Geologists have found out why the Mayan civilization died. What led to the destruction of the Mayan civilization a thousand years ago? (9 photos) Mayan occupations and crafts

When the Spanish conquistadors sailed to Central America in 1517, their goal was to destroy the Mayan civilization. But upon arrival, the colonizers discovered that much of their work had already been done before them. The imposing limestone cities - a classic feature of one of the most advanced societies of antiquity - have already been overgrown by jungle.

How the Mayans met their end remains one of history's most enduring mysteries. The Mayan people survived; they even managed to organize long-term resistance to European aggressors. But by the time the Spanish landed, the political and economic power that had built the famous pyramids there and supported a population of two million had already disappeared.

The Mayans laid their first foundations in the first millennium BC, and the civilization reached its peak around 600 AD. e. In the chronology of Mesoamerica, the Mayans are located between the early Olmecs and the late Aztecs. Archaeologists have found thousands of ancient Mayan cities, most of which are scattered throughout the southern Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, Belize and Guatemala.

There are likely more Mayan ruins beneath the thick layer of rainforest.

After about 200 years of serious archaeological research, we have learned enough about the Mayan civilization to admire it. Their distinctive art and architecture showed that they were a people of excellent craftsmen.

The Mayans were also intellectually advanced. They had a good understanding of mathematics and astronomy, and used them to align pyramids and temples in accordance with the precession of the planets and the solar equinoxes. And they used the only known writing system in Mesoamerica, a bizarre-looking set of characters, Mayan hieroglyphs.

The miracles left by the Mayans provided them with a mystical aura. But how civilization perished is real mysticism, in every detail. And it seems we understand why the Mayans came to an end.

Let's start with what we know. Somewhere in 850 AD. BC, after centuries of prosperity and dominance, the Mayans began to abandon their magnificent cities, one by one. In less than 200 years, the greatness of civilization has reached only a fraction of its former glory. Isolated settlements remained, but the Mayan heyday was gone forever.

Beyond the tragic scale of the Mayan decline, despite decades of research, archaeologists still don't know what caused it. As in the case of the Roman Empire, there was clearly more than one culprit for the fall of civilization. But the pace of the Maya's death has led some scientists to conclude that the cause was a major catastrophe, capable of destroying cities one by one in its path.

There are many theories about what brought about the end of the Mayans. Among them are the old and well-known ones - invasion, civil war, loss of trade routes. But since climate records in Central America were collated in the early 1990s, one theory has become particularly popular: the Mayan civilization was doomed by severe climate change.

In the centuries immediately before the collapse of the Maya - the so-called "classic era" from 250 to 800 AD. e. - civilization was buzzing. The cities prospered, the harvest was rich. Climate records (which come primarily from analysis of cave formations) indicate that relatively heavy rainfall occurred throughout the Mayan area during this period. But the same records show that around 820 AD. e. The region was hit by 95 years of intermittent droughts, some of which lasted for many decades.

Since these droughts were first identified, scientists have noticed a striking correlation between their timing and the Mayan collapse. And while correlation alone is not enough to close the question, the close connection between droughts and the fall has led experts to believe that a 9th-century climate shift may have somehow caused the Mayan decline.

However, no matter how attractive the drought explanation may be, it is not enough. Because not all Mayan cities fell along with the drying up of the climate.

The Mayan cities that fell during the droughts of the 9th century were mostly located in the southern part of their territory, in what is now Guatemala and Belize. In the Yucatan Peninsula to the north, however, the Mayan civilization not only survived these droughts, but flourished. This northern resurgence throws a spanner in the works for the drought theory: if the south was paralyzed by climate change, what happened to the north?

Various explanations have been proposed for this north-south discrepancy, but so far no theory has prevailed. However, a recent discovery may shed light on this enduring paradox.

Mayan archaeologists have difficulty extracting data. Virtually no written records of the Maya, of which there were once thousands, survived colonial times (on orders of Catholic priests, the Spaniards burned piles of Mayan books - of which only four are known). Instead, scientists rely on calendar records on stone monuments, stylistic analysis of Mayan pottery, and radiocarbon dating of organic materials to determine when the ancient Maya flourished.

