11 Maya diet and nutrition, to analyses of art and hieroglyphic texts, for our understanding of Maya ritual, dancing and banquets. In the process of reading these chapters, you will find that Maya civilization is both exotic and human. Their ancient beliefs and practices may in some instances seem strange to us. But their shortcomings are all too familiar, and some aspects of their history such as the widespread environmental destruction that they had wreaked upon much of their landscape by the end of the Classic period has a dark lesson for us today when so much of the Maya area is again under threat, as are tropical forests everywhere. In other words, the adjectives used to describe the ancient Maya have changed. The Maya are no longer so mysterious. Precocious they certainly were, and esoteric perhaps, but above all, they come across from history and from the pages of this book as human, with all the greatness and foibles of civilizations around the world. The authors of this book have done a masterful job in amassing information about Maya civilization from a wide variety of sources and from some reports that are so recent that they have not yet been published. This is no mean task, considering the huge amount of ink that is now expended on the ancient Maya each year and the wide array of professional journals and other publications through which that ink is spread. In a field where new information emerges almost daily, and major discoveries still occur several times each year, the authors are impressively current in the information they provide. Lynn Foster has been responsible for most of the text, but she has been ably assisted by Kaylee Spencer-Ahrens and Linnea H. Wren (Chapters 6 and 9) and Ruth Krochock (Chapter 10). They have collaborated well: this book is an easy-to-read and most upto-date account of ancient Maya civilization. In March 2001, tens of thousands of Maya Zapatistas and their supporters poured into the Zócalo, the main square in Mexico City (and the heart of the former Aztec capital Tenochtitlan). The symbolism of this act is hard to underestimate. The Zapatistas are a popular army of Maya who are fighting in Chiapas, southern Mexico, for indigenous rights. The fact that they successfully completed a 3,000- kilometer journey from their jungle base to the Mexican capital, to be greeted there by thousands of supporters and sympathizers, shows what a potent force the Maya still are in the area of their ancestral homeland. Upon reading this book, then, you will find that the ancient Maya are not nearly so mysterious as they used to be. While there is still much to discover about the Maya, this book shows how much is now known about this remarkable ancient civilization. Peter Mathews H ANDBOOK TO L IFE IN THE A NCIENT M A Y A W ORLD x
12 INTRODUCTION In just the last few decades, great strides quantum leaps, in fact in our knowledge of Maya civilization have been made. As the results from excavations and regional surveys have been reported, the sheer volume of new archaeological evidence has collapsed old theories and forced a reevaluation of virtually every aspect of the ancient Maya world. The sudden and fast-paced decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing has humanized the Maya, providing names for rulers, their spouses, and their children and exposing their political intrigues and wars of conquest. Studies of Maya art have revealed world creation myths and royal bloodletting rituals. These different areas of expertise archaeology; epigraphy, or the decipherment of the hieroglyphs; and iconography have joined together to create a multidisciplinary field that has achieved a level of understanding of the ancient Maya world that was once thought impossible. Greater understanding has also prompted energetic debate about some of the most fundamental aspects of Maya civilization. There is every reason to expect yet new surprises will be forthcoming from ongoing investigations. In the year 2000, one of the longest hieroglyphic texts known from the Classic Maya world was discovered at the site of Piedras Negras in Chiapas, Mexico. The discovery of the palace of a Palenque king in 1999 threw new light on what was considered one of the best-known Maya cities. Paleobotanical studies are just now illuminating the agricultural foundations of Maya civilization. Ceramic paste analyses are permitting archaeologists to pinpoint where a looted vase was made and the point of origin of widely traded wares. Maya studies remains a dynamic field, subject to new discoveries and even revolutionary changes in perspective. This Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World will draw on this basic truth, presenting the contrasts between old and new theories and providing the background for understanding ongoing debates. It is hoped that the reader, understanding the process of discovery and the give-and-take of scientific discussion, will become engaged in the intellectual excitement that pervades the field. A Note on Orthography There are different spellings of Maya placenames used in the literature. The Handbook has I NTRODUCTION xi
The World of the Ancient Maya: 2nd Edition mobi download book
