was constructed on a larger scale. At the top of the stairway on the pyramid’s summit (and leading towards the entrance of the pyramid’s temple) is a Chac Mool.

Near the Warriors is a large plaza surrounded by pillars called "The Great Market."

The Maya were keen astronomers and had mapped out the phases of celestial objects, especially the Moon and Venus.

Many temples have doorways and other features aligning to celestial events.

Round temples, often dedicated to Kukulcan, are perhaps those most often described as "observatories" by modern ruin tour-guides, but there is no evidence that they were so used exclusively, and temple pyramids of other shapes may well have been used for observation as well.

Ball courts

As an integral aspect of the Mesoamerican lifestyle, the courts for their ritual ball-game were constructed throughout the Maya realm and often on a grand scale.

Enclosed on two sides by stepped ramps that led to ceremonial platforms or small temples, the ball court itself was of a capital I shape and could be found in all but the smallest of Maya cities.

Great Ball-court at Chichen Itza.

Chich'en Itza was a major regional center in the northern

Maya lowlands from the Late Classic through the Terminal Classic and into the early portion of the Early Postclassic period. The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, from what is called “Mexicanized” and reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico to the Puuc style found among the Puuc Maya of the northern lowlands.

The presence of central Mexican styles was once thought to have been representative of direct migration or even conquest from central Mexico, but most contemporary interpretations view the presence of these non-Maya styles more as the result of cultural diffusion.

Archaeological data, such as evidence of burning at a number of important structures and architectural complexes, suggest that Chichen Itza's collapse was violent. Following the decline of Chichen Itza's hegemony, regional power in the Yucatán shifted to a new center at Mayapan.

According to the American Anthropological Association, the actual ruins of Chich'en Itza are federal property, and the site’s stewardship is maintained by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, INAH). The land under the monuments, however, is privately-owned, as are most of patrimony sites in Mexico. In the case of Chichen Itza, the archaeological zone is owned by the Barbachano family.

Name and orthography

The Maya name "Chich'en Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza ". Although this was the usual name for the site in pre-Columbian times, it is also referred to in the ancient chronicles as Uucyabnal, meaning "Seven Great Rulers".

The name is often represented as Chichén Itzá in Spanish and other languages to show that both parts of the name are stressed on their final syllables. In the Yucatec Maya language (still in use in the area, and written with the Roman alphabet since the 16th century) this stress follows the normal rules of the language, and so it is written without diacritics.

Both forms are attested in literature on the subject, including in scholarly works. Other references prefer to employ a more rigorous orthography, using Chich'en Itza. This form preserves the phonemeic distinction between [ ch' ] and [ ch ], since the base word ch'en meaning "well (of water)" begins with a glottalized affricate ( in IPA notation, [t?']) and not a voiceless (non-glottalized) one([t?]).

History of Chich'en Itza

As the northern Yucatán has no above-ground rivers, the fact that three natural sink holes (cenotes) providing plentiful water year round at Chichen made it attractive for settlement. Two of these cenotes still exist today; the “Cenote of Sacrifice” is the more famous of the two, and it was sacred to worshipers of the Maya rain god Chaac.

Various objects and materials, such as jade, pottery, and incense, were thrown into the cenote as offerings to Chaac. It is claimed by some (mainly tour guides) that occasionally, especially during times of intense drought, human sacrifices were offered into the well. There is, however, no confirmation of this, and archaeological dredging of the cenote does not support these assertions.

Ascension

Chichen Itza rose to regional prominence towards the end of the Early Classic period (or, roughly 600 AD). It was, however, towards the end of the Late Classic and into the early part of the Terminal Classic that the site became a major regional capitol, centralizing and dominating political, sociocultural, economic, and ideological life in the northern Maya lowlands. The ascension of Chichen Itza roughly correlates with the decline and fragmentation of the major centers of the southern Maya lowlands, such as Tikal.

Some ethnohistoric sources claim that in about 987 a Toltec king named Quetzalcoatl arrived here with an army from central Mexico, and (with local Maya allies) made Chichen Itza his capital, and a second Tula. The art and architecture from this period shows an interesting mix of Maya and Toltec styles.

However, the recent re-dating of Chichen Itza's decline (see below) indicates that Chichen Itza is largely a Late/Terminal Classic site, while Tula remains an Early Postclassic site (thus reversing the direction of possible influence).

Political organization

Unlike previous Maya polities of the Early Classic, Chichen Itza was not governed by an individual ruler or a single dynastic lineage. Instead, according to Sharer and Traxler (2006:581), the city’s political organization was structured by a "multepal" system, which is characterized as rulership through council. The council was comprised of members of elite ruling lineages.

Economy

Chichen Itza was a major economic power in the northern Maya lowlands during its apogee. Participating in the water-borne circum-peninsular trade route through its port site of Isla Cerritos, Chichen Itza was able to obtain locally unavailable resources from distant areas such as central Mexico (obsidian) and southern Central America (gold).

Decline of Chichen Itza

See also: Spanish conquest of Yucatán

The Maya chronicles record that in 1221 a revolt and civil war broke out, and archeological evidence seemed to confirm that the wooden roofs of the great market and the Temple of the Warriors were burned at about this date. Chichen Itza went into decline as rulership over Yucatán shifted to Mayapan.

This long-held chronology, however, has been drastically revised in recent years. As archaeologists improve their knowledge of changes in regional ceramics, and more radiocarbon dates arise out of ongoing work at Chichen Itza, the end of this Maya capital is now being pushed back over 200 years.

Archaeological data now indicates that Chichen Itza fell by around AD 1000. This leaves an enigmatic gap between the fall of Chichen Itza and its successor, Mayapan. Ongoing research at the site of Mayapan may help resolve this chronological conundrum.

While the site itself was never completely abandoned, the population declined and no major new constructions were built following its political collapse. The Sacred Cenote, however, remained a place of pilgrimage.

In 1531 Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Montejo claimed Chichén Itzá and intended to make it the capital of Spanish Yucatán, but after a few months a native Maya revolt drove Montejo and his forces from the land.

The site

The site contains many fine stone buildings in various states of preservation; the buildings were formerly used as temples, palaces, stages, markets, baths, and ballcourts.

El Castillo

Main article: El Castillo, Chichen Itza

Dominating the center of Chichén is the Temple of Kukulcan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl), often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle). This step pyramid with a ground plan of square terraces with stairways up each of the 4 sides to the temple on top.

On the Spring and Fall equinox, at the rising and setting of the sun, the corner of the structure casts a shadow in the shape of a plumed serpent - Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl - along the side of the North staircase. On these two days, the shadows from the corner tiers slither down the northern side of the pyramid with the sun's movement.

It was practice in Mesoamerican cities to periodically build larger and grander temple pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such example.

Thanks to archaeologists, a doorway at the base of the north stairway leads to a tunnel, from which one can climb the steps of the earlier version of El Castillo inside the current one, up to the room on the top where you can see King Kukulcan's Jaguar Throne, carved of stone and painted red with jade spots. The design of the older pyramid inside is said to be a lunar calendar, with the newer pyramid being a solar calendar.

The Mesoamerican ballgame, was a sport with ritual associations played for over 3000 years by the peoples of Mesoamerica in Pre-Columbian times.

A modern version of the game called Ulama continues to be played in a few places by the local Amerind inhabitants. Prehispanic Ball Courts have been found from Arizona to Nicaragua and also in various Caribbean Islands such as

Cuba and Puerto Rico. This emphasizes the popularity of this American sport. While the game was played casually for simple recreation, including by children and women, the game also had important ritual aspects, and major formal ballgames would be held as ritual events.

Origins

The Mesoamerican ballgame is at least as old as the Olmec civilization. In fact, the Aztecs' name for the Olmecs, olmeca, means "rubber people" (from Nahuatl ulli, "rubber") as they attributed the origin of the ballgame to this early people. A dozen rubber balls, ranging in diameter from 10 cm to 20 cm, have been found at El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog.

The earliest balls, which are also the smallest, have been dated to 1600 BCE. These rubber balls were found with other ritual offerings, indicating that even at this early date, the game had religious and ritual connotations.

The oldest ballcourt yet discovered, at Paso de la Amada, dates to approximately 1400 BCE. Approximately 80 meters (260 feet) long and 8 meters (26 feet) wide, it was situated between two parallel mounds with benches, 2½ meters (8 feet) deep and 30 cm (1 foot) tall, running along the mounds.

A rudimentary ball court has also been discovered at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and there is signficant evidence in the form of Olmec artwork. Excavations have also uncovered a number of ballplayer figurines at San Lorenzo, radiocarbon-dated as far back as 1250-1150 BCE.

These figurines depict wearing the same type of padded belts and padded arm and leg bands. Figurines were also found depicting female ballplayers wearing padded protection on their stomach and legs. The regalia of these figurines contain maize iconography, suggesting an association between the ballgame and fertility rituals.

Soon after the 1521 conquest of the Aztecs by the Spanish, Cortez himself brought a team of Mexica ballplayers and their equipment to Spain where they performed exhibition games for the Spanish Court and his court. Besides the fascination with their exotic visitors, the Europeans were amazed by the bouncing rubber balls.

Maya civilization

The Maya ballgame was named pitz, and the action of play was Ti Pitziil in Classic Maya. Its association with mythology were not only central to religious Maya belief. The oldest court accurately dated has been found in Nakbe, Petén, Guatemala, dating from 500 BCE.[citation needed]

The number of players or Pitziil, varies between 2 and 5 in each Team, they use protection in the Head (Pix'om), Hips (Tz´um) made of deer or jaguar skin, knees and elbows (Kipachq’ab’), these were the only parts of the body allowed to hit the ball, that was made of a mix from rubber (KIK) and the Guamol tree (Calonyction aculeatum), the size varied between 10 and 12 inches and weighted 3 to 6 pounds during the Classic period.

The Popol Vuh establishes the importance of the Maya ball game as more than just a sport. It provides important analogues for interpreting the ball game from a mythological perspective. The first adventures related to the ball game establish the relationship between people and gods.

