These pages are about the mayan way of life and history of the culture that they lived. My family has a passion about history. If you can't find it at the library then it's probably in my house.

This is an old map of the mayan area. But, we learn from old maps. This map doesn't show all of the area. The Maya World stretched from north central Mexico as far south as Costa Rica.

The Olmec, the Zapotec, the builders of Teotihuacan, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and dozens of other societies developed here. By 1500 B.C., local cultures had crystallized, and chiefs ruled modest realms from burgeoning towns. This period, which scholars call the Preclassic, saw the rise of Maya civilization in the southern highland and in lowlands that stretched northward through the Yucatan Peninsula and along Pacific, Gulf, and Caribbean coasts. In the Classic Period, beginning about A.D. 250, divine kings reigned over powerful city-states, bringing those in the southern lowlands, such as Tikal, Yaxchilan, and Copan, to fruition. The Classic Maya achieved distinction in many intellectual pursuits--including writing and devising a calendar--but southern lowland cities had failed by 900. The following Postclassic Period brought religious and political changes and a power shift to cities like Chichen Itza and Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula. It all ended with the Spanish conquest.

March 1. 1517, somewhere off the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Three small wooden ships under the command of Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba rock gently in the turquoise waters close by a shore unknown to them before that day. Later a future historian Bernal Diaz del Castillo remarked, "As we had never seen such a large town in the island of Cuba nor in Hispaniola," he later recalled, "we named it the Great Cairo."

Historians nor archaeologists have been able to pin point Great Cairo with certainty. Some place Diaz's sighting on Isla Mujeres, just north of the modern resort of Cancun. Wherever it was, Great Cairo provided the outsiders with the first hint of a world vastly different from their own.

Between about A.D. 250 and 900, the span that archaeologists term the Classic period, ancestors of the Maya mastered the demanding environment of a tropical forest and shaped one of the most remarkable civilizations of antiquity. At its height, Maya society included farmers of uncommon talent, a vigorous nobility, and skilled craftsmen. Their great cities, their architecture, and their art challenged the splendor of the ancient capitals of Asia and Africa.

Off to war--one of his royal duties--Shield Jaguar accepts his water-lily jaguar helmet and his shield from his principal wife, Lady Xoc, on a Yaxchilan stone lintel.

Court Life

With a withering glance and a graceful gesture, a Maya King acknowledges his people who are probably lesser lords in this scene of royal Maya court life. The seated lord presents a jaguar-or its skin-to the ruler. The small dots coming from their mouths are their spoken words, shown in glyphs as yet undeciphered. The enthroned ruler wears a cape of feathery design. Fine fabrics form turbans which precious plumes sway. These scenes on painted vases and in murals and in sculpture provide detailed life of the court in the Classic Period.

Kings and royal families lived in luxury of enormous palaces. Some rulers may have lived apart from wives and children in their own apartments.

Pampered Kings filled their days with divine ritual. At appropriate times they performed bloodletting ceremonies and experienced hallucinogenic trances.

Royal families included descendants of previous rulers, and by A. D. 800, as the Classic Period slipped into its decline, this most elite hierarchy had grown enormous.

According to archaeologists, hypothesize that a dynasty about A.D. 600 and the royal couple had 4 children and that rate of reproduction followed through 3 generations, and all 16 grandchildren married first cousins, the pair would have 32 great-grandchildren. Also, given the multiple wives the kings had, the royal family became a very large burden to the lower classes who had to support the royal family.

Masters of Calendar Lore Were the Maya Priests. Their massive pyramid temples dominated the ancient cities; their jaguar skins, jade, and quetzal plumes set them apart from the common people, whose lies they greatly influenced. Priests alone could fathom the Maya calendar, foretell the good or evil portents of each coming day, and determine the propitious time for sacred rites.

Astronomy-The science that studies stars, planets, and other bodies in space and the phenomena that involve them.

In 1987 when we visited Chichen Itza I took this picture just to prove to myself that the mayan knew more about the planets and stars and that I personally had a picture to prove it.

 

 

Spanish conquerors mistook fine Mayan garments for silk. Daily life in the mayan cities was hard for the average person. Women, were depicted on pottery, grinding corn, and weaving on looms.

As you can see even figurine's depicted women weaving on looms, in everyday life.