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In William F. Hanks and Don S. Rice, Word and Image in Maya Culture. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1989. Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatán. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington 1992. Karl Taube, 'The Birth Vase: Natal Imagery in Ancient Maya Myth and Ritual', in The Maya Vase Book Vol. 4, New York 1994. Kerr Associates.
During the eighteenth century, speculations about the origins of ancient Maya civilization sought to associate Maya history with Biblical stories of Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. This included speculation about legendary culture heroes such as Votan and Quetzalcoatl. [9] [10]
As the Maya civilization developed, the ruling elite codified the Maya world view into religious cults that justified their right to rule. [339] In the Late Preclassic, [ 343 ] this process culminated in the institution of the divine king, the kʼuhul ajaw, endowed with ultimate political and religious power.
The Aztecs abandoned their rites and merged their own religious beliefs with Catholicism, whereas the relatively autonomous Maya kept their religion as the core of their beliefs and incorporated varying degrees of Catholicism. [6] The Aztec village religion was supervised by friars, mainly Franciscan. Prestige and honor in the village were ...
The Classic Maya used dedication rituals to sanctify their living spaces and family members by associating their physical world with supernatural concepts through religious practice. The existence of such rituals is inferred from the frequent occurrence of so-called 'dedication' or 'votive' cache deposits in an archaeological context.
The writings of 16th-century Bishop Diego de Landa, who had infamously burned a large number of Maya books, contain many details of Maya culture, including their beliefs and religious practices, calendar, aspects of their hieroglyphic writing, and oral history. [115]
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.
Furthermore, archaeological remains uncovered in the upland terrain of Blue Creek, show that the Ancient Maya people used solar observation, water management, and the manipulation of soil fertility to their gain. [9] [2] Knowledge about the sun and its place in the solar system was a vital factor in food production for the Maya people. [2]