The story begins with the Hero Twins' father, Hun Hunahpu, and uncle, Vucub Hunahpu, born to the old gods Xpiacoc and Xmucane. The lords of the underworld, Xibalba got annoyed with the noise from the Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu’s ball playing. The brothers’ ball court is located on the eastern edge of the Earth near the great abyss.

The primary lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, send owls to lure the twins to play ball in the ball court of Xibalba, situated on the western edge of the underworld. It is a dangerous trip though, and the brothers fall asleep. They are sacrificed by the lords of Xibalba and buried in the ball court.

The story relates the playing of the ball game with sacrifice. Hun Hunahpu’s head is cut off and placed in a fruit tree, which bears calabash gourds for the first time. This is also connected with the prominence of decorative cut heads of animals and birds worn as headdresses.

The story continues after the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are born. They find the ball game equipment in their father’s house and start playing the ball game, to the annoyance of the gods of Xibalba again. Unlike their father and uncle, the twins survive various tough tests, with the help of a mosquito (who bites each of the gods of Xibalba, forcing them to identify themselves to the boys). They go on to play the ball game with the lords of Xibalba.

Along the way, the twins deceive the lords of Xibalba into thinking the twins are dead when they jump into a soup. Miraculously the twins are reborn as catfish, change back to human form, and perform mock sacrifices in which the victim is allegedly resurrected. When a couple of the lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, offer themselves for a mock sacrifice, the twins trick the gods and carry out a real sacrifice.

The twins spare the lives of the remaining gods of Xibalba, but tell them that henceforth they will only be allowed to be offered sacrifices of animal blood and croton sap and that they can only bother people on Earth who are weak or have guilt.

The twins are unsuccessful at their attempts at reviving their father so they leave him buried in the ball court of Xibalba. That’s why the words ball court and graveyard are synonymous. Ball courts became ritually linked with death in perpetuity.

The ball court became a place of transition, a liminal stage between life and death. The ball court makers along the centerline of the playing field depicted mythical scenes of the ball game, usually bordered by a quatrefoil that marked an opening of a portal into another world. One lesson from the Popol Vuh is that playing the ball game can be life-threatening and also that trickery may be the only way to deceive your opponents.

The game appears in various myths, sometimes as a struggle between day and night deities, or the battles between the gods in the sky and the lords of the underworld. The ball symbolized the sun, moon, or stars, and the rings (see below) signified sunrise and sunset, or equinoxes. With the rise of Maya culture, the significance of the ritual ballgame becomes clearer.

Much time and energy was spent building ball courts. Courts were considered to be portals to the Maya underworld and were built in low-lying areas or at the foot of great vertical constructions. The Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza is the largest ball court in Mesoamerica.

A six-panel carving at Chichen Itza depicts a scene from the Popul Vuh (the Maya creation story), which has long sections relating stories of the ritual ballgames between the Maya Hero Twins and the demonic Lords of Xibalba, indicating the cosmological significance of the ballgame in Maya ideology.

Additional evidence of the Maya game comes from Maya vase paintings. Maya vases are often painted with scenes of the ritual ballgame. Players are depicted wearing padding on their forearms and knees and U-shaped yokes. The players are also often depicted wearing elaborate headdresses indicating their high status and explaining humans’ place in the world.

Playing ball engaged one in the maintenance of the cosmic order of the universe and the ritual regeneration of life. It was a game of chance, skill, and trickery reflecting life. The team effort engaged individuals in shared behavior and culture, introducing, reinforcing, and reinventing the game of life and peoples’ place in the cosmic order.

By Late Classic times, the ball game was ritually associated with the endemic warfare among city-states of the times. The success of military conquest was recreated in a public and ritual ball game, in which high-ranking war captives were defeated and sacrificed. Sometimes they were kept, tortured, and displayed for years before their sacrifice.

As it might be expected with a game played over such a long period of time by several different nations, details of the games varied over time and place, so the Mesoamerican ballgame might be more accurately seen as a family of related games.

Some versions of the game were played between two individuals, others between 2 teams of players. For the Aztecs, it was a nobles' game and was often associated with heavy betting.

According to Fray Diego Duran, gambling was frequent. People evidently bet everything they owned and even staked themselves, ending up as slaves.

The goal was to knock the ball into the opponent's end of the court; in post-Classical times, the object was to make the ball pass through one of two vertical stone rings that were placed on each side of the court, The ring was first used in the northern Maya lowlands during the Postclassic. In the modern-day surviving version of ulama, the goal has evolved to resemble volleyball.

Each player often had a teammate directly behind him or her to provide backup. In the most common version of the game, the ball was thrown by hand into the court, and thenceforth the players hit it back and forth with hips, thighs, and upper arms (but not by kicking or throwing with one’s hands) and through hoops set along the side walls of the court. In some versions of the game, the feet were used as in modern football soccer. In others, bats, paddles or mitts were used.

Both men and women played the game. Children also played the game casually for simple recreation. There are obviously no eye-witnesses to the Classic Maya ball game, but perhaps the sixteenth century Aztec ball game that the Spaniards witnessed may provide some comparisons.

In the Aztec ball game points were lost by a player who let the ball bounce more than twice before returning it to the other team, who let the ball go outside the court, or who failed to pass the rather heavy ball (weighting 3 to 4 kilograms) through one of the stone hoops placed on each wall along the center line. In the Maya area there are similar hoops, some of which were quite high, as at Chichen Itza, where they were set 6 meter from the ground.

The players wore protective quilted cotton armor, perhaps filled with unspun cotton, wrapped around waist yokes probably made of wood, but certainly not the stone yokes found at some sites. Hatches, or carved heads, often trophy heads, were set into the yokes, as shown on a Late Classic pottery figurine ball player wearing a yoke with a bird hatch.

Brightly painted deer hides adorned with feathers were worn around the hips and provided some additional protection, as well as adding to the rich attire of the players. Players also wore knee pads and had protective wrappings on their legs and lower arms.

On certain occasions, the players wore elaborate headdresses, the latter commonly depicted on painted pottery vessels. Some of the players were masked, as in the case of Yax Pac from Copan, underscoring the ritual play of the ball game.

The game was frequently extremely violent. There were often serious injuries inflicted by the dense, heavy ball and by other players, and death was not uncommon. Some contusions (bruises) suffered during play were so severe that they would have to be cut open (lanced), and the blood squeezed out.

This would have certainly been significant in the rituals of sacrifice and bloodletting that accompanied the Aztec ballgame. It is unknown whether physical contact was permitted between players.

On some occasions post-game ceremonies featured the sacrifice of the captain and other players on the losing side. The association of the game with sacrifice and death was particularly marked on the Gulf coast. A loser's skull might be used as the core around which a new rubber ball would be made. Human sacrifice became a more common outcome of the ball game, particularly at the royal courts of powerful cities.

Late Classic Maya nobles were warriors and ball players. A step on a hieroglyphic staircase at Yaxchilan, for example, shows King Bird Jaguar defeating a war captive in the ball game, and there is a written reference to a war captive on an altar in Tikal. War captives played ball against the war victors, with the outcome being predetermined.

Following the game which was a ritual reenactment of the defeat of a city-state, the captives were commonly decapitated or their hearts were torn out for blood sacrifice. The walls of the principal ball court at Chichen Itza depict opposing teams, with the leader of the winning team holding the decapitated head of the opposing leader, who kneels with blood in the form of snakes spewing from his neck.

The Balls

Archaeological evidence indicates that rubber was already in use in Mesoamerica by the Early Formative Period (1600 BCE). By the time of the Spanish Conquest, rubber was being exported from tropical zones to all over Mesoamerica. Iconography suggests that although there were many uses for rubber, rubber balls both for offerings and for ritual ballgames were the primary products.

Solid rubber balls were burned in front of images of deities and inside pyramids and shrines. In addition to the symbolism referred to above, the rubber balls were symbolic of fertility as both the Aztecs and the Maya equated the latex that flowed from inside of the tree with blood and semen.

The game was played with a hard rubber ball made from latex of the rubber tree (Castilla elastica), which is indigenous to the tropical areas of southern Mexico and Central America. The latex was made into rubber by mixing it with the juice of the morning glory (species Ipomoea alba). This rubber was quite startling to the sixteenth century Spaniards. Europeans of the time had no similar ball that could bounce in their sports.

Although no rubber balls have been recovered from ancient Maya sites, three bowls the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza contain a mixture of rubber, copal, jade, and shell that had been burned as an offering before the vessels were thrown into the cenote. Somewhat deformed from centuries in the ground, the actual Olmec rubber ball from El Manatí, Veracruz, Mexico, was preserved because of its waterlogged setting. The balls evidently varied in size up to 30 centimeters in diameter and were solid.

The Court

Ball courts, especially those of the main political cities of the Late Classic Maya, were public spaces used for a variety of elite cultural events and ritual activities like musical performances and festivals, and of course, the ball game. Pictorial depictions often show musicians playing at ball games.

The depictions of masked players underscores the dramatic, ritual aspect of the ball game and the link with other forms of drama that may have unfolded on the court, as suggested by the painted murals at Bonampak, for example. Certainly, ordinary people also played the ball game, using fields unmarked by the grandiose stone-lined courts of the Royal Maya.

Most ball courts were I-shaped, with a long, narrow playing field flanked by, sloping, walls in the Classic and vertical or stepped walls in the Post Classic, that were plastered and brightly painted. The end zones evidently held temporary scaffolding for seating. It has been estimated that the average size of the field measured 36.5 meters by 9 meters, although there was tremendous variation.

Stone friezes on the walls, as at Chichen Itza, depicted ritual sacrifice. The largest ball court is the main one at Chichen Itza, measuring 185 meters long and 70 meters wide – longer than an American football field.

The court or field where the game was played was called Pitz, and the action of play was Ti Pitziil in Classic Maya[3],Chaaj in Quiche, tlachtli by the Aztec and tlaxtli by neighboring central Mexican peoples; the game itself was called ollama, or ulama in Sinaloa (where it continues to be played); and poc-ta-tok was a Yucatec Maya name for the game.

Across Mesoamerica, ball courts were built and used for many generations, and their shapes and sizes vary. Some sites had multiple ball courts, and others had only one. Ballcourts are found in most sizable Mesoamerican ruins, although in some areas they are conspicuously absent.