Previous studies have already determined the approximate age of the main urban centers in the northern Maya civilization; it turned out that the north survived the droughts of the 9th century. However, until recently, this data sample had never been collected in a single study. And it is important to do this, because you can look at the northern Maya as a whole and, based on this, determine the general trends of ups and downs.

In a study published in December, archaeologists from the US and UK brought together for the first time all the calculated ages of urban centers in the northern Maya lands. 200 dates were collected from sites throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, half obtained from stone calendar records and half from radiocarbon dating. Then scientists were able to create a broad picture of the times when the northern Mayan cities were active, as well as the times when each of them could have sunk into oblivion.

What scientists have found significantly changes our understanding of when and perhaps why the Mayan civilization came to an end. Contrary to previous belief, the north declined during droughts - in fact, it suffered two of them.

Stone records showed that in the second half of the 9th century there was a 70% decline in the activity of Mayan cities. This rate of decline is echoed in radiocarbon dating across the northern Maya region: wood construction declined during the same period. What is important is that at the same time, drought was destroying the Mayan civilization in the south - and for the north this did not go unnoticed.

Scientists believe that the decline in creative activity indicates the political and social collapse that was taking place in the north. The north certainly fared better than the south in the 9th century, but recent evidence suggests that the region still experienced significant decline. Previously, it was undetectable due to the subtle nature of the event: declines in production, even large ones, are difficult to detect without the comprehensive, region-wide analysis carried out by the new study.

The decline of the north in the 9th century is an interesting detail in Mayan history, but there is nothing fundamental about it - after all, we already knew that the northern Mayans survived the droughts of the 9th century (Chichen Itza and other centers flourished in the 10th century).

Yet scientists have identified a second decline that has changed our understanding of Mayan history. After a brief recovery during the 10th century (which, remarkably, coincided with an increase in rainfall), scientists noticed another sharp decline in production at numerous sites in the northern Maya territory: stone carving and other construction activity fell by almost half from 1000 to 1075 BC. n. e. Moreover, as during the crisis 200 years ago, scientists have discovered that the decline of the 11th century Maya took place against the backdrop of severe drought.

And not just any drought. The droughts of the 9th century were certainly severe. But the 11th century brought the region's worst drought in 2,000 years - a "megadrought".

After a short recovery, there was a decline in production in the north - amid drought. Climate data shows that rainfall decreased for most of the century, from 1020 to 1100, just at the same time as the collapse of the northern Maya. One correlation by itself means little. But two made even skeptics believe in this causality.

The 11th century megadrought had previously been cited as the cause of the fall of the northern Maya, but older dating methods were unable to clearly determine whether the two events overlapped. A detailed analysis published in December allowed us to say with some confidence that climate change was responsible for not one, but two periods of Mayan decline.

The first wave of droughts put an end to the Mayans in the south, and the second, apparently, doomed them in the north.

After the second wave of droughts, the Mayans never recovered. Chichen Itza and most of the important centers in the north never flourished again. There are a few outliers - like the northern city of Mayapan, which flourished in the 13th to 15th centuries - but they do not compare in size or complexity to the Classic Maya cities. In many ways, the 11th century was the last gasp of the Mayans.

Climate change appears to have played a major role in the fall of the Mayans. But why?

Most archaeologists' explanations for the collapse involve agriculture. The Mayans, like all major civilizations, relied heavily on crops for their economic success - and, of course, to maintain their enormous workforce. The simplest explanation for the decline of the Maya would be the annual decline in harvests caused by droughts, which gradually reduced the political influence of the Maya and ultimately led to complete social disintegration.

But even proponents of the drought hypothesis admit that the picture needs to be much more detailed.

"We know that there was increasing military and sociopolitical instability in Maya territory due to the droughts of the 9th century," says Julie Hoggart of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who contributed to the December climate analysis.

Intercity conflict is also a good way to destroy civilization; perhaps the Mayans simply killed each other. Perhaps all this took place against the backdrop of severe droughts. As food supplies dwindled during the dry decades, the struggle for resources became increasingly intense, eventually leading to a tipping point where the ancient Mayan civilization was irreparably fragmented.

There is also at least one explanation that does not require any military action. Perhaps it was not the warriors who doomed the Mayans, but their talents. Because the Mayans were excellent artisans and environmental sculptors.

