Guide to Belize .info |
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The Mystique of the Maya
Belize is blessed with an outstanding archaeological heritage of Maya
temples and palaces. It is known that the Maya occupation began as
early as 1500 B.C., and although it began its decline in 900 A.D. |
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| Altun Ha |
 Altun Hais the name given ruins of an ancient Maya city in Belize, located in the Belize District about 50 kilometer (30 miles) north of Belize City. "Altun Ha" is a
modern name in the Maya language,
coined by translating the name of the nearby village of Rockstone
Pond. The ancient name is at present unknown. The largest of
Altun Ha's temple-pyramids, the "Temple of the
Masonry
Altars", is 16 meter (54 ft) high.
Archeological investigations had shown, that Altun Ha was occupied by 200 BC to 900 AD, when the site may have had a population of about 10,000 people. About 900 there was some looting of elite tombs of the site, which some think is suggestive of a revolt against the site's rulers. After this the population dwindled, with a moderate surge of reoccupation in the 12th century before declining again to a small agricultural village. A drawing of this structure is the logo of Belize's leading brand of beer, "Belikin" and you will find it on every bottle. |
| Caracol |
 Perhaps the most important, Caracol ('the snail' in Spanish), is located in the Cayo District, near the border with Guatemala and within the Belizean part of the Peten rainforest. Caracol was the
center of one of the largest Maya kingdoms and today
contains the extant remains of thousands of structures, covering
some 168 km² (65 sqm) with an estimated peak population of
about 120,000, or possibly as many as 180'000 people. One monument here
records a military victory over the army of Tikal in 562CE, where
Caracol's Lord Water is shown to have captured and sacrificed Tikal's
Double Bird.
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| Cerros |
 The site of Cerros, is in the Corazol District, at the mouth of the New River where it empties into Chetumal Bay in northern Belize. Cerros is notable
as one of the earliest Maya sites, reaching its
apogee during the Late Preclassic on Chetumal Bay, and for the presence
of an E-Group, a unique structural complex found in Maya architecture.
As such, the site had access to and served as an intermediary link
between the coastal trade route that circumnavigated the Yucatán
Peninsulacanal system and utilized raised-field agriculture. Even
today, much of the site remains unexcavated.
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| Lamanai |
 Lamanai, located on the New River in Orange Walk District, is known for being the longest continually-occupied site in Mesoamerica. The initial settlement of Lamanai occurred during the Early Preclassic, and it was continuously occupied up to and through the colonization of the area. During the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, the conquistadores established a Roman Catholic church at Lamanai, but a revolt by the native Maya drove them away. The extant remains of the church are still standing today. |
| Lubaantun |
 Lubaantun is in Belize's Toledo District, about 42 kilometres (26 mi) northwest of Punta Gorda, and approximately 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) from the village of San Pedro Columbia. The city dates from
the Maya Classic era, flourishing
from the 730's to
the 890's AD, and seems to have been completely abandoned soon after.
The architecture is somewhat unusual from typical Classical central
lowlands Maya sites. Lubaantun's structures are mostly built of large
stone blocks laid with no mortar, primarily black slate rather than the
limestone
typical of the region.
The centre of the Lubaantun on a large artificially raised platform between two small rivers. It has often been noted that the situation is well-suited to military defense. The ancient name of the site is currently unknown; "Lubaantun" is a modern Maya name meaning "place of fallen stones". Several structures have distinctive "in-and-out masonry"; each tier is built with a batter, every second course projecting slightly beyond the course below it. Corners of the step-pyramids are usually rounded, and lack stone structures atop the pyramids; presumably some had structures of perishable materials in ancient times. |
| Xunantunich |
 The Xunantunich site is about 80 miles (130 km) west of Belize City, in the Cayo District. Xunantunich is located atop a ridge above the Mopan River, within sight of the Guatemala border. Xunantunich means
"Stone Woman" in the Maya language (Mopan and Yucatec
combination name), and, like many names given to Maya archaeological
sites, is a modern name; the ancient name is currently unknown. The
"Stone Woman" refers to the ghost of a woman claimed by several people
to inhabit the site, beginning in 1892. She is dressed completely in
white, and has fire-red glowing eyes. She generally appears in front of
El Castillo; ascends the stone stairs and disappears into a stone wall.
The
core of Xunantunich occupies about one square mile (2.6 km²),
consisting of a series of six plazas surrounded by more than 26 temples
and palaces. One of its structures, the pyramid known as "El Castillo,"
the second tallest structure in Belize (after the temple at Caracol),
at some 130 feet (40 m) tall. Archeological excavations have revealed a
number of fine stucco facades
on some of the ancient temples of this site. Evidence of construction
suggests the temple was built in three stages in the 600s AD, 700s AD,
and 800s AD. The fine stucco or "frieze" are located on the final stage.