Ancient cities with particularly fine ballcourts in good condition include Tikal, Yaxha, Copán, Iximche, Monte Albán, Uxmal, Mixco Viejo and Zaculeu; the grandest ancient ballcourt of all is at Chichen Itza, measuring 166 by 68 metres. Strangely, a ball court has not been found in the ruins at Teotihuacan.

Ball game in art

Ball players and the ballgame are a common theme in Mesoamerican art. Vessels for the ritual consumption of cacao often depict detailed scenes of ball courts and ball players in full regailia--protective padding and elaborate headdresses. It is fitting that Maya vessels used for drinking cacao beverages are often decorated with scenes from the ritual ballgame; it represents many layers of symbolism. The cacao fruit is symbolic of a human heart because it is similarly divided into chambers.

The beverage produced from cacao beans is dark and thick like blood, and is consumed in ritual practices. From another point of view, cacao beans are used as currency. It is thought that sacrifices performed following a ritual ballgame were attempts by rulers to appease the gods and ensure fertility and economic abundance. The rubber balls used in the ballgame also have economic symbolism in that the rubber used to produce them was also central to their trade economy.

All of these layers interconnect so that scenes of the ritual ballgame, played to ensure economic stability and abundance, appear on vessels for drinking cacao--itself an economic staple, consumed ritually as a symbol for human blood. The vases are often rimmed with glyphs.

The ceramic cylinder vessels with ballgame scenes, although with unknown origin, were believed to have belonged to a kingdom centered near Zapote Bobal and El Pajaral, Guatemala. On one of the vessels found, there is a vertical column(glyph) that names a king of Motul de San José of the adjacent kingdom to the west that encompassed Lake Peten-Itza.

The relationship between the two domain is unclear, but it is possible that the scenes allude to an inter-kingdom contest, rather than the more familiar rituals of post-battle sacrifice or mythic re-enactment of the great Underworld game.

One of the most famous ceramic figurines of ballplayers were the so called "paired figurines" found in Jaina, Mexico (600-900 CE). They were found together during Mexican excavations on the Jaina Island in the early 1960s. These ballplayer figurines work together as a pair. Each goes down on his left knee and cocks the left arm, and they can easily be arranged to be in eternal play, the ball suspended in the observer's mind for all time.

The maker of these figurines took care to detail the costumes. Protective wraps shield only one arm, from wrist to elbow, along with a single knee pad. Probably this was to show how they complete and complement each other in order to exist as a pair.

Thick cotton quilting, perhaps attached to wicker or wood, is then held in place with great ropes or bands. The simple caps on their heads suggest that the figurines may once have sported elaborate headgear, now lost.

Other figurines, mainly found in Jalisco (Mexico), depicted seated ballplayers, in the American Etzatlán style of Jalisco, holding a large ball. The ceramic sculpture of Jalisco was used as funerary offerings in the tombs of members of important families. It is conjectured that depictions of ballplayers were meant to accompany the burial of a man who had been a skilled player.

Another piece of art relating the ball game were the circular stones found in La Esperanza, Mexico (existed around 591 CE). The stones made from limestone were often set face-up in the central alley of ball courts where, as one of three, they demarked playing zones or scoring devices in the game. The examples from La Esperanza, a small site near the larger one of Chinkultic, Chiapas, Mexico, carry especially well preserved scenes.

The most often depicted ballplayer wears a long kilt of animal hide, along with a heavy waist belt, knee and forearm protectors, as he kneels to strike a ball. The ball itself displays the finely incised portrait of Hun Hunahpu, the father of the Hero Twins. According to the Popol Vuh, the Underworld foes outwit Hunahpu, decapitate him, and introduce his head as a ball in the game.

The scalloped cut-shell design of his headdress identifies the ballplayer himself to be an important Underworld deity. The captions to the scene, however, make clear that this is an impersonation ritual, and that the player is actually a lord of Chinkultic, a kingdom anciently known as Sky (chan). The rim inscriptions on one of the stones describe the dedication of the stone, and probably the ball court it once graced, on 19 May 591.

The Maya writing system (often called hieroglyphs from a superficial resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian writing) was a combination of phonetic symbols and logograms.

It is most often classified as a logographic or (more properly) a logosyllabic writing system, in which syllabic signs play a significant role.

It is the only writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World which is known to completely represent the spoken language of its community.

In total, the script has more than a thousand different glyphs, although a few are variations of the same sign or meaning, and many appear only rarely or are confined to particular localities. At any one time, no more than around 500 glyphs were in use, some 200 of which (including variations) had a phonetic or syllabic interpretation.

The earliest inscriptions in an identifiably-Maya script date back to 200 - 300 BC. However, this is preceded by several other writing systems which had developed in Mesoamerica, most notably that of the Zapotecs, and possibly the Olmecs.

There is a pre-Mayan writing known as "Epi-Olmec script" (post Olmec) which some researchers believe may represent a transitional script between the Olmec writing and Maya writing, but since there are no clear examples of Olmec writing as yet, the matter is unsettled.

On January 5, 2006, National Geographic published the findings of Maya writings that could be as old as 400 BC, suggesting that the Maya writing system is nearly as old as the oldest writing found so far (Zapotec). In the succeeding centuries the Maya developed their script into a form which was far more complete and complex than any other that has yet been found in the Americas.

Since its inception, the Maya script was in use up to the arrival of Europeans, peaking during the Maya Classical Period (c. 200 - 900 AD). Although many Maya centers went into decline (or were completely abandoned) during or after this period, the skill and knowledge of Maya writing persisted amongst segments of the population, and the early Spanish conquistadores knew of individuals who could still read and write the script.

Unfortunately the Spanish displayed little interest in it, and as a result of the dire impacts the conquest had on Maya societies the knowledge was subsequently lost, most probably within only a few generations.

At a rough estimate, around 10,000 individual texts have so far been recovered, mostly inscribed on stone monuments, lintels, stelae and ceramic pottery. Maya civilization also produced numerous texts using the bark of certain trees in a "book-format", called a codex. Shortly after the conquest, all of these latter which could be found were ordered to be burnt and destroyed by zealous Spanish priests, notably Bishop Diego de Landa.

Out of these Maya codices, only three reasonably-intact examples are known to have survived through to the present day. These are now known as the Madrid, Dresden, and Paris codices. A few pages survive from a fourth, the Grolier codex, whose authenticity is sometimes disputed, but mostly is held to be genuine.

Further archaeology conducted at Mayan sites often reveals other fragments, rectangular lumps of plaster and paint chips which formerly were codices; these tantalizing remains are however too severely damaged for any inscriptions to have survived, most of the organic material having decayed.

The decipherment and recovery of the now-lost knowledge of Maya writing has been a long and laborious process. Some elements were first deciphered in the late 19th and early 20th century: mostly the parts having to do with numbers, the Maya calendar, and astronomy.

Major breakthroughs came starting in the 1950s to 1970s, and accelerated rapidly thereafter. By the end of the 20th century, scholars were able to read the majority of Maya texts to a large extent, and work done in the field continues to further illuminate the content.

In reference to the few extant Maya writings, Michael D. Coe, a prominent linguist and epigrapher at Yale University stated:

"[O]ur knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to

modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and 'Pilgrim's Progress')." (Michael D. Coe, The Maya, London: Thames and Hudson, 4th ed., 1987, p. 161.)

Most surviving pre-Columbian Maya writing is from stelae and other stone inscriptions from Maya sites, many of which were already abandoned before the Spanish arrived. The inscriptions on the stelae mainly record the dynasties and wars of the sites' rulers. Also of note are the incriptions that reveal information about the lives of ancient Maya women. Much of the remainder of Maya hieroglyphics has been found on funeral pottery, most of which describes the afterlife.

Writing tools

Although the archaeological record does not provide examples, Maya art shows that writing was done with brushes made with animal hair and quills. Codex-style writing was usually done in black ink with red highlights, giving rise to the Aztec name for the Maya territory as the "land of red and black".

Scribes

Scribes held a prominent position in Maya courts. Maya art often depicts rulers with trappings indicating they were scribes or at least able to write, such as having pen bundles in their headdresses. Additionally, many rulers have been found in conjunction with writing tools such as shell or clay inkpots.

Literacy

Although the number of logograms and syllabic symbols required to fully write the language numbered in the hundreds, literacy was not necessarily widespread beyond the elite classes. Graffiti uncovered in various contexts, including on fired bricks, shows nonsensical attempts to imitate the writing system.

Mayan languages constitute a language family of related languages which are spoken in Mesoamerica, from southeastern Mexico to northern Central America, and as far south as Honduras.

As a group of related languages, their collective origins can be reconstructed over at least some 5000 years of pre-Columbian habitation in the region. Although Spanish is an

official language of the region's present-day countries (except for Belize, where English is official), many Mayan languages are still spoken as a primary or secondary language by more than 3 million indigenous Maya. As part of the 1996 Peace Accords, Guatemala recognized 21 Mayan languages by name.

In pre-Columbian times, several forms and regional variants of Mayan languages were reflected in the writing system adopted and developed by peoples of the Maya civilization. Particularly from the period of Mesoamerican chronology known as the Classic period (c. 250-900 AD) and up to as late as the Spanish Conquest, this logosyllabic script was written on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices.

Note on terminology

In the field of linguistic studies, it has become conventional to use the form Mayan when referring to the languages, or an aspect of the language. In other academic fields, the form Maya is the preferred usage, serving both as a singular and plural noun, and for the adjectival form.

Overview

In the Guatemalan highlands the Mayan language with the largest population, K'iche' (earlier spelled Quiché), is spoken by more than two million speakers (Ethnologue 2004). This language is the language in which the famous Maya mythological document the Popol Wuj was written. It is centered around the towns Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango, and in the Cuchumatán Highlands. The K'iche' culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest.

The most commonly spoken Maya language in Mexico is called Yucatec Maya by linguists but known simply as Maya to its speakers. It is currently spoken by approximately 900,000 people in the Yucatán Peninsula (Ethnologue 2004). It has a rich literature through the Spanish Colonial era, and remains common as the first language in rural areas in Yucatan today, where in many towns even Yucatecans of Spanish ancestry have a working knowledge of the tongue.