To grow enough food to feed their millions, the Mayans dug a huge system of canals, sometimes hundreds of kilometers wide, that allowed them to drain and raise the swampy, barren lands that abounded in Mayan territory, turning them into arable land. Some archaeologists called them "floating gardens." The Mayans also cleared huge tracts of forest for both agriculture and their cities.

Some scientists believe that proper management of the environment could have caused the further collapse of the Maya, for example, due to the deterioration of the natural climate. Some scientists believe that deforestation for land clearing and agriculture may have led to localized drought effects that were exacerbated during widespread drought.

An indirect consequence of their agricultural misfortune may be that they have allowed their populations to become too large, with large populations vulnerable to continued declines in food supplies.

Whatever the reason - or reasons - for the fall of the Mayans, we know something about the fate of the people who were left with the consequences of it all. Since 1050 AD e. The Mayans took to the road. They left the interior lands where their ancestors flourished and headed towards the Caribbean coast or other water sources, lakes and rivers.

The Mayan exodus may have been motivated by famine. If crops did die after the droughts of the 9th and 11th centuries, moving to water-rich areas would make sense, as it would provide access to sea food and fertile land near the sea. Whatever the reason, the Mayans wandered towards moisture.

But, again, this has always been the case. One of the responsibilities of the Mayan rulers was to communicate with the gods, who ensured a wet year and good harvests. In sites across the Mayan world, archaeologists have recovered human bones from the bottom of lakes and sinkholes - believed to be doors to the afterlife: eloquent evidence that humans were sacrificed to appease the gods. When the rains were good and civilization flourished, it was clear that the Mayan prayers had been answered.

Many geographical discoveries of Europeans culminated in the colonization of new lands and the brutal suppression or even extermination of local peoples. This was the case with the discovery of the Yucatan Peninsula and the Mayan culture.

In fact, historians are primarily interested in the fate of civilizations. At the same time, very few of them pay attention to the natural causes that led to the degradation and death of this or that civilization. It is usually believed that the main culprits are neighboring states or warlike conquering tribes, as well as newcomers from Europe.

However, it was not so easy to explain the collapse of the Mayan culture by such reasons. It turned out that in this case it is necessary to take into account geographical factors and conduct paleogeographic studies. They, in turn, shed light on the complex set of reasons that affect any society, because it is in indissoluble unity with the natural environment.

But first we need to go back to the 16th century. After the unsuccessful expedition of Francisco Cordoba, a new campaign was organized under the command of Juan Grijalva - on four ships with 240 soldiers. The chief helmsman was Alaminos, and one of the participants was Bernal Diaz. This time they landed first on a coastal island, and then on the mainland - on the northeastern outskirts of Yucatan, west of Cordoba.

After armed clashes with the Indians, Grijalva managed to establish trade with them, receiving food and a small amount of low-grade gold products. Local residents pointed to the west, making it clear that there was a lot of gold there, and repeating the word “Mexico City”. But even without that there was a lot of gold, because the Emperor of Mexico, the Aztec leader Montezuma, ordered not to interfere with the advance of the newcomers and to exchange the yellow metal, which they loved so much, for their goods.

And this time the Spaniards had a chance to see altars covered in human blood, terrible idols. They saw the bodies of victims with severed arms and legs, open chests. Diaz saw one of the bloody rituals: “That day they sacrificed two boys, cut their chests and put their bloody hearts as a gift to their dirty god. They wanted to fumigate us, but we didn’t give in. We were very shocked by the sight of those so cruelly slaughtered boys."

This time the expedition examined the coast of Yucatan for about 1000 km, finally making sure that it was a peninsula. The brought cargo of gold inflamed the passions of the conquistadors, who learned about the existence of a rich country on the continent. This marked the beginning of the discovery, conquest and destruction of the Aztec and Mayan empires. (However, Spain and Portugal, which initially flourished on captured gold, eventually relegated their economies to the second-class level in Europe.)

A question arises that is also relevant for our era: why did the great civilizations of the New World collapse relatively quickly? If the states of the Incas and Aztecs were at the height of power and culture, small detachments of conquistadors would not have been able to conquer them. This is confirmed by the events that accompanied the discovery of Yucatan by Europeans. But in this case, the conquistadors were opposed by the rather savage descendants of the great Mayans, who had once created the most accurate calendar in the ancient world.

