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In addition, a great many examples of Maya texts can be found on stelae and ceramics. The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars, and employed mathematics that included one of the earliest known instances of the explicit zero in human history. As a part of their religion, the Maya practised human sacrifice.
Important rituals such as the dedication of major building projects or the enthronement of a new ruler required a human sacrificial offering. The sacrifice of an enemy king was the most prized offering, and such a sacrifice involved the decapitation of the captive ruler in a ritual reenactment of the decapitation of the Maya maize god by the Maya death gods. [1]
However, a basic premise is that the ancient Maya understood aspects of the human experience and human consciousness that remain poorly understood in modern Western culture. This includes insights into cosmology and eschatology as well as lost knowledge of advanced technology and ecology that, when known, can be used to improve the human ...
Sacrifice was a religious activity in Maya culture, involving the killing of humans or animals, or bloodletting by members of the community, in rituals superintended by priests. Sacrifice has been a feature of almost all pre-modern societies at some stage of their development and for broadly the same reason: to propitiate or fulfill a perceived ...
During the early classical and even up to 600 CE, the iconographic codes seem to be silenced. The Petén and Usumacinta Mayan style dominate in the Chiapas and Guatemala highlands. On the Oaxaca coast the codes become Zapote and Ñuiñe, while in Guerrero and the Guatemala Costa Teotihuacan predominates. [24]
The Maya Vase Book Vol. I: 161–184. Coe, Michael D., and Stephen Houston (2015), The Maya. Thames & Hudson. Danien, Elin C. (2004), Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz. University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia. Foster, George M. (1945), Sierra Popoluca Folklore and Beliefs. Berkeley / Los Angeles ...
The life-cycle of the maize, for instance, lies at the heart of Maya belief, but the role of the principal Maya maize god transcends the sphere of agriculture to embrace basic aspects of civilized life in general (such as writing). Deities have all sorts of social functions, related to such human activities as agriculture, midwifery, trade, and ...
The second is the central focus of their mythology on human blood, which signified life among the Maya. Within their belief system, human blood was partially made up of the blood of the gods, who sacrificed their own divine blood in creating life in humans. Thus, in order to continually maintain the order of their universe, the Maya believed ...