Another historically important Mayan language is Chol, formerly widespread, but only spoken today in pockets in Chiapas and Guatemala. A closely related language, Chorti, is spoken in a region around the boundaries of the nations of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. These particular languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the inscriptions of the ancient sites of the Classic era Central Lowlands.

The Classic Maya language is quite closely related to modern Chol and Yucatec, and the split between these two languages may be observed in Maya inscriptions.

In the Highlands of Guatemala are the Quichéan-Mamean Maya languages and dialects, including K'iche, Cakchiquel, K'ekchi, Tz'utujil, Poqomam, and Mam. In the western highlands around Huehuetenango, Jacaltec is spoken.

The Huastec language, spoken in east-central Mexico, is part of the Mayan language family, although it is distant both linguistically and geographically from the rest of the language family.

Poqomchi’ language is spoken in Purulhá, Baja Verapaz, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz: Santa Cruz Verapaz, San Cristóbal Verapaz, Tactic, Tamahú and Tucurú.

Awakateko language is native only to 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, a municipality in the Department of Huehuetenango. It is also spoken by some immigrant Guatemalan households in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.

Sikapense language is spoken in Sipacapa, San Marcos (department).

Uspanteko language is native only in municipio Uspantán, in the department El Quiché.

Achi is spoken in Cubulco and Rabinal, two municipios of Baja Verapaz. Achi is one of Guatemala's 22 official languages. Linguist Raymond G. Gordon, Jr., considers the dialects spoken in Cubulco and Rabinal to be distinct languages, two of the eight languages of the Quiche-Achi family.

Jakalteko language is also called Popti. It is spoken in the following municipalities of Huehuetenango: Jacaltenango, La Democracia, Concepción, San Antonio Huista, Santa Ana Huista and in parts of Nentón. Gordon recognizes Eastern and Western dialects of Jakalteko.

Akateko language is spoken in the following municipalities of Huehuetenango: San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia.

Language families

Cholan-Tzeltalan languages

Chol language [?'ol]

Chorti language

Chontal language

Tzeltal language [?'eltal]

Tzotzil language [so?'il]

Huastecan languages

Huastec language [wa??te?ka]

Chicomuceltec language

Kanjobalan-Chujean languages

Chuj language [?u?x]

Tojolabal language

Jacaltec language

Kanjobal language [q'anho?al]

Mocho language

Akateko language

Quichean-Mamean languages

Mam language [ma?m]

Tektiteko language

Ixil language

Awakateko language

Kekchi language [q'eq?i?]

Pocomam language [poqomam]

Poqomchi’ language

Quichean languages

Quiché language [k'i??e??]

Cakchiquel language [kaq?ikel]

Tz'utujil language

Quiche-Achi languages

Sikapense language

Sakapulteko language

Uspanteko language

Yucatecan languages

Itza language

Lacandon language

Mopan language

Yucatec Maya language [jo?kate?ka]

Mayan Sign Languages

Yucatec Maya Sign Language

Relation to Mesoamerican writing

The pre-Columbian Maya civilization developed and used an intricate and versatile writing system which, out of the various historical Mesoamerican scripts known, displays the highest degree of correspondence to a spoken language.

Earlier-established civilizations to the west and north of the Maya homelands also had scripts which are recorded in surviving inscriptions, such as those of the Zapotec, Olmec, as well as the Zoque-speaking peoples of the southern Veracruz - western Chiapas area.

There is however insufficent available evidence to demonstrate whether these earlier scripts were also able to fully record all, or only some, aspects of their languages (or even to be sure which language they are associated with).

It is generally agreed that the Maya writing system was adopted from one or more of these preceding versions, many references (such as Schele & Freidel, 1990; Soustelle, 1984) identifying the Olmec script as the most likely precursor. The spoken language of the Olmec is unknown, and its relationship to early Maya spoken languages is still unclear.

The Maya writing system, known generally as Maya hieroglyphics, has however been confirmed as a fully-functioning writing system, in which it was possible to unambiguously express any statement of the spoken language. The script is a type best classified as logosyllabic, whose symbols (glyphs, or more formally graphemes) include both logograms and syllables.

The script contains within it a complete syllabary (although not all possible syllables have been identified so far), and a Maya scribe could write an expression completely phonetically using these syllables. In practice however, almost all inscriptions of any length were written using a combination of logograms and syllabic signs.

Of the various Mayan languages, two major ones at least have been securely identified in the script, and at least one other is likely. An 'archaic' form known as Classic Maya appears predominantly, particularly in the Classic-era inscriptions of the southern and central lowland areas.

This language is most closely related to the Cholan branch of the language family, whose modern-day descendants include Ch'ol, Chorti and Chontal. Inscriptions in an early Yucatecan language (antecedent to the prevalent surviving Yucatec language) are also known or proposed, particularly from the Yucatán Peninsula region and from a later period; three of the four extant Maya codices are based on Yucatec.

It has also been surmised that some inscriptions found in the Chiapas region are in a Tzeltalan tongue, whose modern forms are Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Apart from these, regional variations and dialects are also presumed to have been used, but so far not securely identified.

The intense artistic mosaics that grace the walls of the ancient masterpieces reveal stories of rulers, the underworld (Xibalba), Maya creation, and even the particular function of the vessel.

Used for a plethora of daily activities, such as the storage of food and beverages, ceramics were also a canvas of commemoration.

The utilitarian ware of the common people usually possesses only modest decoration. The funerary ware of the elite can be splendidly elaborate.

Strategic Mesoamerican ballgames, rituals, and death were key subjects painted or inscribed on the vessels.

The Maya had specific techniques to create, inscribe, paint, and design pottery. To begin creating a ceramic vessel the Maya had to locate the proper resources for clay and temper. The present-day indigenous Maya, who currently live in Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico still create wonderful ceramics.

Prudence M. Rice provides a look at what the current Guatemalan Maya use today for clay. Highland, Guatemala has a rich geological history comprised mainly from a volcanic past.

The metamorphic and igneous rock, as well as the sand and ash from the pumice areas provide many types of tempering. In the area, there are a range of clays that create varied colors and strengths when fired. Today's Maya locate their clays in the exposed river systems of the highland valleys. It is hypothesized that the ancient people obtained their clay by the same method as today's Maya.

The clays are located in exposed river systems of the highland valleys. Most likely, due to the climatic similarities over the last millennia it is likely that these same deposits or similar ones could have been used in early times.

Once the clay and temper is collected, pottery creation begins. The artist would take the clay and mix it with the temper (the rock pieces, ash, or sand). Temper serves as a strengthening device for the pottery. Once worked into a proper consistency, the shape of the piece is created.

A potter's wheel was not used in creating this pottery. Instead, they used coil and slab techniques. The coil method most likely involved the formation of clay into long coiled pieces that were wound into a vessel. The coils were then smoothed together to create walls.

The slab method used square slabs of clay to create boxes or types of additions like feet or lids for vessels. Once the pot was formed into the shape, then it would have been set to dry until it was leather hard, then it was painted, inscribed, or slipped. The last step was the firing of the vessel.

Like the Ancient Greeks, the Maya created clay slips from a mixture of clays and minerals. The clay slips were then used to decorate the pottery. By the fourth century, a broad range of colors including yellow, purple, red, and orange were being made.

However, some Mayan painters refrained from using many colors and used only black, red, and occasionally cream. This series of ceramics is termed the "Codex-style", it being similar to the style of the Pre-Columbian books.

From the 5th century AD onwards, post-firing stucco was adopted from Teotihuacan. By preparing a thin quicklime, the Maya added mineral pigments that would dissolve and create rich blues and greens that added to their artistic culture.

Many times this post-fire stucco technique was mixed with painting and incising. Incising is carving deeply or lightly into partially dried clay to create fine detailed designs. This technique was mostly popular during the Early Classic Period.

The Maya were a diverse people whose culture has developed through the centuries. As they developed, so did their pottery. Archaeologists have found stages of commonality between types of ceramics, and these phases coincide with the Mayan timeline.

Middle Preclassic (900/800-250 BC) Late Preclassic (250 BC- AD 250) Early Mayan ceramics stemmed from a past that began even years before the Maya became a group. Originally, the early Maya used gourds cut into useful shapes to create vessels to carry liquids and foodstuffs. These portable and durable gourds made excellent containers.

The first ceramics closely resembled gourds and many were decorated with rocker stamps and simple slips. During the Late Preclassic period, many of the ceramics took on appendages of tetrapod mammiform supports. These supports were four legs underneath the pot holding it up.

Characteristic cream-on-red stripes colored these unique vessels. The pottery of the Maya Early Classic dated from AD 250 to 550. The Maya soon began using polychrome slip paint, meaning they used many different colors to decorate the pots.

This method of decoration became almost homogeneous for Mayan artists, thus signaling the beginning of the Classic Period. The Classic Period of the Maya provided beautiful ceramics in many forms. The lidded basal flange bowl was a new style of potter to add to the already growing repertoire.

This type vessel usually had a knob on top in the form of an animal or human head, while the painted body of the animal or human spreads across the pot. Many of these pots also had mammiform supports, or legs.

These unique vessels are usually found in great condition signaling a ritual function.

Xiucuatl es una combinación de cabeza de serpiente y cuerpo de reptil.

Jade use in Mesoamerica was largely influenced by the conceptualization of the material as a rare and valued commodity among pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Olmec, the Maya, and the various groups in the Valley of Mexico.

The only source from which the indigenous cultures could obtain jade was located in the Motagua River valley in Guatemala. Jade was largely an elite good that was highly symbolic and used in the performance of ideological rituals.

It was often worked or carved in a variety of ways, either as ornamental stones, a medium upon which hieroglyphs were inscribed, or shaped into figurines, symbolic weapons, and other objects.

The general term jade refers to two separate rock types. The first is called nephrite, a calcium and magnesium rich amphibole mineral. The second is jadeitite, a metamorphic

rock almost entirely composed of jadeite, a pyroxene stone rich in sodium and aluminum. The jade found in Mesoamerica consists solely of the latter (jadeite). Variation in color is largely due to variation in trace element composition.