They were amazing people. It remains a mystery how they were able to correctly determine the length of the year without optical instruments and centuries-old astronomical observations. The Mayan hieroglyphic writing is so complex that it still causes controversy among experts and cannot be deciphered in all respects. In mathematics, these people were the first to introduce the concept of zero. They own original cultural monuments, colorful paintings, and magnificent architectural structures.

The most fantastic versions have been expressed about the origin of the Mayans. Bartolomeo Las Casas suggested that these were descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel mentioned in the Bible, who, after being defeated by the Assyrian king Sargon II, moved to the New World. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez was sure that the surviving inhabitants of the sunken Atlantis moved to Yucatan. However, the opinion of Diego de Landa was confirmed: the Mayan culture developed and flourished on local soil.

Historians have tried unsuccessfully to unravel the mystery of the death of the Mayan culture. Soil scientists, ecologists and paleogeographers joined them. They found out some interesting facts. It turns out that in Yucatan the upper soil horizons are weakened and depleted of nutrients. The reason for this was established: the long dominance of slash-and-burn agriculture. In periodically - after 10-12 years - burned areas, the soil did not have time to restore fertility and was constantly depleted and degraded. Crop failures, famine, and population extinction began.

The wonderful biogeographer N.I., who visited these parts. Vavilov wrote: “The absence of farm animals forced man to limit the sowing area to small areas, carefully cultivate small areas, develop unique skills in caring for plants... Many varieties of corn, beans, papaya, fruit and cotton have reached great perfection here.”

It later became clear that the Mayans practiced more than just slash-and-burn agriculture. They built agricultural terraces and irrigation structures. As historian V.I. writes Gulyaev: “In two months of work, the Maya farmer of the classical period produced such an amount of food that covered all the needs of his family for the year, as well as taxes and tributes paid by the community to the ruling caste. He spent the remaining time on all kinds of household activities and crafts, hunting and served his labor service in the construction of temples, palaces and other public buildings."

It was at that time that the majestic Mayan pyramids were erected. Like all Cyclopean structures, they testify to the flourishing of civilization, the awareness of the people and rulers of their power.

The priesthood was the intellectual elite of society, the custodian of secret knowledge. According to Diego de Landa, the Mayan high priest “appointed priests in the villages when there was a need, testing them in sciences and ceremonies, and entrusted them with affairs of office, obliging them to be a good example for the people, supplying them with books and sending them to places. And these priests were engaged in serving in the temples and teaching their sciences, as well as writing religious books. They gave their students knowledge about the following things: chronology, festivals and ceremonies, administration of the sacraments, about unfortunate days and cycles, methods of predicting them, prophecies, memorable events, cures for various diseases, ancient monuments, how to read and write their hieroglyphs and drawings."

As calendar experts, the priests indicated the dates of agricultural work. In the tropics, where seasons are almost indistinguishable, such information was vital for rational farming.

Priests and rulers practically took responsibility for everything that happened in the country. Constant references to higher powers and divine instructions during natural disasters - severe droughts, earthquakes or tropical cyclones - turned into social conflicts: it turned out that the gods were dissatisfied with what was happening on earth and were angry with the earthly rulers. Riots broke out. Faith in priests was lost. Perhaps, having acquired power over society, the priesthood itself degenerated, stupidly performing rituals, losing the meaning of knowledge, not caring about checking or clarifying it.

On top of everything, this caste of “keepers of knowledge and sacraments” hid their knowledge and secrets from the rest of the people. And when, during social catastrophes and uprisings, the priests were destroyed or expelled, this eventually turned into economic decline: there was no one to keep the calendar, determine the timing of sowing and other agricultural work. Information, a valuable public asset, was lost. This dealt a blow to the entire economic system.

It is possible that even without this, the priesthood, closing itself off as a privileged caste, lost the very essence of skills and rituals, mindlessly repeating the same thing, observing formal instructions automatically. And as you know, thoughtless repetition of information devalues ​​it.

The great Mayan civilization was unable to maintain the high level of culture achieved. And if a social organism does not develop, if it turns into a kind of inert mechanism, if intellectual activity freezes in it, then it begins to degrade relatively quickly. Moreover, in the Mayan Empire, the isolation of individual castes and regions, city-states grew, the unity of society was lost, and intellectual potential and vital energy decreased. And all this happened against the backdrop of decreasing soil fertility and increasing desertification.