23 olutionize the understanding of pre- Columbian Maya civilization. From the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, scholars believed the Maya writing system was basically undecipherable except for calendrical notations and astronomical observations, which were all that could be understood at the time. In the 1950s, however, linguists, art historians, and epigraphers, or those who study ancient writing systems, started deciphering texts and revealed a world of Maya politics and dynastic history (see Chapter 10). No longer can scholars believe peaceful priestastronomers, concerned only with measuring time and honoring the gods, ruled Maya cities when the decoded texts tell the war stories of all-powerful secular rulers. These pre- Columbian histories, however, are basically limited to the Classic Period ( C.E.), when Maya rulers carved their dynastic boasts into stone monuments that could survive the erosion of time. Some day, perhaps, a technique for reconstructing the decomposed books buried in rulers tombs will open new pages to the past. Oxygen isotope analysis may clarify the nature of climatic changes during the Classic Period collapse. And skeletal remains may prove adequate to provide strontium-90 studies and DNA clues as to dynastic relationships between various states. But even without new technologies, the interdisciplinary study of the Maya past involving art historians, linguists, and epigraphers, as well as archaeologists, has brought about a level of understanding that was not thought possible a few decades ago. Each new excavation and newly deciphered text will only add to this understanding and challenge it, if the past few decades are any guide. Maya archaeology remains an ongoing process. SOURCE MATERIALS Multidisciplined Approaches Technology, epigraphy, and the great increase in the number of excavated sites have enabled archaeologists to reconstruct many aspects of the development of Maya civilization. Although our understanding of two millennia of ancient Maya civilization has reached new levels of complexity, much remains to be learned. The most formative periods still are not well understood, for example, nor is there a scientific consensus on the cause of such a momentous event as the ninth-century collapse of the Petén cities despite the existence of hieroglyphic texts from that period. The exact nature of the relationships between Maya cities and central Mexican ones remains controversial as well. The types of material available for understanding the pre-columbian Maya range greatly, from modern archaeological techniques to the artifacts and books produced by the Maya themselves. Monuments Entire ruined cities built of stone have been recovered. Quite a number have been excavated, and some have been partially restored for tourism, such as Tikal in the Guatemala lowlands of the Petén, Copán in western Honduras, and Chichén Itzá in Yucatán. The architecture and sculpture found at these sites vary with location and time period, but most Maya cities were constructed around massive political and ceremonial centers, with lesser struc- H ANDBOOK TO L IFE IN THE A NCIENT M A Y A W ORLD 8
28 world creation as well as the history of the Quiché and their lineages from the dawn of the world until the middle of the 16th century. Father Francisco Ximénez found the manuscript early in the 18th century and copied it; his transcription of the Quiché manuscript is the only copy now known. Several other books have been preserved from Yucatán, such as the Book of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Maintained over the centuries, many of these books were written in Yucatec Mayan by priestly scribes known as the Chilam Balam. Some of the books tell the history of various Yucatecan peoples, such as the Xiu of Chumayel, from the founding of their territories in the mythic past. The language is often esoteric, and the story is related in the cyclical format of the ancient Maya k atun calendar (see page 257). Difficult to understand, such postconquest Maya books are nonetheless important sources about creation myths and religion (the 18th-century The Ritual of the Bacabs mentions more than 150 deities) and about the history of certain Postclassic sites, such as Chichén Itzá. Combined with archaeological evidence and readings of the hieroglyphs, these works have proven invaluable to the reconstruction of the past. detailed information about Mesoamerican civilization at the time of contact. Father Bernardino de Sahagún s 22-volume study of the Aztecs is a case in point. Although there was no missionary- ethnohistorian of Sahagun s stature in the Maya region, valuable studies were produced. The most important 16th-century chronicle of the Maya was written by Bishop Diego de Landa of Yucatán, whose compilation of a Maya alphabet led to the eventual decipherment of the hieroglyphs. Landa described Maya religious festivals that have been correlated with earlier, more cryptic descriptions, such as those in the Dresden Codex. Spain administered formal questionnaires to the populace that serve as another source of information on native practices and beliefs, as do the many legal documents submitted to Spanish officials by indigenous peoples entangled in land disputes. Recent ethnologies and ethnohistories have enriched our understanding not only of the contemporary Maya but also of the pre-columbian worldview and rituals, and linguistic studies have led to the publication of dictionaries of many Mayan languages that assist in the decipherment of the hieroglyphs. Ethnologies and Ethnohistorical Documents Books and letters written by Spanish conquistadores and 16th-century missionaries and administrators provide eyewitness descriptions of Mesoamerican civilization. Some missionaries devoted themselves to compiling information on this American culture, interviewing Mesoamerican leaders about their books, their origins and history, and their religious beliefs. The resultant chronicles provide the most READING See also Reading for Chapters 2, 9, and 10. Culbert 1998: changing views of Maya civilization; Sabloff 1990: new developments in Maya archaeology; Scarre 1999: technological innovations; Deuel 1974, Maudslay , Stephens 1962 and 1963 reprints: early descriptions of Maya ruins; Willey and Sabloff 1974: history of American archaeology; Love 1994: correlations between the codices and ethnohistories; Zeuner 1970: dating techniques. M AYA C IVILIZATION AND A RCHAEOLOGY 13 2ff7e9595c
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