In other words, the types of trace elements and their quantities affect the overall color of the material. The “Olmec Blue” jade owes its unique color to the presence of iron and titanium, while the more typical green jade’s color is due to the varying presence of sodium, aluminum, iron, and chromium. Translucence can vary as well, with specimens ranging form nearly clear to completely opaque.

Sources in Mesoamerica

The archaeological search for the Mesoamerican jade sources, which were largely lost at the time of the Maya collapse, began in 1799 when Alexander von Humboldt started his geological research in the New World.

Von Humboldt sought to determine whether or not Neolithic jadeite celts excavated from European Megalithic archaeological sites like Stonehenge and Carnac shared sources with the similar looking jade celts from Mesoamerica (they do not).

To date, the only documented source of jadeite in Mesoamerica is in the lowland Motagua River valley. Research conducted by Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in the 1970s identified several ancient mines and alluvial sources in the mountainous areas flanking the river valley (up to an elevation of 6,000 feet).

Several of the mines are connected by ancient dry-laid stone paths. From the Motagua River valley, jade was traded throughout Mesoamerica, reaching areas as distant as the Valley of Mexico and Costa Rica.

Uses

Art

Jade was shaped into a variety of objects including, but not limited to, figurines, celts, ear spools (circular earrings with a large hole in the center), and teeth inlays (small decorative pieces inserted into the incisors). Mosaic pieces of various sizes were used to decorate belts and pectoral coverings.

Jade sculpture often depicted deities, people, shamanic transformations, animals and plants, and various abstract forms. Sculptures varied in size from single beads, used for jewelry and other decorations, to large carvings, such as the 4.42 kilogram head of the Maya sun god found at Altun Ha.

Jade workshop areas have been documented at two Classic Maya sites in Guatemala: Cancuen and Guaytan. The archaeological investigation of these workshops has informed researchers on how jadeite was worked in ancient Mesoamerica.

Religion

The value of jade went beyond its material worth. Perhaps because of its color, mirroring that of water and vegetation, it was symbolically associated with life and death and therefore possessed high religious and spiritual importance.

The Maya placed jade beads in the mouth of the dead. Michael D. Coe has suggested that this practice relates to a sixteenth century funerary ritual performed at the deaths of Pokom Maya lords: "when it appears then that some lord is dying, they had ready a precious stone which they placed at his mouth when he appeared to expire, in which they believe that they took the spirit, and on expiring, they very lightly rubbed his face with it. It takes the breath, soul or spirit."

The Maya also associated jade with the wind. Many Maya jade sculptures and figurines of the wind god have been discovered, as well as many others displaying breath and wind symbols. In addition, caches of four jade objects placed around a central element which have been found are believed to represent not only the cardinal directions, but the directional winds as well.

The mechanical toughness of ground stone tools made of either form of jade explains their ubiquity in most Neolithic cultures with access to sources but the aesthetic and religious significance of the various colors remains a source of controversy and speculation.

The bright green varieties may have been identified with the young Maize God, but the Olmec fascination with the unique blue jade of Guatemala, and its role in their rituals involving water sources remains a mystery.

Name and orthography

The name is often represented as Chichén Itzá in Spanish and other languages to show that both parts of the name are stressed on their final syllables. In the Yucatec Maya language (still in use in the area, and written with the Roman alphabet since the 16th century) this stress follows the normal rules of the language, and so it is written without diacritics. Both forms are attested in literature on the subject, including in scholarly works. Other references

prefer to employ a more rigorous orthography, using Chich'en Itza. This form preserves the phonemeic distinction between [ ch' ] and [ ch ], since the base word ch'en meaning

"well (of water)" begins with a glottalized affricate ( in IPA notation, [t?']) and not a voiceless (non-glottalized) one ([t?]).

The Maya name "Chich'en Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza (people)". Although this was the usual name for the site in pre-Columbian times, it is also referred to in the ancient chronicles as Uucyabnal, meaning "Seven Great Rulers".

The site

El Gran Juego de Pelota (Grand Ballcourt), from El Castillo

El Caracol observatory

El Castillo

El Castillo being climbed by tourists

West side of El Castillo

Plumed Serpent

Kukulcan's Jaguar Throne

Sacred Cenote

Great Ballcourt (interior)"Chichen" contains many fine stone buildings in various states of preservation; the buildings were formerly used as temples, palaces, stages, markets, baths, and ballcourts.

The Yucatán has no above-ground rivers, so the fact that there were three natural sink holes (cenotes) providing plentiful water year round at Chichen made it a natural spot for a center of population. Two of these cenotes are still in existence, the most famous being the legendary "Cenote of Sacrifice", which was sacred to the Maya rain god Chaac.

Offerings of jade, pottery, and incense were thrown into the great well as offerings to Chac, and occasionally during times of desperate drought a human sacrifice -- however there is no confirmation in either ancient chronicles nor the archeological dredging of the cenote to confirm the lurid tales of some tour guides claiming that great numbers of beautiful, young, virgin women were regularly cast into the well. The Sacred Cenote was long a place of pilgrimage Yucatán.

Chichen was a major center by about 600 in the middle of the Maya Classic period, but the city saw its greatest growth and power after the Maya sites of the central lowlands to the south had already collapsed.

Some of the notable classic era structures at Chichen include a fine complex of buildings in the "Puuc" architectural style. The Spanish nicknamed this complex "Las Monjas" ("The Nuns," or "The Nunnery") but was actually the city's classic era government palace. Just to the east is a small temple (nicknamed "La Iglesia", "The Church") decorated with elaborate masks of the rain god.

To the north is a round building on a large square platform nicknamed "El Caracol" or "the snail" for the stone spiral staircase inside; this was an observatory (the doors were aligned to view the vernal equinox, the Moon's greatest northern and southern declinations, and other astronomical events) sacred to Kukulcan, the feathered-serpent god of the wind and learning.

Apparently about 987 a Toltec king named Quetzalcoatl arrived here with an army from central Mexico, and (with local Maya allies) made Chichén Itzá his capital, and a second Tula. The art and architecture from this period shows an interesting mix of Maya and Toltec styles. Chichen's "Temple of the Warriors" was clearly built as a copy of Temple B at the Toltec capital of Tula, although thanks to the Maya architects is grander than the original.

This is a stone building (originally with a wood and plaster roof) atop a step-pyramid, with the columns in the interior carved with the likenesses of warriors. At the top of the stairway leading to the entrance of the temple is a type of altar-statue known as a Chac Mool.

Dominating the center of Chichén is the Temple of Kukulcan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl), often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle). This step pyramid with a ground plan of square terraces with stairways up each of the 4 sides to the temple on top. Great sculptures of Plumed Serpents run down the sides of the northern staircase, and are set off by shadows from the corner tiers on the Spring and Fall equinox.

It was practice in Mesoamerican cities to periodically build larger and grander temple pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such example. Thanks to archeologists, a doorway at the base of the north stairway leads to a tunnel, from which one can climb the steps of the earlier version of El Castillo inside the current one, up to the room on the top where you can see King Kukulcan's Jaguar Throne, carved of stone and painted red with jade spots.

Seven courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame have been found in Chichén, but the one about 150 meters to the north-west of the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest ballcourt in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 meters (545 by 232 feet). The sides of the interior of the ballcourt are lined with sculpted panels depicting teams of ball players, with the captain of the winning team decapitating the captain of the losers.

Built into one of the exterior walls of the ballcourt is the Temple of the Jaguar, which features another jaguar throne -- since this one was not buried for a thousand years, its red paint and jade spots are long since gone.

Behind this platform is a walled inscription which depicts a tzompantli (rack of impaled human skulls) in relief.

Chichen Itza also has a variety of other structures densely packed in the ceremonial center of about 5 km² (2 mile²) and several outlying subsidiary sites. Nearby are the sacred Caves of Balankanche, where a large selection of ancient pottery and idols may be seen still in the positions where they were left in Pre-Columbian times.

The Maya chronicles record that in 1221 a revolt and civil war broke out, and archeological evidence confirms that the wooden roofs of the great market and the Temple of the Warriors were burnt at about this date. Chichen Itza went into decline as rulership over Yucatán shifted to Mayapan.

While the site was never completely abandoned, the population declined and no major new constructions were built. The Sacred Cenote, however, remained a place of pilgrimage.

In 1531 Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Montejo claimed Chichén Itzá and intended to make it the capital of Spanish Yucatán, but after a few months a native Maya revolt drove Montejo and his forces from the land (see Spanish conquest of Yucatán).

Modern investigations at Chichen Itza

In 1839 United States travel writers Benjamin Norman, followed the next year by John Lloyd Stephens, visited and published accounts of the ruins of Chichen Itza. Various other expeditions made further examinations of the ruins in the following decades. In 1901 the United States Consul to Yucatán, Edward H. Thompson bought Chichen Itza (as the ruins had no protected status then) and moved there with his Maya wife, and spent some 30 years doing amateur archeology there, including dredging the first artifacts out of the Sacred Cenote.

In 1924 the Carnegie Institution and Harvard University began a 20 year excavation project directed by Sylvanus G. Morley, which included restoring two sides of the Castillo. In 1961 the Sacred Cenote was dredged more thoroughly by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). In the 1980s INAH excavated some additional buildings and restored the other two sides of the Castillo.

Chichen Itza is today a World Heritage Site and is a very popular tourist destination; it is the most visited of the major Maya archaelogical sites. Many visitors to the popular tourist resort of Cancún make a day trip to Chichen Itza, usually with time to view only a portion of the site.

Recently, climbing the "castle" is forbidden because an elderly woman had fallen to her death several months ago, and is therefore closed. Another reason for its closure is the restoration of the site, as thousands of visitors would climb it everyday. A third reason which was recently given was that these visitors, (or a majority of them), would sit, and then ride down the narrow stairs, rather than walking them. This made the steps very slippery and eroded some of the stone over time. -A recent visitor supplied this information

Coba

Coba (Cobá in the Spanish language) is a large ruined city of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is located about 90 km east of the Maya site of Chichen Itza, about 40 km west of the Caribbean Sea, and 44 km northwest of the site of Tulum, with which it is connected by a modern road.