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The Crystal SkullThe most famous crystal skull is the Mitchell-Hedges "skull of doom" allegedly discovered by a 17-year old Anna Mitchell-Hedges in 1924 or 1927 while accompanying her adoptive father on an excavation of the ancient Mayan city of Lubaantun in Belize, where the elder Mitchell-Hedges believed he would find the ruins of Atlantis. |
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| The
Mitchell-Hedges skull is made of clear quartz crystal, and both cranium
and mandible are believed to have come from
the same solid block. It weighs 11.7 pounds and is about five inches
high, five inches wide, and seven inches long. Except for slight
anomalies in the temples and cheekbones, it is a virtually anatomically
correct replica of a human skull. |
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Because of its small
size and other
characteristics, it is thought more closely to resemble a female skull
-- and this has led some to refer to the Mitchell-Hedges skull as a
"she." The Mitchell-Hedges family loaned the skull to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for extensive study in 1970. Art restorer Dr. Frank Dorland oversaw the testing at the Santa Clara, California, computer equipment manufacturer, a leading facility for crystal research. The HP examinations yielded some startling results. Researchers found
that the skull had been carved against
the natural axis of the crystal. Modern crystal sculptors always take
into account the axis, or orientation of the crystal's molecular
symmetry, because if they carve "against the grain," the piece is bound
to shatter -- even with the use of lasers and other high-tech cutting
methods. To compound the
strangeness, HP could find no
microscopic scratches on the crystal which would indicate it had been
carved with metal instruments. Dr. Dorland's best hypothesis for the
skull's construction is that it was roughly hewn out with diamonds, and
then the detail work was meticulously done with a gentle solution of
silicon sand and water. The exhausting job -- assuming it could
possibly be done in this way would have required man-hours adding up to
300 years to complete. The legend, based on
the Mayan “Long Count” calendar,
which runs out on
Dec. 21, 2012, says that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls
that, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth from destruction. |
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MathematicsIn common with the
other Mesoamerican civilizations, the
Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) and base 5 numbering system (see Maya
numerals). Also, the preclassic Maya and their neighbors
independently
developed the concept of zero by 36 BC. Inscriptions show them on
occasion
working with sums up to the hundreds of millions and dates so large it
would
take several lines just to represent it.
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| The Maya had
measured
the length of the solar year to a high degree of accuracy, far more
accurate
than that used in |
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AstronomyUniquely, there is
some evidence to suggest the Maya appear
to be the only pre-telescopic civilization to demonstrate knowledge of
the
Orion Nebula as being fuzzy, i.e. not a stellar pin-point. The
information
which supports this theory comes from a folk tale that deals with the
Orion constellation's
area of the sky.
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| Their
traditional hearths include in their middle a smudge of
glowing fire that corresponds with the Orion Nebula. This is a
significant clue
to support the idea that the Maya detected a diffuse area of the sky
contrary
to the pin points of stars before the telescope was invented. Many
preclassic
sites are oriented with the Pleiades and Eta Draconis, as seen in La
Blanca,
Ujuxte, Monte Alto, and Takalik Abaj. The Maya were very interested in zenial passages, the time when the sun passes directly overhead. The latitude of most of their cities being below the Tropic of Cancer, these zenial passages would occur twice a year equidistant from the solstice. To represent this position of the sun overhead, the Maya had a god named Diving God. |
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ReligionThe
Maya believed in
a cyclical nature of time. The rituals and ceremonies were very closely
associated with celestial/terrestrial cycles which they observed and
inscribed
as separate calendars. The Maya priest had the job of interpreting
these cycles
and giving a prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the
number
relations of all their calendars.
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| The Priest also had to determine if the
"heavens" or celestial matters were appropriate for performing
certain religious ceremonies. The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person's chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. This is depicted on ancient objects such as pictorial texts, known as codices (singular: codex). It is believed that children were often offered as sacrificial victims because they were believed to be pure. The life-cycle of maize lies at
the heart of Maya belief.
This philosophy is demonstrated on the Maya belief in the Maize God as
a
central religious figure. The Maya bodily ideal is also based on the
form of
the young Maize God, which is demonstrated in their artwork. The Maize
God was
also a model of courtly life for the Classical Maya. |
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Writing systemThe Maya writing
system (often call 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.
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| 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. |
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Agriculture
The ancient Maya had diverse and
sophisticated methods of
food production. It was formerly believed that shifting cultivation
(swidden)
agriculture provided most of their food but it is now thought that
permanent
raised fields, terracing, forest gardens, managed fallows, and wild
harvesting
were also crucial to supporting the large populations of the Classic
period in
some areas. |
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Indeed, evidence of these different agricultural systems persist today: raised fields connected by canals can be seen on aerial photographs, contemporary rainforest species composition has significantly higher abundance of species of economic value to ancient Maya, and pollen records in lake sediments suggest that corn, manioc, sunflower seeds, cotton, and other crops have been cultivated in association with the deforestation in Mesoamerica since at least 2500 BC. Contemporary
Maya peoples still practice many of these
traditional forms of agriculture, although they are dynamic systems and
change
with changing population pressures, cultures, economic systems, climate
change,
and the availability of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. |
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MilpaBased on the ancient
agricultural methods of Maya
peoples and other Mesoamerican peoples, milpa agriculture produces
maize, beans, lima beans
and squash. The milpa cycle calls for 2 years of
cultivation and eight years of letting the area lie fallow.
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Agronomists point
out that the system is designed to create relatively large yields of
food crops without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers, and
they point out that it is self-sustaining at current levels of
consumption, but there is a danger that at more "A milpa is a field,
usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen
crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash
and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jícama,
amaranth, and mucana....
Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin;.... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan.... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; avocados, fats. The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, "is one of the most successful human inventions ever created." |
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Guide to Belize brought to you from At Ease in Bellize Ltd.
© 2009 Guide to Belize / Switzerland / Germany / Austria
... Belize is blessed wirh ancient Maya cities in the
Rainforest