The Mayan civilization is one of the few that went through a full natural development cycle: formation, growth, flourishing, stability, decline and death. The last phase was completed by the conquistadors. Using this instructive example, one can study the features of the interaction of environmental, social, economic and intellectual factors in public life. Now that technical civilization has become global, the example of the Mayans is especially valuable. After all, our global civilization is becoming more and more monotonous - following the American model.

...The discovery of Yucatan and then Mexico by Europeans turned into a tragedy for the local population. The newcomers craved only material values, not paying attention to spiritual values. Many monuments of the spiritual culture of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were destroyed. In fact, it was only in the 20th century that active research into these disappeared civilizations began and, first of all, the environmental factors of their degradation became clear. This was already a discovery in the field of historical geography and social ecology. Such a scientific discovery has, perhaps, not yet been appreciated and remains incomplete. This is a vast field for new research, the results of which can be extremely fruitful and relevant.

Causes of the collapse of the Mayan civilization?

The Mayan civilization began around 2000 BC. e., but since the early 900s AD. e. began to rapidly decline. Causes disappearance of the Mayans still not installed.

The ancient Mayan civilization developed in the territory that now belongs to some states of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras. Archaeologists have discovered about 1000 sites and 3000 Mayan villages.

The cities of the ancient Mayans were well developed, they had many amenities, including water supply system. But since the 9th century AD. e. A sharp decline in urban population began to occur, spreading to central Yucatan. Residents left the cities, water supply systems fell into disrepair, and stone structures were no longer erected.

Abrupt and large-scale decline of the ancient Maya- the subject of heated debate among modern scientists. There are two main hypotheses - ecological and non-ecological. It is possible that the rapidly increasing population has upset the balance of the relationship between man and nature, and there has been a noticeable shortage of soil for agriculture, drinking water, etc.

Followers non-ecological hypothesis suggest that the cause of the decline of the Mayan civilization could be climate change, namely drought. Scientists in 2012 published the results of complex computer modeling. It turned out that the Mayans could have died as a result of even a slight drought. Experiments have confirmed that a shortage of fresh water could begin if precipitation levels decreased by 25% or more. This phenomenon, by the way, was observed between 800 and 950 AD. e., the beginning of the decline of ancient civilization. As a result of decreased rainfall, the soil cleared for fields changed, yields dropped significantly, and this in turn could cause famine. Scientists have found that the greatest drought observed between 1020 and 1100 years.

Other non-ecological hypotheses include epidemics, conquests, climate change, all kinds of disasters. Some archaeologists pay attention to the version of the Mayan conquest, since among the archaeological finds there are objects that belonged to another people of Central America - the Toltecs, who invaded Central Mexico in the 8th century AD. e. However, most scientists do not support this theory.

Environmental changes that led to shortages of drinking water and food could also provoke an escalation of internecine wars, and the Toltecs who invaded at this time could only aggravate the situation. As a result, the decline of civilization may have been the result confluence of several unfavorable factors. By the 16th century, the surviving Mayans had moved closer to the ocean, and their once magnificent cities were swallowed up by the jungle. At the same time, the Mayans did not disappear as a people; today there are about 6 million descendants of the ancient Mayans who continue to maintain the ancient culture of their people.

Clear confirmation has been found of the hypothesis of an environmental catastrophe that led to the disappearance of the Mayan civilization.

Contrary to popular belief about the destruction of the Mayan civilization by the Spanish conquistadors, the empire fell into decline five hundred years before Columbus's voyages. In the middle of the 10th century, the construction of magnificent pyramids and temples stopped, the cities were abandoned by the inhabitants, and by the time the Europeans appeared, the entire “empire” was already small, scattered settlements, constantly fighting among themselves and with nomads.

Two hypotheses have been proposed about the reasons for the disappearance of the great civilization. Firstly, defeat in wars with another Central American people - the Toltecs. The second hypothesis considers an environmental disaster caused by the use of a primitive slash-and-burn farming system. And indeed, according to the Mayan texts, deciphered by the great Russian linguist Yuri Knorozov, every three to four years they had to abandon old crop areas and burn out the jungle for new ones. In addition, huge amounts of wood were required to burn limestone and produce building lime. As a result of deforestation, the structure of the soil changed, droughts began and yields of corn, the Mayan monoculture, sharply decreased.