Nohoch Mul

The Ancient City

Coba is located around five small lagoons. A series of elevated stone and plaster roads radiate from the central site to various smaller sites near and far. These are known by the Maya term "sacbe" (plural "sacbeob"). Some of these causeways go east to the Caribbean coast, and the longest runs over 100 km to the west to the site of Yaxuna. The site contains several large temple pyramids, the tallest, known as Nohoch Mul, being 42 meters in height.

A number of longer sacbeob, radiate out from Coba to other Maya sites in the area, the longest being over 100 km long, running west to the site of Yaxuna.

Coba is estimated to have had some 50,000 inhabitants (and possibly significantly more) at its peak of civilization, and the built up area extends over some 80 square km. The site was occupied by a sizable agricultural population by the 1st century.

The bulk of Coba's major construction seems to have been made in the middle and late Classic period, about 500 to 900, with most of the dated heiroglyphic inscriptions from the 7th century. However Coba remained an important site in the Post-Classic era and new temples were built and old ones kept in repair until at least the 14th century, possibly as late as the arrival of the Spanish.

Modern Explorations of Coba

Knowledge of this expansive site was never completely lost, but it was not examined by scholars until the 1920s. John Lloyd Stephens mentioned hearing reports of the site in 1841, but it was so distant from any known modern road or village that he decided the difficulty in trying to get there was too daunting.

For much of the rest of the 19th century the area could not be visited by outsiders due to the Caste War of Yucatán. Teoberto Maler paid Coba a short visit in 1893 and took at least one photograph, but unfortunately did not publish at the time and the site remained unknown to the archeological community.

Amateur explorer Dr. Thomas Gann was brought to the site by some local Maya hunters in February of 1926. Gann published the first first-hand description of the ruins later the same year. Gann gave a short description to the archeologists of the Carnegie Institution project at Chichen Itza, which sent out an expedition under J. Eric S. Thompson. Thompson's initial report of a surprisingly large site with many inscriptions prompted Sylvanus Morley to mount a more throrough examination of the site.

Eric Thompson made a number of return visits to the site through 1932, in which year he published a detailed description.

The site remained little visited due to its remoteness until the first modern road was opened up to Coba in the early 1970s. As a major resort was planned for Cancún, it was realized that clearing and restoring some of the large sight could make it an important tourism attraction.

The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology & History began some archeological excavations in 1972 directed by Carlos Navarrete, and consolidated a couple buildings. At the start of the 1980s another road to Coba was opened up and paved, regular bus service begun, and a small Villas Archeologicas Hotel was opened up by the Club Med (with its own electric generator, since the village at Coba was otherwise without electricity).

Coba became a tourist destination shortly thereafter, with many visitors visiting the site on day trips from Cancún and the Riviera Maya. Only a small portion of the site has been cleared from the jungle and restored by archaeologists. Local guides are available at the entrance to the site, as well as bicycle rentals to get to some of the farther ruins within the archaeological zone. Coba, like all archaeological sites in Mexico open to the public via INAH, is free to visitors on Sundays and national holidays. There is a small pueblo near the ruins, with some restaurants and small shops selling local crafts.

Copán

The Pre-Columbian city now known as Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras, in the Copán Department, near to the Guatemalan border. It is the site of a major Maya kingdom of the Classic era.

The kingdom, anciently named Xukpi (Corner-Bundle), flourished from the 5th century AD to the early 9th century, with antecedents going back to at least the 2nd century AD. Its name is an apparent reference to the fact that it was situated at the far southern and eastern end of Maya territory. The nearby modern village of Copán Ruinas itself may have anciently been known as Oxwitik.

Description of the ruins

The site in Copan is perhaps best known for producing a remarkable series of portrait stelae, most of which were placed along processional ways in the central plaza of the city and the adjoining "acropolis" (a large complex of overlapping step-pyramids, plazas, and palaces). The stelae and sculptured decorations of the buildings of Copán are some of the very finest surviving art of ancient Mesoamerica.

Many structures are elaborately decorated with stone sculptures, usually constructed from a mosaic of carved stones of a size that one person could carry.

The site also has a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.

At its height in the late classic period Copán seems to have had an unusually prosperous class of minor nobility, scribes, and artisans, some of whom had homes of cut stone built for themselves (in most sites a privilege reserved for the rulers and high priests), some of which have carved hieroglyphic texts.

The buildings suffered significantly from forces of nature in the centuries between the site's abandonment and the rediscovery of the ruins. There have been numerous earthquakes -- none of the roofs of the stone buildings were intact when the site was rediscovered, and the hieroglyphic stairway had collapsed.

The Copán river changed course and meandered, destroying part of the acropolis (revealing in the process its stratigraphy in a large vertical cut) and apparently wiping out various subsidiary architectural groups in the region. In the long period when the site was overgrown the buildings and scuptures suffered from the invasive thick jungle vegetation and periodic forest fires.

Archeologists have consolidated and restored many structures at the site.

Pre-Columbian history

Stela H detail, depicting King "18 Rabbit"The fertile Copán River valley was long a site of agriculture before the first known stone architecture was built in the region about the 9th century BC.

A kingdom seems to have been established in Copán in 159. It grew into one of the most important Maya sites by the 5th century. Large monuments dated with hieroglyhic texts were erected in the city from 435 through 822.

Xukpi was one of the more powerful Maya city states, a regional power, although it suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the kingdom located at Quirigua in 738. It eventually withered in the face of the depletion of natural resources which was a factor in bringing most of the Classic-Age Maya city-states to their end.

The area continued to be occupied after the last major ceremonial structures and royal monuments were erected, but the population declined in the 8th century - 9th century from perhaps over 20,000 in the city to less than 5,000.

The ceremonial center was long abandoned and the surrounding valley home to only a few farming hamlets at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

List of known Xukpi rulers

1. K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' ("Great Sun Green Queztal Macaw") before 435

2. K'inich Popol Hol (Ruler 2) c. 437

3. 1 King, name unknown c. 455

4. Cu Ix c. 465 (K'al Tuun Hix)

5. 1 King, name unknown c. 476

6. Muyal Jol or "Cloud Head"

7. B'alam Hehn, ("Jaguar Mirror"; "Waterlily-Jaguar") after 504-544

8. name unknown

9. name unknown, died about 553

10. "Moon Jaguar" 553-578

11. Butz' Chan "Smoke Serpent" (fire-eating serpent) 578-628

12. Smoke Imix (Smoke Jaguar) 628-695

13. Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil ("18 Rabbit") 695-738

14. K'ac Joplaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Monkey") 738-749

15. K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"; "Smoke Squirrel") 749-763

16. Yax-Pasaj Chan Yoaat ("Yax Pac") 763-after 810

(probably period where throne was vacant)

17? U-Cit-Tok 822

Royal ceremonial center of city abandoned by 1984

The first sixteen names, from Yax K'uk' Mo' to Yax Pac (Yax Pasah), are depicted on Altar Q, an artifact that has provided researchers clues to the history and origins of Copán. [1]

Copán in modern times

Stela N, depicting King K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"), as drawn by Frederick Catherwood in 1839By the time of the Spanish conquest of Honduras, the site had long been overgrown by rainforest. Although this large ruined city was known locally since early colonial times, it remained largely unknown by the outside world until a series of explorers visited it in the early 19th century. Juan Galindo wrote a description of the ruins in 1834, which was published the following year.

This sparked the interest of North American explorer and travel writer John Lloyd Stephens and English architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood whose illustrated books describing Copán and other sites excited a great deal of interest in Mesoamerican antiquities among American and European scholars, and its publication is regarded as the commencement of modern Mayan studies which continue to this day.

The site was the subject of one of the first modern archeological surveys and excavations in the Maya area, conducted by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University from 1891 to 1900. Further excavations and restorations were begun by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the 1930s, the Peabody Museum again in the 1970s, followed by the Government of Honduras's Proyecto Copán beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to this day.

Kalakmul

Calakmul (also Kalakmul and other less frequent variants) is also the name given to site of one of the largest ancient Mayan cities ever uncovered. It is located in the 1,800,000 acre Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, deep in the jungles of the Petén, 30 km from the Guatemalan border.

First discovered from the air by biologist Cyrus L. Lundell of the Mexican Exploitation Chicle Company on December 29, 1931, the find was reported to Sylvanus G. Morley of the Carnegie Institute at Chichen Itza in March 1932. According to Lundell, who named the site, "In Maya, 'ca' means 'two', 'lak' means 'adjacent', and 'mul' signifies any artificial mound or pyramid, so 'Calakmul' is the 'City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids'."

Calakmul was the major seat of power of the Kaan or "Kingdom of the Snake", which first arose further north but built Calakmul into a Late Classic Era superpower ally of Caracol and rival to Tikal. A series of 11 painted vessels, dubbed Dynastic Vases, describe the ascensions of the Kaan rulers, including ancestral and legendary figures.

Calakmul probably supported a population of over 50,000, and so far more than 6,250 structures have been discovered in an area of up to 70 square kilometers with a substantial northern wall and a series of water management features (Calakmul's reservoirs include the largest in the Mayan world) delineating a dense core of 22 square kilometers. Calakmul's 45 meter pyramid "Structure 2" is the largest Classic Era Mayan temple platform known. Many of the city's monuments and structures are constructed of chalky local limestone, which has made interpretation of the site difficult.

After a long period of inactivity following Morely's 1932 expedition, the city was explored by William Folan between 1984 and 1994, and is now the subject of a large-scale project of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) under Ramón Carrasco.

Known rulers of Calakmul

(Note that this list is not continuous, as the archaeological record is incomplete)

Unknown: Yuknoom Ch'een I

c.520–546: Tuun K'ab' Hix

c.561–572: Sky Witness

572–579: First Axewielder

579–c.611: Scroll Serpent

c.619: Yuknoon Chan

622–630: Tajoom Uk'ab' K'ak'

630–636: Yuknoom Head

636–686: Yuknoom the Great

686–c.695: Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ak'

c695: Split Earth

c.702–c.731: Yuknoom Took' K'awil

c.736: Wamaw K'awil

c.741: Ruler Y

c.751: Ruler Z

c.771–c.789: B'olon K'awil

c.849: Chan Pet

c.909: Aj Took'

Palenque

Palenque is a Maya archeological site near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, about 130 km south of Ciudad del Carmen (see map). It is a medium-sized site, much smaller than such huge sites as Tikal or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, and bas-relief carvings the Maya produced.

