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The peoples and cultures which comprised the Maya civilization spanned more than 2,500 years of Mesoamerican history, in the Maya Region of southern Mesoamerica, which incorporates the present-day nations of Guatemala and Belize, much of Honduras and El Salvador, and the southeastern states of Mexico from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec eastwards, including the entire Yucatán Peninsula.
Maya households interred their dead underneath the floors, with offerings appropriate to the social status of the family. There the dead could act as protective ancestors. Maya lineages were patrilineal, so the worship of a prominent male ancestor would be emphasised, often with a household shrine.
The social basis of the Classic Maya civilization was an extended political and economic network that reached throughout the Maya area and beyond into the greater Mesoamerican region. [54] The dominant Classic period polities were located in the central lowlands; during this period the southern highlands and northern lowlands can be considered ...
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, [1] Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. [ 2 ] The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 5th century BC.
The Maya Region is traditionally divided into three cultural and geographic, first order subdivisions, namely, the Maya Lowlands, Maya Highlands, and the Maya Pacific. [6] [note 5] The Region's internal borders, like some of its external ones, are not usually precisely fixed, as they are rather demarcated by 'subtle environmental changes or transitions from one zone to another.' [7] [8 ...
Map of the Maya region showing locations of some of the principal cities. Click to enlarge. Until the 1960s, scholarly opinion was that the ruins of Maya centres were not true cities but were rather empty ceremonial centres where the priesthood performed religious rituals for the peasant farmers, who lived dispersed in the middle of the jungle. [11]
This combination of Christian and Maya beliefs left scholars divided over whether the Maya could truly be considered Christians. Though they adhere to the classic forms of Christianity, like prayers, mass, worship of saints, and celebration of events on the Christian calendar, the Maya celebrate much like their ancestors did through dance ...
The Maya area within Mesoamerica. The Maya (/ ˈ m aɪ ə /) are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica.The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region.