Recently, strong arguments have emerged in favor of this hypothesis. According to the website membrana.ru, American biologists David Lentz and Brian Hockaday examined 135 samples of wooden structures from 6 temples and 2 palaces of the ancient city of Tikal. It turned out that every year wood of worse quality was used during construction. Eventually, the builders replaced the large, straight sapodilla logs with short, gnarled logwood trunks. It is obvious that the sapodilla (a local evergreen tree) has simply already been cut down.

After the appearance of the conquistadors, previously unknown diseases and persecution of the Inquisition were added to the environmental woes of the Mayans, but the people did not die out completely, and now there are more than 6 million Mayans - they live in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. The jungle has long been restored, many tourists come to see the pyramids, and the Mayans sell them ancient, ancient figurines with the Made in China label torn off.

Mayan writing:

Mayan mythology. Among the Mayans, knowledge and religion were inseparable from one another and constituted a single worldview, which was reflected in their art. Ideas about the diversity of the surrounding world were personified in the images of numerous deities, which can be combined into several main groups corresponding to different spheres of human experience: gods of hunting, gods of fertility, gods of various elements, gods of heavenly bodies, gods of war, gods of death, and so on. At different periods of Mayan history, certain gods may have had different significance for their worshipers.
The Mayans believed that the universe consisted of 13 heavens and 9 underworlds. In the center of the earth there was a tree that passed through all the celestial spheres. On each of the four sides of the earth there was another tree, symbolizing the cardinal points - a red tree corresponded to the east, a yellow tree to the south, a black tree to the west, and a white tree to the north. Each side of the world had several gods (wind, rain and heaven holders) who had a corresponding color. One of the important gods of the Maya of the classical period was the god of corn, represented in the guise of a young man with a high headdress. By the time the Spaniards arrived, Another important deity was Itzamna, represented as an old man with a hooked nose and a goatee. As a rule, images of Mayan deities included a variety of symbolism, indicating the complexity of the thinking of the customers and performers of sculptures, reliefs or drawings. So, the sun god had large crooked fangs, his mouth was outlined by a strip of circles. The eyes and mouth of the other deity are depicted as coiled snakes, etc. Among the female deities, especially significant, judging by the codes, was the “red goddess,” the wife of the rain god; she was painted with a snake on her head and with the paws of some kind of predator instead of legs. Itzamna's wife was the moon goddess Ish-Chel; it was believed to help with childbirth, weaving and medicine. Some Mayan gods were represented in the form of animals or birds: jaguar, eagle. During the Toltec period of Mayan history, the veneration of deities of Central Mexican origin spread among them. One of the most respected gods of this kind was Kukulkan, in whose image elements of the god Quetzalcoatl of the Nahua peoples are clear.
Currently, most scientists accept and recognize the following Mayan mythological deities: the god of rain and lightning - Chaak (Chaak or Chac); the god of death and ruler of the world of the dead - Ah Puch; god of death - Kimi (Cimi); lord of the sky - Itzamna; god of trade - Ek Chuah; goddess of sacrifices and ritual suicides - Ish-Tab (IxTab); goddess of the rainbow and moonlight - Ish-Chel (IxChel); the riding god, the feathered serpent of Quetzal - Kukulkan (Gukumatz); god of corn and forests - Jum Kaash; god of fire and thunder - Huracan; demon of the underworld - Zipacna and others.
An example of Mayan mythology of the pre-Hispanic period is provided by the epic of one of the peoples of Guatemala, the Quiche, “Popol Vuh”, preserved from colonial times. It contains stories of the creation of the world and people, the origin of the twin heroes, their struggle with the underground rulers, etc. The veneration of deities among the Mayans was expressed in complex rituals, part of which were sacrifices (including human ones) and playing ball. Chichen Itza had a ball court, the largest in all of Mexico. It was closed on two sides by walls, and on two more sides by temples. The game of ball was not just a sporting competition. Many archaeological discoveries indicate that it was clearly associated with human sacrifice. On the walls enclosing the site, beheaded people are depicted in relief. There are 3 platforms around the site: the Venus (Quetzalcoatl) platform with the tomb of Chac-Mool, the Eagle and Jaguar platform with the Jaguar Temple, and the Skulls platform. Huge statues of Chak-Mool depict him reclining, with a sacrificial dish on his stomach. On the platform of the Skulls there were stakes on which the severed heads of the victims were strung. Mayan writing. It has long been believed that the Mayans were the inventors of writing and the calendar system. However, after similar but older signs were found in places farther away from the Mayan region, it became apparent that the Mayans had inherited some elements from earlier cultures.
