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In the ancient Maya cities, all sorts of offertory items including sacrificial implements were also stored and buried in deposits (caches) below architectural features such as floors, stelae, and altars; in these cases, the intention may often have been a dedication to a specific religious purpose, rather than an offering to a divine recipient.
In common with the rest of Mesoamerica, the Maya believed in a supernatural realm inhabited by an array of powerful deities who needed to be placated with ceremonial offerings and ritual practices. [339] At the core of Maya religious practice was the worship of deceased ancestors, who would intercede for their living descendants in dealings ...
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.
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.
Kukulkan was a deity closely associated with the Itza state in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, where the religion formed the core of the Territorial religion. [7] Although the worship of Kukulkan had its origins in earlier Maya traditions, the Itza worship of Kukulkan was heavily influenced by the Quetzalcoatl religion of central Mexico. [7]
One example of early Mayanism is the creation of a group called the Mayan Temple by Harold D. Emerson of Brooklyn, a self-proclaimed Maya priest who edited a serial publication titled The Mayan, Devoted to Spiritual Enlightenment and Scientific Religion between 1933 and 1941. [15]
For these reasons, the researchers believe that the walls were instead a way to help the inhabitants of the region get around, essentially an ancient Mayan “Google Maps,” they said.
A panorama of the Mayapan excavations from the top of the Castle of King Kukulcan. The ethnohistorical sources – such as Diego de Landa's Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, compiled from native sources in the 16th century – recount that the site was founded by Kukulcan (the Mayan name of Quetzalcoatl, the Toltec king, culture hero, and demigod) after the fall of Chichen Itza.