1. A BRIEF LOOK AT MAYAN HISTORY

2. Archaic Period (circa 5200-1500B.C.)
Beginning of agriculture and domestication of animals (before: hunter-gatherers)
Corn, beans, squash, and tomatoes
Beginning of pottery around 2400 B.C.
Clay figures of gods and goddesses

3. Pre-classic Period (1500B.C. to A.D. 300)
Agriculture able to support larger civilizations
The Olmec: enigmatic people who settled in lower Gulf Coast
Often regarded as mother culture of later meso-american civilizations
Developed the basic calendar, established pre-dominance of the 52- year cycle (used for the construction of pyramids), established principles of urban layout and architecture; originated the cult of the jaguar and the sacredness of jade
May also have started the ritual of the “ball game”
Also left behind colossal stone heads
Mayan civilization began developing in the late Preclassic period (around 500 B.C.)
Perfected the Olmec calendar and developed ornate system of writing
Other main civilizations of the period: people of Teotihuacan (near Mexico City) and the Zapotec of Monte Alban

4. Classic Period (A.D )
Flourishing of artistic and cultural achievements
Maya: Significant achievements in science, including the use of zero in mathematics and a complex calendar with which the priests could predict eclipses and the movements of the stars for centuries to come
Maya were warlike, raiding neighbors to acquire slaves and land and to take captives for their many blood rituals
Recent studies (e.g. Linda Schele and Mary Allen Miller’s Blood of Kings, 1986) has debunked the long-held theory that the Maya were peaceful people.
Ongoing project of interpreting wall reliefs and murals; basic belief that blood sacrifice was necessary for dynastic survival
Through sacrifice the Maya nourished their gods and ancestors, and honored royal births, deaths, marriages, and accessions in a calendar full of sacred meanings.
Numerous carvings show that members of the ruling class ritualistically mutilated themselves to draw sacrificial blood

5. Post-Classic Period (A.D. 900-1521)
Rise of warrior cultures: Toltecs and Aztecs (further north)
Migration of the Maya from their traditional centers (Guatemala) to the Yucatan
Influence of central and northern Mexican cultures
Building of Chichen-Itza is a melding of Toltec and Maya styles

6. The Conquest
1519: Cortes beginning conquest of the Aztec Empire
1526: Francisco Montejo begins the conquest of the Yucatan Peninsula; 20 year war of resistance; Maya never fully accepted rule of Europeans; civil war in the 1840s (Caste War)

7. Maya writing [drawing from a wall carving]

8. Maya writing
- glottographic system, i.e. the writing represents SPEECH (similar to our language)
[VS. semasiographic system, i.e. the writing represents meaning, or conveying ideas independently from language]
- mixture of logograms representing whole words, phonetic signs, and semantic
qualifiers, together producing a verbal text
- the Maya ruler of Lacanha is pictured seated and holding the ceremonial bar of his office; the surrounding texts tell of his ancestry, give his titles, and relate (with dates) the important events of his life
- Maya writing was well-developed by the 1st century AD