Mayan writing was of the hieroglyphic type. Mayan hieroglyphs were preserved in 4 manuscripts (the so-called Mayan codes, three in Dresden, Madrid, Paris, the fourth codex was partially preserved); they give either images of figures, or are connected in groups of 4 or 6 hieroglyphs above the figured images. Calendar signs and numbers accompany the entire text. Schellgas (in “Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie”, 1886) and Seler (in “Verhandlungen der Berliner Anthropologischen Gesellschaft” and in “Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie”, 1887) did a lot to analyze hieroglyphs.
The latter proved that groups of hieroglyphs are composed of one hieroglyph relating to the action depicted in the picture below them, another - hieroglyphically meaning the corresponding god, and 2 more, communicating the attributes of the god. The hieroglyphs themselves are not compounds of elements representing a known sound or sound combination, but almost exclusively ideograms. Paul Schellgas systematized the images of Mayan deities in three codes: Dresden, Madrid and Paris. Shellgas's list of deities consists of fifteen Mayan gods. He identified most of the hieroglyphs directly related to these deities and denoting their names and epithets.
As a rule, the texts ran parallel to the graphic depiction of the plot. With the help of writing, the Mayans were able to record long texts of various contents. Thanks to the efforts of several generations of researchers, it became possible to read ancient texts. A significant contribution was made by our compatriot, Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov, whose first publications on this topic appeared in the early 1950s. In 1963 he published the monograph “The Writing of the Maya Indians.” It reproduced in facsimile the texts of the surviving Mayan manuscripts (codes), compiled, perhaps, even before the Spanish Conquest, in the 12-15 centuries. and named after the cities in which they are now stored - Dresden, Madrid and Paris. The book also outlined the principles of decipherment, a catalog of hieroglyphs, a dictionary of the language of the Yucatan Maya of the early colonial period, and a grammar of the Mayan language. In 1975, in the book “Hieroglyphic Mayan Manuscripts,” Knorozov proposed reading the manuscripts and their translations into Russian. The texts of the codes turned out to be a kind of manual for priests with a list of rituals, sacrifices and predictions that related to different types of Mayan economy and to all social strata of the population, except for slaves. Brief descriptions of the gods' activities served as instructions on what to do for the corresponding groups of inhabitants. In turn, the priests, guided by descriptions of the actions of the deities, could set the time for rituals, sacrifices, and the implementation of certain works; they could also predict the future.
Mayan calendar To calculate time, the Mayans used a complex calendar system that included several cycles. One of them represented a combination of numbers from 1 to 13 (“week”) and 20 “months”, which had their own names. A solar calendar with a year of 365 days was also in use. It consisted of 18 months of 20 days and five “extra” or “unlucky” days. In addition, the Mayans used the so-called long count, which, in addition to a 20-day month and an 18-month year, took into account a 20-year period (katun); a period of 20 katuns (baktun) and so on. There were other dating methods. All of these methods changed over time, making it much more difficult to correlate the dates recorded by the Mayans with European chronology.

The history of the Mayan civilization is full of mysteries. One of them is the reason for the sudden disappearance of this ancient people, who had reached an amazingly high level of cultural development.

Origin and habitat

The Maya, one of the civilizations of Mesoamerica, began to form around 2000 BC. e. It developed in the Mexican states of Yucatan and Tabasco, the countries of Guatemala and Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The area where these ancient tribes lived is divided into three climatic zones: rocky and arid mountainous territory, tropical jungle and areas with rich fauna.