The name

The site was already long abandoned when the Spanish arrived in Chiapas. The first European to visit the ruins and publish an account was Father Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada in 1567; at the time the local Chol Maya called it Otolum meaning "Land with strong houses", de la Nada roughly translated this into Spanish to give the site the name "Palenque", meaning "fortification". Palenque also became the name for the town (Santo Domingo del Palenque) which was built over some peripheral ruins down in the valley from the main ceremonial center of the ancient city.

An ancient name for the city was Lakam Ha, which translates as "Big Water" or "Wide Water", for the numerous springs and wide cascades that are found within the site. Palenque was the capital of the important classic-age Mayan city-state of B'aakal (Bone).

The Maya Classic city

While the site was occupied by the middle Pre-Classic, it did not gain importance until several hundred years later. By 600 the first of the famous structures now visible were being constructed. Situated in the western reaches of Maya territory, on the edge of the southern highlands, B'aakal was a large and vital center of Maya civilization from the 5th century AD to the 9th century.

The B'aakal state had a chequered career. Its original dynasts were perhaps Olmec. Politically, the city experienced diverse fortunes, being disastrously defeated by Kalakmul in 599 and again in 611.

Nevertheless, B'aakal produced what is arguably the best-known Maya Ajaw (king or lord), Pacal the Great, who ruled from 615 to 683, and left one of the most magnificent tomb-works of ancient Mesoamerica, beneath the Temple of Inscriptions. This is a grand temple atop a step pyramid dedicated in 692; inside is an elaborate, long hieroglyphic text carved in stone detailing the city's ruling dynasty and the exploits of Pacal the Great.

A stone slab in the floor could be lifted up, revealing a passageway (filled in shortly before the city's abandonment and reopened by archeologists) to a long interior stairway leading back down to ground level and the shrine/tomb of the semi-divine Pacal. Over his crypt is an elaborate stone showing him falling into the underworld, and taking the guise of one of the Maya Hero Twins in the Popul Vuh who defeated the lords of the underworld to achieve immortality.

A view of the main plaza of Palenque from the top of one of the pyramidsOther important structures at Palenque include:

The Palace, actually a complex of several connected and adjacent buildings and courtyards built up over several generations on a wide artificial terrace. The Palace houses many fine sculptures and bas-relief carvings in addition to the distinctive four-story tower. The Temple of the Cross, Temple of the Sun, and Temple of the Foliated Cross. This is a set of graceful temples atop step pyramids, each with an elaborately carved relief in the inner chamber.

They commemorate the succession of King Chan Bahlum II to the throne after the death of Pacal the Great, and show the late king passing on his greatness to his successor. These temples were named by early explorers; the cross-like images in two of the reliefs actually depict the tree of creation at the center of the world in Maya mythology. The Aqueduct constructed with great stone blocks with a three-meter-high vault to make the Otulum River flow underneath the floor of Palenque's main plaza.

The Temple of The Lion at a distance of some 200 meters south of the main group of temples; its name came from the elaborate bas-relief carving of a king seated on a throne in the form of a jaguar.

Temple of the Count another elegant Classic Palenque temple, which got its name from the fact that early explorer Jean Frederic Waldeck lived in the building for some time, and Waldeck claimed to be a Count. The site also has a number of other temples, tombs, and elite residences, some a good distance from the center of the site, a court for playing the Mesoamerican Ballgame, and an interesting stone bridge over the Otulum River some distance below the Aquaduct.

Rulers

A list of known Maya rulers of the city, with dates of their reigns:

K'inich K'an B'alam II ("Chan Bahlam II")K'uk B'alam I 11 March, 431 - 435

"Casper" (nickname; ancient name not translated; also known as "11 Rabbit") 10 August, 435 - 487

B'utz Aj Sak Chiik 29 July, 487 - 501

Ahkal Mo' Naab I 5 June, 501 - 1 December, 524

vacant ?

K'an Joy Chitam I 25 February, 529 - 8 February, 565

Ahkal Mo' Naab II 4 May, 565 - 23 July, 570

vacant ?

K'an B'alam I 8 April, 572 - 3 February, 583

Yohl Iknal (female ruler) 583-604

Aj Ne' Ohl Mat 605-612

Pacal I 612

Sac-Kuk (female) 612-615 d. 640

K'inich Janaab' Pakal ("Pacal II"; "Pacal the Great") 615-683

K'inich K'an B'alam II ("Chan Bahlam II") 683-702

K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II 702-711 d. 722?

Xoc (regent for Kan-Joy Chitam II) 711?-c. 722

K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab III ("Chaacal III") 3 January, 722 - after 729

K'inich Janaab' Pakal ("Pacal III") fl. c. 742

K'inich K'uk B'alam II 8 March, 765 - ?

Wak Kimi Janhb' Pakal ("Pacal IV") 17 November, 799-?

The abandonment of Palenque

During the 8th century, B'aakal came under increasing stress, in concert with most other Classic Mayan city-states, and there was no new elite construction in the ceremonial center sometime after 800. An agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations, then the site was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the forest. The district was very sparcely populated when the Spanish first arrived in the 1520s.

Modern examinations of Palenque

Palenque is perhaps the most studied and written about of Maya sites.

After de la Nada's brief account of the ruins no attention was paid to them until 1773 when one Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar examined Palenque and sent a report to the Capitan General in Antigua Guatemala, a further examination was made in 1784 saying that the ruins were of particular interest, so two years later surveyor and architect Antonio Bernasconi was sent with a small military force under Colonel Antonio del Rio to examine the site in more detail.

Del Rio's forces smashed through several walls to see what could be found, doing a fair amount of damage to the Palace, while Bernasconi made the first map of the site as well as drawing copies of a few of the bas-relief figures and sculptures.

Draughtsman Luciano Castañeda made more drawings in 1807, and the first book on Palenque, Descriptions of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque, was published in London in 1822 based on the reports of those last two expeditions together with engravings based on Bernasconi and Castañedas drawings; two more publications in 1834 contained descriptions and drawings based on the same sources.

Juan Galindo visited Palenque in 1831, and filed a report with the Central American government. He was the first to note that the figures depicted in Palenque's ancient art looked like the local Native Americans; some other early explorers, even years later, attributed the site to such distant peoples as Egyptians, Polynesians, or the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Starting in 1832 Jean Frederic Waldeck spent two years at Palenque making numerous drawings, but most of his work was not published until 1866. Meanwhile the site was visited in 1840 first by Patrick Walker and Herbert Caddy on a mission from the governor of British Honduras, and then by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood who published an illustrated account the following year which was greatly superior to the previous accounts of the ruins.

Désiré Charnay made the first photographs of Palenque in 1858, and returned in 1881 - 1882. Alfred Maudslay encamped at the ruins in 1890 - 1891 and made extensive photographs of all the art and inscriptions he could find, and made paper and plaster molds of many of the inscriptions, setting a high standard for all future investigators to follow.

Several other expeditions visited the ruins before Frans Blom of Tulane University in 1923, who made superior maps of both the main site and various previously neglected outlying ruins and filed a report for the Mexican government on recommendations on work that could be done to preserve the ruins.

A bas-relief relief in the Palenque museum, from one of the recently excavated buildings.From 1949 through 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier supervised excavations and consolidations of the site for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH); it was Ruz Lhuillier who was the first person to gaze upon Pacal The Great's tomb in over a thousand years. Further INAH work was done in lead by Jorge Acosta into the 1970s.

Housing blocks just below the pyramids would have been reserved for the powerful in Maya society.In 1973 the first of the very productive Palenque "Mesa Redonda"s (Round tables) was held here on the inspiration of Merle Green Robertson; thereafter every few years leading Mayanists would meet at Palenque to discuss and examine new findings in the field. Meanwhile Robertson was conducting a detailed examination of all art at Palenque, including recording all the traces of color on the sculpture.

The 1970s also saw a small museum built at the site.

In the last 15 or 20 years, a great deal more of the site has been excavated, but currently, archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered.

Palenque remains much visited, and perhaps evokes more affection in visitors than any other Mesoamerican ruin.

Tikal

Tikal is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization. It is located in the El Petén department of Guatemala at 17°13'19?N, 89°37'22?W.

Tikal in the Classic era

Tikal was one of the major cultural and population centers of the Maya civilization. Monumental architecture was built here as early as the 4th century BC. The city was at its height in the Maya Classic Period, approximately 200 AD to 850 AD, after which no new major monuments were built, some of the palaces of the elite were burned, and the population gradually declined until the site was abandoned by the end of the 10th century. The name "Tikal" means "Place of Voices" or "Place of Tongues" in Maya, which may be an ancient name for the city, although the ancient hieroglyphs usually refer to it as Mutal or Yax Mutal, meaning "Green Bundle", and perhaps metaphorically "First Prophecy".

Scholars estimate that at its peak it had a population from 100,000 to 200,000.

The site

The site presents hundreds of significant ancient buildings, only a fraction of which have been excavated in the decades of archeological work.

The most prominent surviving buildings include six very large step pyramids supporting temples on their tops. They were numbered geographically by early explorers. They were built during the city's height from the late 7th and early 9th century. Temple I was built around 695; Temple III in 810; The largest, Temple-pyramid IV, some 72 meters (230 feet) high, was dedicated in 720. Temple V is from about 750. Temple VI was dedicated in 766.

The ancient city also has the remains of royal palaces, in addition to a number of smaller pyramids, palaces, residences, and inscribed stone monuments. There is even a building which seemed to have been a jail, originally with wooden bars across the windows and doors. There are also several courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.

The residential area of Tikal covers an estimated 60 square km (23 square miles), much of which has not yet been cleared or excavated.

A huge set of earthworks has been discovered ringing Tikal with a 6 meter wide trench behind a rampart. Only some 9km of it has been mapped; it may have enclosed an area of some 125 km square (see below).

Recently, a project exploring the earthworks has shown that the scale of the earthworks is highly variable and that in many places it is inconsequential as a defensive feature. In addition, some parts of the earthwork were integrated into a canal system. The earthwork of Tikal varies significantly in coverage from what was originally proposed and it is much more complex and multifaceted than originally thought.

Ancient history of Tikal

Tikal dominated the central Maya lowlands, but was often at war. Inscriptions tell of many alliances and wars with other Maya states, including with Uaxactun, Caracol, Naranjo, and Calakmul.

Rulers

Known rulers of Tikal include:

King of Tikal from wooden lintel in Temple III

Depicting either "Yax Nuun Ayin II" or "Dark Sun"

Yax Ehb' Xook c. 60 - dynastic founder

Siyaj Chan K'awil Chak Ich'aak ("Stormy Sky I") 2nd century

Yax Ch’aktel Xok c. 200

Balam Ajaw ("Decorated Jaguar") 292

K'inich Ehb' c. 300

Ix Une' B'alam ("Queen Jaguar") 317

"Leyden Plate Ruler" 320

K'inich Muwaan Jol - died 359

Chak Toh Ich’ak I ("Jaguar Paw I") c.360 - 378 - His palace, unusually, was never built over by later rulers, and was kept in repair for centuries as an apparent revered monument. He died on the same day that Siyah K'ak' arrived in Tikal.

Nun Yax Ayin a noble from Teotihuacan, was installed on Tikal's throne in 379 by Siyah K'ak', ruled to 411

Siyah Chan K'awil II ("Stormy Sky II") 411-456

K'an-Ak ("Kan Boar") 458-486

Ma'Kin-na Chan late 5th century

Chak Tok Ich'aak (Bahlum Paw Skull) 486-508 married "Lady Hand"

Ix Yo K'in ("Lady Tikal") 511-527

Kalomte' Balam ("Curl-Head", "19th Lord") c. 511-527

Wak Chan K'awil ("Double-Bird") - 537-562

"Lizard Head II" - lost a battle with Caracol in 562

K'inich Waaw 593-628

K'inich Wayaan - early/mid 7th century

K'inich Muwaan Jol II - early/mid 7th century

Hasaw Chan K’awil ("Double Moon", "Lord Chocolate") 682-734 - entombed in great temple-pyramid I; his queen Lady Twelve Macaw (d. 704) is entombed in temple-pyramid II. Triumphed in war with Calakmul in 711.

Yik’in Chan Kawil; His wife was Shana'Kin Yaxchel Pacal "Green Jay on the Wall" of Lakamha 734-766

"Temple VI Ruler" 766-768

Yax Nuun Ayiin II ("Chitam") 768-790

"Dark Sun" c. 810

"Jewel K'awil" 849

Jasaw Chan K'awiil II 869-889

(English language names are provisional nicknames based on their identifying glyphs where rulers' Maya language names have not yet been definitively deciphered phonetically.)

Two stelae on the North Acropolis

Modern history of Tikal

As is often the case with huge ancient ruins, knowledge of the site was never completely lost in the region. Some second- or third-hand accounts of Tikal appeared in print starting in the 17th century, continuing through the writings of John Lloyd Stephens in the early 19th century. Due to the site's remoteness from modern towns, however, no scientific expedition visited Tikal until 1848. Several other expeditions came to further investigate, map, and photograph Tikal in the 19th and early 20th century.

In 1951 a small airstrip was built at the ruins, which previously could only be reached by several days travel through the jungle on foot or mule. From 1956 through 1970 major archeological excavations were made by the University of Pennsylvania. In 1979 the Guatemalan government began a further archeological project at Tikal, which continues to this day.

The ruins of Tikal (now Guatemala's Tikal National Park) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and can be visited by the public. The closest large towns are Flores and Santa Elena, about 30 km. away.

It was used as background scenery of the Rebel Base in the film Star Wars.

The ruins lay on lowland rainforest. Conspicuous trees at the Tikal park include gigantic ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) the sacred tree of the Maya; tropical cedar (Cedrela odorata), and mahogany (Swietenia). Regarding the fauna, agouti, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, ocellated turkeys, guans, toucans, green parrots and leaf-cutting ants can be seen there regularly. Jaguars and coatis are said to roam in the park.

Uxmal

Uxmal (20°21'34?N, 89°46'17?W) is a large Pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in the state of Yucatán, Mexico. It is 78 km south of Mérida, Yucatán, or 110 km from that city on Highway 261 towards Campeche, Campeche), 15 km south-southeast of the town of Muna.

Uxmal is pronounced "Oosh-mahl". The place name is Pre-Columbian and it is usually assumed to be an archaic Maya language phrase meaning "Built Three Times", although some scholars of the Maya language dispute this derivation.

Adivino from the ground level, a person near the top, holding onto a chain which extends down the (rather steep) steps

Adivino from the South-West, showing newer temple-pyramid around older oneContents

Ancient history

While much work has been done at the popular tourist destination of Uxmal to consolidate and restore buildings, little in the way of serious archeological excavation and research has been done here, therefore the city's dates of occupation are unknown and the estimated population (about 25,000 people) is at present only a very rough guess subject to change upon better data. Most of the architecture visible today was built between about 700 and 1100.

Maya chronicles say that Uxmal was founded about 500 by Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu. For generations Uxmal was ruled over by the Xiu family, was the most powerful site in western Yucatan, and for a while in alliance with Chichen Itza dominated all of the northern Maya area. Sometime after about 1200 no new major construction seems to have been made at Uxmal, possibly related to the fall of Uxmal's ally Chichen Itza and the shift of power in Yucatan to Mayapan. The Xiu moved their capital to Maní, and the population of Uxmal declined.

After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (in which the Xiu allied themselves with the Spanish), early colonial documents suggest that Uxmal was still an inhabited place of some importance into the 1550s, but no Spanish town was built here and Uxmal was soon after largely abandoned.

Description of the site

Even before the restoration work Uxmal was in better condition than many other Maya sites thanks to being unusually well built. Much was built with well cut stones not relying on plaster to hold the building together. The Maya architecture here is considered matched only by that of Palenque in elegance and beauty. The Puuc style of Maya architecture predominates. Thanks to its good state of preservation, it is one of the few Maya cities where the casual visitor can get a good idea of how the entire ceremonial center looked in ancient times.

Some of the more noteworthy buildings include:

the Nunnery Quadrangle at Uxmal

La Gran Pyramide (The Great Pyramid) at UxmalThe Governor's Palace, a long low building atop a huge platform, with the longest façades in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

The Adivino or "Pyramid of the Magician", a fine pyramid temple unusual in several ways. The layers of the step pyramid are oval, rather than the usual rectangular or square shape. It was a common practice in Mesoamerica to build new temple pyramids atop older ones, but here a newer pyramid was built centered slightly to the east of the older pyramid, so that on the west side the temple atop the old pyramid is preserved, with the newer temple above it.

The Nunnery Quadrangle (a nickname given to it by the Spanish; it was a government palace) is the finest of Uxmal's several fine quadrangles of long buildings with elaborately carved façades on both the inside and outside faces

A large Ballcourt for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, which an inscription there informs us was dedicated in 901 by Chan Chak K'ak'nal-Ahau.

A number of others temple-pyramids, quadrangles, and other monuments, some of significant size, and in varying states of preservation, are also at Uxmal.

The majority of hieroglyphic inscriptions were on a series of stone stelae unusually grouped together on a single platform. The stelae depict the ancient rulers of the city, and they show signs that they were deliberately broken and toppled in antiquity; some were re-erected and repaired.

A further suggestion of possible war or battle is found in the remains of a wall which encircled most of the central ceremonial center.

A large raised stone pedestrian causeway links Uxmal with the site of Kabah, some 18 km to the south.

Modern history of the ruins

The site, located not far from Mérida beside a road to Campeche, has attracted many visitors since the time of Mexico's independence. The first detailed account of the ruins was published by Jean Frederic Waldeck in 1838.

John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood made two extended visits to Uxmal in the early 1840s, with architect/draftsman Catherwood reportedly making so many plans and drawings that they could be used to construct a duplicate of the ancient city (unfortunately most of the drawings are lost). Désiré Charnay took a series of photographs of Uxmal in 1860. Some three years later Empress Carlota of Mexico visited Uxmal; in preparation for her visit local authorities had some statues and architectural elements depicting phallic themes removed from the ancient façades.

Sylvanus G. Morley made a map of the site in 1909 which included some previously overlooked buildings. The Mexican' governments first project to consolidate some of the structures from risk of collapse or further decay came in 1927. In 1930 Frans Blom led a Tulane University expedition to the site which included making plaster casts of the façades of the "Nunnery Quadrangle"; using these casts a replica of the Quadrangle was constructed and displayed at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. In 1936 a further Mexican government repair and consolidation program was begun under José Erosa Peniche.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visited on 27 February of 1975 for the inaguration of the site's sound & light show; when the presentation reached the point where the sound system played the Maya prayer to Chaac, a sudden torrential downpour fell upon the gathered dignitaries, despite the fact that it was the middle of the dry season.

Two hotels and a small museum have been built within the remains of the ancient city.

Other important Maya sites

Altun Ha

Becan

Bonampak

Cancuén

Caracol

Chinikiha

Chinkultic

Cival

Comalcalco

Dos Pilas

Dzibilchaltun

Edzná

Ek' Balam

El Mirador

El Perú

Gumarcaj

Iximche

Izamal

Jaina

Joya de Cerén

Kabah

Kaminaljuyu

Labná

La Corona (Believed to be the enigmatic Site Q)

Lamanai

Louisville, Belize

Lubaantun

Mayapan

Mixco Viejo

Naranjo

Nim Li Punit

Piedras Negras

Quirigua

Rio Bec

San Andrés

San Bartolo

Sayil

Seibal

Takalik Abaj

Tazumal

Tonina

Tuluum (Tulum)

Uaxactun

Utatlan

Waka

Xunantunich

Yaxchilan

Yo'okop

Zaculeu