There are several theories about the origin of the people, as well as where the Mayans disappeared to. There is a version that they came from Asia, and even a fantastic assumption that they are the descendants of the inhabitants of the mythical Atlantis. Another theory claims that they came from Palestine. As evidence, they cite the fact that many elements are similar to Christian ones (the idea of ​​the coming of the Messiah, the symbol of the cross). In addition, the people are very similar to the Egyptian ones, and this suggests that they are somehow connected with Ancient Egypt.

Mayan Indians: the history of a great civilization

Researchers are lucky - many sources have been preserved from which they can draw a picture of the life of this ancient people. Its history is divided into several large periods.

In the pre-classical era, the Indians were small tribes that obtained food by hunting and gathering. Around 1000 BC e. Many small settlements of farmers appear. El Mirador is one of the first Mayan cities, now famous for its huge pyramidal complex 72 meters high. It was the largest metropolis of the pre-classical period.

The next era (400 BC - 250 AD) is characterized by great changes in the life of the Indians. Cities are growing rapidly and monumental architectural complexes are being built.

250-600 n. e. - the time of the classical era of the development of the people of Mesoamerica. During this period, rival city-states emerged. Their architecture was represented by magnificent architectural structures. Typically, buildings were located around a rectangular central square and were decorated with masks of gods and mythological figures carved in stone. The history of the Mayan tribe says that a feature of their settlements was the presence of pyramids up to 15 meters high in the center of the cities.

By the end of the Classic period, the population of the lowlands of Guatemala had reached an impressive 3 million people.

The late classical period is the time of the highest flowering of the culture of the ancient people of Mesoamerica. Then the great cities were founded - Uxmal, Chichen Itza and Coba. The population of each of them ranged from 10 to 25 thousand people. The history of the Mayan tribe cannot but surprise - at the same time, there were no such large settlements in medieval Europe.

Mayan occupations and crafts

The main occupations of the Indians were agriculture (slash-and-burn and irrigation), beekeeping and crafts. They grew maize (the main crop), beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, various types of peppers, tobacco, cotton, sweet potatoes and a variety of seasonings. An important crop was cocoa.

The Mayans were also involved in fruit cultivation. Now it is difficult to say which of the fruit trees were cultivated. Residents used papaya, avocado, ramon, chicosapote, nance, and marañon for food.

Despite their high level of development, the Mayans never stopped collecting. Palm leaves were used as roofing material and raw material for weaving baskets, the collected resin was used as incense, and coroso was used to make flour.

Hunting and fishing were also among the main activities of the Indians.

From archaeological research it is clear that skilled artisans lived in Yucatan and Guatemala: gunsmiths, weavers, jewelers, sculptors and architects.

Architecture

The Mayans are known for their majestic buildings: pyramidal complexes and palaces of rulers. In addition, they created beautiful sculptures and bas-reliefs, the main motifs of which were anthropomorphic deities.

Sacrifices

Among the buildings that have survived to this day, the main part is occupied by buildings of a religious nature. This fact and other sources allow us to conclude that religion occupied a central place in Mayan life. They are known for their bloodletting rituals and human sacrifices offered to the gods. The most cruel of the rituals was burying the victim alive, as well as ripping open the stomach and tearing out the heart from the body of a still living person. Not only prisoners, but also fellow tribesmen were sacrificed.

The mystery of the disappearance of the people

The question of where the Mayans disappeared continues to interest many researchers. It is known that by the 9th century the southern territories of the Indians began to empty out. For some reason, residents began to leave the cities. This process soon spread to central Yucatan. Where did the Mayans go and for what reason did they leave their homes? There is no answer to this question yet. There are hypotheses that try to explain the sudden disappearance of one of the peoples of Mesoamerica. Researchers name the following reasons: enemy invasions, bloody uprisings, epidemics and environmental disaster. Perhaps the Mayans upset the balance between nature and man. The rapidly growing population has completely exhausted natural resources and began to experience serious problems with a lack of fertile soil and drinking water.

The latest hypothesis about the decline of the Mayan civilization suggests that this was due to severe drought, which led to the devastation of the cities.

None of these theories has received serious confirmation, and the question of where the Mayans disappeared is still open.

Modern Maya

The ancient people of Mesoamerica did not disappear without a trace. It was preserved in its descendants - the modern Mayans. They continue to live in the homeland of their famous ancestors - in Guatemala and Mexico, preserving the language, customs and way of life.